Can text mining help handle the data deluge in public policy analysis?

by Aude Bicquelet 27/10/2013

There has been a major shift in the policies of governments concerning participatory governance—that is, engaged, collaborative, and community-focused public policy.

by Aude Bicquelet 27/10/2013

Policy makers today must contend with two inescapable phenomena. On the one hand, there has been a major shift in the policies of governments concerning participatory governance—that is, engaged, collaborative, and community-focused public policy. At the same time, a significant proportion of government activities have now moved online, bringing about “a change to the whole information environment within which government operates” (Margetts 2009, 6). Indeed, the Internet has become the main medium of interaction between government and citizens, and numerous websites offer opportunities for online democratic participation. The Hansard Society, for instance, regularly runs e-consultations on behalf of UK parliamentary select committees. For examples, e-consultations have been run on the Climate Change Bill (2007), the Human Tissue and Embryo Bill (2007), and on domestic violence and forced marriage (2008). Councils and boroughs also regularly invite citizens to take part in online consultations on issues affecting their area. The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, for example, recently asked its residents for thier views on Sex Entertainment Venues and Sex Establishment Licensing policy. However, citizen participation poses certain challenges for the design and analysis of public policy. In particular, governments and organisations must demonstrate that all opinions expressed through participatory exercises have been duly considered and carefully weighted before decisions are reached. One method for partly automating the interpretation of large quantities of online content typically produced by public consultations is text mining. Software products currently available range from those primarily used in qualitative research (integrating functions like tagging, indexing, and classification), to those integrating more quantitative and statistical tools, such as word frequency and cluster analysis (more information on text mining tools can be found at the National Centre for Text Mining). While these methods have certainly attracted criticism and skepticism in terms of the interpretability of the output, they offer four important advantages for the analyst: namely categorisation, data reduction, visualisation, and speed. 1. Categorisation. When analysing the results…

Politics & Government

The complicated relationship between Chinese Internet users and their government

by David Herold 01/08/2013

Chinese citizens are being encouraged by the government to engage and complain online. Is the Internet just a space to blow off steam, or is it really capable of ‘changing’ Chinese society, as many have assumed?

by David Herold 01/08/2013

David: For our research, we surveyed postgraduate students from all over China who had come to Shanghai to study. We asked them five questions to which they provided mostly rather lengthy answers. Despite them being young university students and being very active online, their answers managed to surprise us. Notably, the young Chinese who took part in our research felt very ambiguous about the Internet and its supposed benefits for individual people in China. They appreciated the greater freedom the Internet offered when compared to offline China, but were very wary of others abusing this freedom to their detriment. Ed: In your paper you note that the opinions of many young people closely mirrored those of the government’s statements about the Internet—in what way? David: In 2010 the government published a White Paper on the Internet in China in which they argued that the main uses of the Internet were for obtaining information, and for communicating with others. In contrast to Euro-American discourses around the Internet as a ‘force for democracy,’ the students’ answers to our questions agreed with the evaluation of the government and did not see the Internet as a place to begin organising politically. The main reason for this—in my opinion—is that young Chinese are not used to discussing ‘politics’, and are mostly focused on pursuing the ‘Chinese dream’: good job, large flat or house, nice car, suitable spouse; usually in that order. Ed: The Chinese Internet has usually been discussed in the West as a ‘force for democracy’—leading to the inevitable relinquishing of control by the Chinese Communist Party. Is this viewpoint hopelessly naive? David: Not naive as such, but both deterministic and limited, as it assumes that the introduction of technology can only have one ‘built-in’ outcome, thus ignoring human agency, and as it pretends that the Chinese Communist Party does not use technology at all. Given the intense involvement of Party and government offices,…

Collective Action, Democracy, Politics & Government, Publications

Last 2010 issue of Policy and Internet just published (2,4)

by David Sutcliffe 20/12/2010

We are pleased to present seven articles, all of which focus on a substantive public policy issue arising from widespread use of the Internet.

by David Sutcliffe 20/12/2010

The last 2010 issue of Policy and Internet has just been published! We are pleased to present seven articles, all of which focus on a substantive public policy issue arising from widespread use of the Internet: online political advocacy and petitioning, nationalism and borders online, unintended consequences of the introduction of file-sharing legislation, and the implications of Internet voting and voting advice applications for democracy and political participation. Links to the articles are included below. Happy reading! Helen Margetts: Editorial David Karpf: Online Political Mobilisation from the Advocacy Group’s Perspective: Looking Beyond Clicktivism Elisabeth A. Jones and Joseph W. Janes: Anonymity in a World of Digital Books: Google Books, Privacy, and the Freedom to Read Stefan Larsson and Måns Svensson: Compliance or Obscurity? Online Anonymity as a Consequence of Fighting Unauthorised File-sharing Irina Shklovski and David M. Struthers: Of States and Borders on the Internet: The Role of Domain Name Extensions in Expressions of Nationalism Online in Kazakhstan Andreas Jungherr and Pascal Jürgens: The Political Click: Political Participation through E-Petitions in Germany Jan Fivaz and Giorgio Nadig: Impact of Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) on Voter Turnout and Their Potential Use for Civic Education Anne-Marie Oostveen: Outsourcing Democracy: Losing Control of e-Voting in the Netherlands