Abstract

The Internet is seen by some as a means to foster public participation through interactivity and bring forth an e-democracy. Many past studies evaluated the implementation of interactive features on government websites; however, this study focuses on the implementation of such features on political parties’ websites, specifically in the United States and Sweden. There has been a rise of a few political parties in Sweden dedicated to the ideal of direct democracy. These so called “net parties” developed around the use of the internet for public deliberation and voting. The websites were evaluated on their implementation of 25 different features with varying levels of interactivity based upon the direction of communication and the level of receiver control. The results show that, while the net parties are small, they tended to implement the most interactive features out of any other group (major and minor parties, United States and Sweden parties). Additionally, Sweden’s political parties (not including the net parties) implemented more of the features on average than those of the United States.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Internet voting--Sweden; Internet voting--United States; Political parties--Sweden--Electronic information resources; Political parties--United States--Electronic information resources

Publication Date

5-1-2015

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Science, Technology and Public Policy (MS)

Department, Program, or Center

Public Policy (CLA)

Advisor

Franz Foltz

Advisor/Committee Member

Rudy Pugliese

Advisor/Committee Member

Ryan Garcia

Comments

Physical copy available from RIT's Wallace Library at JF1032 .W46 2015

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

Plan Codes

STPP-MS

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