[4] [Editor's Note: One of our editors, Ronda Hauben, was an invited participant in the Citizens' Agenda NGO 2000 Forum. The following is a summary of the session she participated in.] Summary of Seminar E2 Civic Participation, Virtual Democracy and the Net Citizens' Agenda NGO Forum 2000 (3-5 Dec., Tampere, Finland) The Internet provides citizens a channel where it is rather cheap and fast to discuss and have at least some kind of impact on the society. The hard part is that you can talk and write as much as you want but does it mean that anyone listens? Is there real interaction or just monologues on the net? According to the theme seminar Civic Participation, Virtual Democracy and the Net there are quite many people already on the net trying to participate and yet at least as many people making the decisions elsewhere. Most of the time nothing happens between these two groups! The decision makers are eager to refer to the silent majority while making decisions and not to the active participants. Is it then worth sending e-mails and publishing websites? Can one encourage civic participation and create an active net community? Obviously, just providing the tools is not enough. There is need for suitable attractive applications, training and political willingness. Intersectorial co-working has an important meaning, too, since together people are stronger. The same goes with NGOs. Finally, one must state that the Internet is a great tool for building places where citizens can raise their voice and point out important issues. It also offers a new opportunity to mobilize people. However, the big I is still just a tool. It is the user who makes the difference! Since there is still a lot to do and quite a range of issues to talk about, the participants of this theme seminar decided to continue the discussion. If you want to join the group, send an e-mail to Mr. David Smith, wfa@hospitalitywales.demon.co.uk. --- Presentation 1: Net participation: What can the City offer? -- Jari Seppdld 10 years experience of work as a news reporter in local newspapers and national tv news, 12 years Head of Information of the City of Tampere, Finland. He has acted as the chairman for two committees founded by the Association of Finnish Local Authorities, one creating the good practice for municipal information and the other one guidelines for municipal services presented over the Internet. Mr. Seppdld introduced some practical examples how the city of Tampere (www.tampere.fi) has developed civic participation via the Internet. The city has for example a service where citizens can ask anything about the municipality and an official will reply to him or her as soon as possible. The residents have had also an opportunity to participate in financial planning by giving their comments on the budget for the year 2000. In short, Seppdld explained how the Internet enables plan presentation, dialogue and lobbying, combined into the visual and functional opportunities provided by new media. According to him the full utilization of the electronic services is still held back by limited access to the Internet and lack of computer skills both among the residents and city employees in Tampere. Presentation 2: Citizen forums, virtual publicness and practices of local democracy. -- Lasse Peltonen & Seija Ridell Researchers in University of Tampere, Department of Regional Studies and Environmental Policy, Journalism and Mass communication. The case of Tampere-foorumi (Lasse Peltonen) Tampere-foorumi on the net (Seija Ridell) The willingness of political and other powerful (local) actors to participate in open and equal dialogue with citizens and grassroots civic groups is a prerequisite for virtual democracy (at the local level). The refusal of the powerful to interact prevents the utilization of the ICTs for democratic purposes. However, people must try to overcome the obstacles. One way is to build sites like Tampere-foorumi (http://mansefoorumi.uta.fi/). It aims to support citizens possibilities to take initiative and contribute to the local government. It also provides continuity in civic discussions. Presentation 3: Information Technology and the Possibility for the Production of New Democratic Ethos: the Philippine Case -- Myrna J. Alejo Research Associate, Democracy Watch Program Institute for Popular Democracy (a research institute serving social movement groups and non-government organizations in the Philippines and overseas. IPD conducts policy studies and discourse analysis of the factors and issues that promote or retard democracy and development in the Philippines.) Lecturer, Department of Political Science, De La Salle University In the Philippines, the Internet account costs about 50 USD per month, and the computers are expensive as well. The minimum wage is on the average 5 dollars a day. Who has the access to the Internet with this kind of salary? Not too many. Fortunately, there are web cafes where one can connect to the net less than a dollar per hour. That makes it a bit easier. According to Alejo only 1 % of the population in the Philippines uses the Internet. These young urban professionals represent the upper middle class and they are the only ones who can reach out for the new ideas the Internet is full of. The country itself has no funds to allocate and there is also lack of institutional co-operation. What about the NGOs? Alejo says that over 68 % of the NGOs in the Philippines are connected to the net and they use the net for networking and building partnership. However, the net could be in more effective use if the organisations were more skilled. Alejo believes better policies and decisions can be achieved only by having access to the information. Presentation 4: Is the Internet a Laboratory for Democracy? The Vision of the Netizens vs The E-Commerce Agenda -- Ronda Hauben Founding editor and writer for the Amateur Computerist newsletter, co-author of Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet pub-lished by IEEE Computer Society Press Main issue: Why it is important for Netizens to participate in the contest being waged (as for instance: ICANN) over which strata of society will gain the benefit of the Internet and how the Internet provides the means for such participation? The Internet can be helpful in making it possible for citizens to be able to contribute their voices to the important policy decisions governments are making about the future of the Internet. The vision of early computer pioneers is that users participate in determining the future of the developing network. The vision includes a commitment to explore how the Internet can make possible a new form of citizenship and of an online citizenship or netizenship. Hauben described efforts made to challenge the privatization of the Internet and its essential functions, and the lessons from this contest toward determining what the role of government and of the public should be in the decisions about the future of the Internet. Presentation 5: Networking for democracy: the digital future? -- Steven Lenos Specialist on New Media, Public and Politics Institute for Citizenship, Participation and Politics, Organiser of several digital debates. Main issue: How organisations can use the Internet for international networking and how they are able to organise successful digital public debates. With the help of the Internet one can take major steps towards interactive policymaking especially when the decision makers join the discussion. If NGOs want to be effective, they should use almost all means available: send e-mails, publish websites, keep up news mailing lists, make phone calls etc. Face to face contacts are still valuable, too. In short, best results can be achieved by combining different kinds of media in a way that best suits the organisation. Lenos told for example about a net debate which received more publicity with the help of a regional newspaper. The paper published weekly reports about the debate and gave sort of a quality mark to the debate held on net. Presentation 6: Net or Trap - Urban Planning on an Internet-based Neighbourhood Forum -- Aija Staffans Architect, Manager of the Laboratory of Urban Planning and Design, Helsinki University of Technology, Department of Architecture. Also a PhD student in urban planning with a topic concerning interactive precesses and tools between the residents and the municipalities in city planning. Practical experience of housing design and of applying participative methods on different development processes of old housing areas. The main issue was whether a digital neighbourhood forum is able to bring together the municipality and local stakeholders (like inhabitants, citizen organizations, schools, kindergarten, shopkeepers etc.) in order to develop urban environment. The City of Helsinki has a centralised organisation with strong sectorised offices. Recently, the necessity of wider collaboration between citizens and the municipality has come up on several podia. At the same time, the use of the Internet has explosively increased. Each school and library in Helsinki is on the net and a growing number of households are connected to the web. The development of a digital neighbourhood forum, called the Home Street, offers new opportunities to the management of cities in the information age. The Home Street Project has developed the Internet as a participatory channel in urban processes. The URL for the conference is http://www.citizen2000.net/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist Vol 10 No 1 Spring/Summer 2000. The whole issue or a subscription are available for free via email. Send a request to jrh@ais.org or see http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------