Internet, canais de participação e efeitos políticos: um estudo do Portal da Câmara

Abstract

Internet, participatory tools, and political effects: A study on the Brazilian case. This study examines the political effects that the participatory tools technically provided by the Internet can cause on the institutional decision-making process. Departing from the study of the features and uses of the participatory mechanisms found on the Brazilian House of Representatives website, one considers the limits of the effective influence that citizens are able to exert on the parliament members by using the new media. The research found out that despite the availability of assorted digital mechanisms focused on encouraging participation (e.g. e-mail, web forms, chat rooms, opinion polls, and public forums), users’ inputs are narrowed in this case to activities like debating or suggesting with no big consequences at all. One believes that this is so due to the ways how the traditional political game works, emphasizing a strict representative democracy.