Technopolitics · The Challenge of Digital Media to Democracy in Europe: an engaged approach

The Challenge of Digital Media to Democracy in Europe: an engaged approach

In our digital era, social media have emerged as key influential factors in policymaking. Social media can engage vast numbers of citizens. As a result, it is of great importance to assess the extent to which they can improve democracy in Europe. The EU-funded project Technopolitics - The challenge of Digital Media to Democracy in Europe: an engaged approach, proposes innovative research on the relationship between community engagement, political participation and digital social media in influencing policymaking. Based on the engaged theory and reserach and applying a cross-disciplinary method, the project investigate the influence exercised by digital technologies on citizens and politics and develop a theoretical scheme that include good practices for democratisation to condition policymaking processes. It also transfer new knowledge of international impact to the host institution, the University of Seville, the shareholders of the project and the society. The project has fully achieved its objectives: 1) To investigate the influence of digital media technologies in the citizen and political ecosystem; 2) To develop a theoretical framework including the Good Practices for democratization which can oriented the policy-making processes; 3) To transfer new knowledge of international impact to the host institution and the society; 4) To reinforce my career gaining a stable position in the university after the two-year training through-research project, which is the main goal of my Personal Career Development Plan. The research conducted in the framework of the ‘Technopolitics’ project has focused on specifying the conformation of this new subject of study and epistemic category as a relevant contribution to both social movement theory, in particular, and social and communication sciences, in general. This has been achieved by studying the urban civic cybercultures emerging in the ‘South’ - in both the European Union, with special emphasis on Portugal and Spain, and Latin America, especially Brazil - over the past decade. The action, therefore, offers a toolkit to policymaking, ascertainig the imporance of the civic engagement as a strategic element to be implemented against the background of the current processes in Social Media which are eroding the democratic awarenness in our societies.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union