9th EPRI conference - Background information

 Theme: Simplifying the complex – Creating the space for complex, political topics on the web

Finding a Place in tomorrow’s Web-based Media

Motivation for the Conference

Parliaments and parliamentarians increasingly develop and produce formats and content for today’s Web-based information and communication services and media. It is generally assumed – yet not proven – that a strong presence and an active interaction in these web-based media space is essential for maintaining citizen’s participation in parliamentary decision making at a satisfactory level. Parliamentarians need to develop and promote means and tools that provide them with an interface with their constituency which has to be at the same time broad in scope, easy to manage, and filigree in terms of content presentation and discussion. They have to cope with the fast development of technologies and formats (IPTV, Web 2.0, “viral” content, etc.).

There are voices among parliamentarians that see themselves “condemned to success”. Otherwise, they argue, the national parliaments in Europe may experience painful losses in the continuous competition of democratic institutions and opinion leaders for the public interest.

Questions to be discussed:

Web based media are conquering their place in nowadays media market. They successfully compete for the attention of the spectator, consumer and voter. Members of Parliaments and politicians in Europe are offered a variety of tools and services to position themselves in this new media space.  However, still there is a need to learn how to make best use of them. The 9th EPRI conference will therefore concentrate on the following questions:

• How will 21st century citizens perceive complex content through the various web based formats, and how do they use new web services to discuss this content?
• How can elected representatives of democracy use web services and technologies to get closer to their constituency?
• Is there a chance to use the web to counteract the decrease in interest for politics generally?

Target of the Conference

The conference wants to map experiences of parliaments and their members onto the experiences of those who analyse, how 21st century citizens perceive complex content through the various web-based formats, and how they use the web to discuss on this content. The conference will do that by confronting good (and bad) experiences that MPs have made with some of their more ambitious Web projects, with experiences from other projects that transport complex political content (e.g. the Plain English Project), and with the scientific data of those who analyse the impact of complex content presented on the Web (scientists, Nielssen). The target is to give attendees a clearer profile of what impact, reaction and sustainability they can expect when using today’s web formats to bring their messages to their constituency and trigger discussions and citizen participation.