The Oxford Internet Institute (OII) is one of the world’s first truly multidisciplinary Internet institutes based in a major university. Exclusively devoted to the study of the impact of the Internet on society, the OII aims to put Oxford, the UK and Europe at the centre of debates about how the Internet could and should develop. The Oxford Internet Institute was launched by a major donation from The Shirley Foundation and with public funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England.
The Berkman Center's mission is to explore and understand cyberspace, its development, dynamics, norms, standards, and need or lack thereof for laws and sanctions. We are a research center, premised on the observation that what we seek to learn is not already recorded. Our method is to build out into cyberspace, record data as we go, self-study, and publish. Our mode is entrepreneurial nonprofit.
This site is dedicated to improving knowledge and understanding of e-government and the impact of web-based technologies on government. This site is run jointly by the LSE Public Policy Group (London School of Economics and Political Science), The Oxford Internet Institute (University of Oxford) and the School of Public Policy (University College London), led by Professor Patrick Dunleavy (LSE) and Professor Helen Margetts (Oxford and UCL). Other members of the team include Simon Bastow (LSE and UCL), Hala Yared (Oxford and UCL) andJane Tinkler (LSE and UCL).
The National Center for Digital Government (NCDG), based at the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Center for Public Policy and Administration, works to build global research capacity, to advance practice, and to strengthen the network of researchers and practitioners engaged in building and using technology and government. The goal of NCDG is to apply and extend the social sciences for research at the intersection of governance, institutions and information technologies.
Social Informatics is the critical social scientific study of information and communication technologies (ICTS), in particular the manner in which they mesh with existing social institutions and practices. SIRU is concerned with some of the big over-arching macro-sociological questions that the global spread of ICTs invokes. However, the main focus of its work is grounded in five main areas of substantive inquiry: community informatics, cultural informatics, health informatics, political informatics and spatial informatics.
In addition to carrying out theoretically informed, policy relevant and empirically grounded research SIRU is also the base for a range of other activities. It is the editorial base for the international journal Information, Communication and Society (edited by Brian Loader and Bill Dutton at Oxford Internet Institute) and the administrative base for the co-ordination of the ESRC e-society research programme. SIRU also contains a new state of the art Spatial Informatics Lab (SIL) which allows for the critical exploration of the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Geodemographic Information Systems (GDIS) to sociological and cultural analysis. It also houses an access point to the White Rose Grid in order to facilitate work in e-social science.
In addition SIRU runs a series of research symposia and major national and international conferences . In 2007 SIRU (as part of the wider Department of Sociology at York) will also launch two new MSc courses; one in Social Informatics and one in Management and Social Informatics (jointly with the Department of Management ). Further details will be available soon.
The research project "Changing Protest and Media Cultures. Transnational Corporate Campaigns and Digital Communication" analyses the relation between changing media cultures and protest cultures. The main focus of research lies on computer-mediated political participation in the context of the mobilisation of transnational corporate campaigns. Having gained more and more importance since the nineteen-nineties, these campaigns aim at changing attitudes and behaviour patterns in terms of mobilizing citizens as consumer citizens. Protest action primarily targets single transnational corporations (e.g. Microsoft) resp. branches (e.g. garment industry or producers of sports wear). The development of the internet gives rise to new technologies which allow the mobilization of spatially unbounded protest networks with low costs, high speed – beyond the selection of journalistic gatekeepers, and censoring intervention of state-institutions. Apart from evaluating the effects of internet communication on the structure of protest organisations and the linking-up between the local, national, and transnational actors the project also analyses public arenas, programmes and frames of corporate campaigns as well as new forms of creating collective identity and new modes of aesthetic dramatization of political protest in the net.
The Congress Online Project is a two-year (2001 - 2002) program funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and conducted jointly by the George Washington University and the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) to examine the use of Web sites and other forms of online communications by congressional offices. The goal of the project is to improve electronic communication between Members of Congress and the public.
Founded in 1994, the Institute for Electronic Government is dedicated to helping government leaders understand and unleash the power of information technology to transform government in a digital society.
The Center for Democracy and Technology works to promote democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age. With expertise in law, technology, and policy, CDT seeks practical solutions to enhance free expression and privacy in global communications technologies. CDT is dedicated to building consensus among all parties interested in the future of the Internet and other new communications media.
The Democracy in Cyberspace Initiative of the Information Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School wants to promote democracy by developing best practices technologies and models to strengthen democracy both on-line and off. In particular, we want to catalyze the development of technologies and processes that move beyond the "thin" 'patron-client' model of government where government is a procurer of goods and purveyor of services, to focus on participatory and deliberative forms of strong democratic life. We are interested in realizing technology's potential to improve civic life and help citizens take an active and informed role in their own governance.
The PoliticalWeb.Info candidate web sphere analysis illustrates how candidates for House, Senate and Governor used the Web in the 2002 campaign to facilitate civic engagement, establish connections to other political Web sites through links, and provide various types of information to site visitors. Discover the relationship between candidate characteristics such as competitiveness of race, incumbency, political party and gender and the types of features available on campaign Web sites. Explore the Election 2002 Web Archive using our research-based interface.
Formerly known as the Democracy Online Project, the Institute has been established at the Graduate School of Political Management of The George Washington University. Funded by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts, the mission of the Institute for Politics Democracy and the Internet is to promote the development of U.S. online politics in a manner which upholds democratic values.
We are an independent body that was set up by the UK Parliament in November 2000. We aim to increase public confidence in the democratic process within the United Kingdom - and encourage people to take part - by modernising the electoral process, promoting public awareness of electoral matters, and regulating political parties.
The International Teledemocracy Centre aims to develop and apply advanced information and communication technology to enhance and support the democratic decision-making process. Promoting the application of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) by governments and parliaments worldwide in order that elected members and supporting staff can conduct their business more effectively and efficiently. Demonstrating how technology can contribute to more openness and accessibility in government. Encouraging and assisting the public, voluntary organisations and business to participate in government through the use of technology. ITC is part of the Faculty of Computing and Engineering at Napier University. It was set up in 1999 by Napier University in partnership with BT Scotland.
The Carnegie Endowment launched the project on The Information Revolution and World Politics in January 1999. The project’s purpose is to analyze the political, economic, and social dimensions of the world-wide information revolution and their implications for U.S. policy and global governance.
The Chinese Internet Research Group is designed to spur cooperative and collaborative research on the internet in China, including issues of internet and telecommunications regulation, the social, cultural, and political impact of the internet, the development of the internet in China, etc. We will use this list to disseminate news, stimulate research ideas and discussion, and hopefully make each of us more productive in our own area of research on China's internet. The moderators of this list are Randolph Kluver, Nanyang Technological University, and Jack Linchuan Qiu, Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Government and Democracy in the Information Age (GaDIA) is a research network dedicated to the study of information- and communication technology (ICT) in the "political world". The aim of the network is to increase knowledge about how ICT enters into all or many of the political relationships in different European democracies, and how ICT is used by the different political players – the political parties, voluntary associations, interest groups, parliaments, governments and administrations.
The e-Democracy Programme is exploring the potential for interactive technologies to enhance Parliamentary democracy and create new channels of communication and participation between Parliament and citizens. Our contributions are at the cutting edge, enabling people to try out ideas that might eventually become mainstream. Our action projects have focused on exploiting technology to facilitate broader and deeper public participation in Parliament’s policy and scrutiny work. We continue to produce seminal papers on the future of e-democracy; advise Government on its own policy; and demonstrate through practical projects, the opportunities electronic channels offer for engaging people in the democratic process.
InSITeS is dedicated to the exploration of how society shapes and is shaped by information technology. Founded with the support of Carnegie Mellon's H.J. Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management, InSITeS embodies the Heinz School's vision of interdisciplinary research and teaching that equips leaders for the public good in an information technology-infused world. Because of the particular strengths and intellectual interests shared by Carnegie Mellon faculty and students, and because the following subjects are critical to the public interest, broadly conceived, InSITeS focuses its energies around six core areas, as well as a general category of IT and Society Studies
Emerging information and communication technologies possess enormous potential to improve people's lives. The Markle Foundation works to realize this potential and to accelerate the use of these technologies to address critical public needs. The foundation focuses its work in the program areas of Policy for a Networked Society and Information Technologies for Better Health.
Markle's policy program seeks to advance the policy foundation that will enable the public to benefit fully from information and communication technologies (ICT). We work on ICT policies to improve national security, stimulate development in impoverished nations, and enhance innovation. We also seek to establish ICT policymaking processes that are inclusive and accountable so that the results serve the public interest. Markle's health program seeks to accelerate the use of information and communication technologies by patients and consumers to improve their health and healthcare.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project will create and fund original, academic-quality research that explores the impact of the Internet on children, families, communities, the work place, schools, health care and civic/political life. The Project aims to be an authoritative source for timely information on the Internet's growth and societal impact, through research that is scrupulously impartial. The basic work-product of the center will be phone and online surveys; data-gathering efforts that will often involve classic shoe-leather reporting from government agencies, academics, and other experts; fly-on-the-wall observations of what people do when they are online; and other efforts that try to examine individual and group behavior. The Project intends to release 15-20 pieces of research a year, varying in size, scope, and ambition.
To examine the processes of restructuring media and telecommunications structures from various perspectives;
To provide a framework for understanding the background, mechanisms, and prospects of the processes of media restructuring; and
To help provide a new generation of scholars and policymakers with a sharpened comparative insight into the problems of adjustment of technology to society.
The lab was formed to develop and administer experimental studies of public opinion and political behavior through the use of both on-line and traditional methods. The lab is equipped to use the WWW as an experimental "site" which will attract online users as potential experimental participants. The advantages of on-line experimentation are clear in light of the explosion in the number of households with access to the internet. Moreover, available data suggest that internet users are more representative of the adult population than participants recruited at shopping malls, airports or other public facilities.
The Office of the e-Envoy is part of the Prime Minister's Delivery and Reform team based in the Cabinet Office. The primary focus of the Office of the e-Envoy is to improve the delivery of public services and achieve long term cost savings by joining-up online government services around the needs of customers. The e-Envoy is responsible for ensuring that all government services are available electronically by 2005 with key services achieving high levels of use.
The Office continues to ensure that the country, its citizens and its businesses derive maximum benefit from the knowledge economy. It works to meet the Prime Minister's target for internet access for all who want it by 2005 and supports work across Government to develop the UK as a world leader for electronic business.
The purpose of this section is to provide a forum for members with an interest in the use of computers, the Internet, and multimedia in teaching, research, and policy applications in political science and all related subfields and disciplines.
To provide a forum where researchers and others involved in communication and information research can meet and exchange information and documentation about their work. Its disciplinary focus will be on media, (tele)communications and information research;
To encourage the development of research and systematic study, especially on subjects and areas where such work is not well developed;
To stimulate academic and intellectual interest in media and communications research, and to promote communication and cooperation between members of the Consortium;
To co-ordinate information on communications research in Europe, with a view to establishing a database of ongoing research;
To develop links with relevant national and international communication organizations and with professional communication researchers working for commercial and regulatory institutions, both public and private;
To promote the interests of communication research within and between the member states of the Council of Europe and the European Union; and
To collect and disseminate information concerning the professional position of communication researchers in the European region.
This project ran from October 1, 1993 to October 1, 1997.
The Intelligent Information Infrastructure Project seeks to develop an extremely general system for distributing and retrieving information that will work over major Internet protocols. The early phases involve building automated tools for managing outbound and inbound communications flows for large organizations, whether via email, distributed hypermedia, or other electronic media. After an initial phase of developing servers along these lines, the project will turn to interactive tools for wide-area communication, including a number of approaches to natural language understanding.
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