Social networking tools supporting constructive involvement throughout the policy-cycle.

Abstract

This paper describes the context and background of the conference workshop ―Social networking tools supporting constructive involvement throughout the policy-cycle‖. EParticipation initiatives are increasingly applying social networking tools and sites at the interactive core of their participation processes. This paper looks at these objectives in more detail. It begins to identify characteristics of individual projects and types of social networking tools that will need to be explored by practitioners in order to successfully apply social networking tools in their projects. A five stage policy-cycle is used to categorise these projects ’ relationships with democratic policy processes and intended or possible political impacts.