Two Danish scholars, Klaus Bruhn Jensen & Rasmus Helles, have analyzed a wide sample of websites from NGOs, political parties, private businesses, state agencies, and individuals across several countries, both high-, mid- and low-income.
They report several interesting findings.
1) The participatory potential of websites is more limited than what is often assumed. In effect: ‘so much for participatory culture’.
2) Both political parties and NGOs have relatively high interactive potentials, while state agencies and companies have low, with much more emphasis on presentation. So much for ‘from markets to conversations’… And in other words: the entry-points to participation in anything but person-to-person interaction seems to remain the traditional political organizations and social movements.
The text is available here.
rasmuskleisnielsen.net 