Abstract
Our goal is to analyze the use Portugal’s members of parliament make of information and communication technologies (ICT) in their daily work and their views on the role that these technologies play in a democratic system. We specifically focus on the virtual work aspects of ICT (Web 1.0-2.0) factors affecting elected officials both in terms of their use of new media to facilitate their representation of and communication with citizens and in performing their duties.
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Notes
- 1.
This analysis is based on the results of the study ‘Elections, Leadership and Accountability: Political Representation in Portugal, a longitudinal and comparative perspective’ conducted at CIES-ISCTE by André Freire, José Manuel Leite Viegas, and Ana Belchior in which we were in charge of researching deputies’ use of information and communication technologies. In this project a questionnaire was applied to Portuguese deputies serving in the 12th Legislature (230 deputies), in a personal, direct interview.
- 2.
www.change.gov is still accessible, but as of 21 March 2009 reads: ‘Thank you for visiting Change.gov. The transition has ended and the new administration has begun. Please join President Barack Obama at Whitehouse.gov.’ Access to the original site is still possible as of this date by clicking on the lower-right corner.
- 3.
http://change.gov/page/content/discusshealthcare, accessed 6 December 2008 and 21 March 2009 (but discussion had closed by March).
- 4.
http://www.change.gov/page/m2/3855d400/6851b718/2b861968/5e6bcb78/811534238/VEsH/ around 6 December 2008. Access on 21 March 2009 led to Change.gov with access to the original health care information at http://change.gov/agenda/health_care_ agenda. Additional information is also accessible from Connolly (2008).
- 5.
http://www.recovery.gov, accessed 22 March 2009. See Edgecliffe-Johnson (2009).
- 6.
The information seeking index is constructed with the mean of the responses to the ‘search for specific information on issues or persons’ and ‘search for general information.’ The information communication index combines the mean of the responses to the topics ‘internal communication,’ ‘external communication with others,’ and ‘external communication with constituents.’ We omit ‘political campaigning’ for the reasons discussed previously. Both indices vary between 1 (never use information and communication technologies) and 7 (always use them).
- 7.
Due to the variable characteristics and distribution, we carried out a Kruskal-Wallis test between the variable party and each one of the indices. The results were: ‘search for information index’ – K-S(4) = 4.63, p = 0.327, p > 0.05; ‘communication index’ – K-S(4) = 3.12, p = 0.538, p > 0.05.
- 8.
Due to the variable characteristics and distribution, we carried out a t-test between the variable ‘gender’ and each one of the indices. The results were: ‘search for information index’ – t(120) = −1.27, p = 0.205, p > 0.05 and ‘communication index’ – t(93) = −03.20, p > 0.01.
- 9.
For this analysis the variable age was recoded in three groups: under 35 years, 35–49, and over 50. Due to the variable characteristics and distribution, we conducted a Kruskal-Wallis test between the age recoded and each one of the indices. The results were: ‘search for information index’ – K-S(2) = 5.21, p = 0.074, p > 0.05 (since the p-value is quite close 0.05, the data will be analyzed with some reservations) and ‘communication index’ – K-S(2) = 8.93, p < 0.05.
- 10.
The project ‘Parliamentary elites and information technologies’ under the coordination of Gustavo Cardoso was conducted at ISCTE-Lisbon University Institute, in conjunction with the European Action on Government and Democracy in the Information Age (GaDIA), funded by the European Commission’s ‘European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technological Research’ (COST) Action #A14 – Working Group 1/Cyberdemocracy. The quantitative methodology consisted of a data set from a questionnaire sent to all Portuguese deputies in spring 2001 to which 34.8 percent of the 230 deputies responded.
The project ‘The Portuguese MPs in comparative perspective: Elections, leadership and political representation’ conducted at CIES-ISCTE and coordinated by André Freire and José Manuel Leite Viegas (Freire et al. 2009) was the first study with a deputy’s survey that in 2011 was replicated in the project ‘Elections, Leadership and Accountability: Political Representation in Portugal, a longitudinal and comparative perspective.’
- 11.
It should be noted that the questions on information and communication technologies use from the 2001 survey were replicated in 2008, so comparability is total.
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Cunha, C., Seiceira, F. (2017). Information and Communication Technologies, Citizens, and Parliament in Portugal: The Continued E-Democracy Gap and Lessons from the Obama Experience. In: Meil, P., Kirov, V. (eds) Policy Implications of Virtual Work. Dynamics of Virtual Work. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52057-5_7
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