The Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government (CeDEM) brings together experts from academia, public authorities, developers and practitioners. The CeDEM proceedings present the essence of academic and practical knowledge on e-democracy and open government. The peer-reviewed academic papers, the reflections, the workshops and the PhD summaries found in these proceedings reveal the newest developments, trends, tools and procedures, and show the many ways that these impact society and democracy.

This book explores the digital transformations of democracy and democratic societies. It examines the various challenges posed by these transformations in the context of political practice and to theoreticians of democracy and political communication. The authors present studies from different countries, related to various effects of digitalization processes. Topics covered include, but are not limited to: Innovation in civil society research, new forms of civic participation, new dimensions of democratization and local governance processes, political changes and public participation, civic and political activities, political campaigning or other phenomenon driven by the implementation of information and communications technology (ICT) into politics. Therefore, the book is a must-read for all scholars and researchers of political science, practitioners, and policy-makers, interested in a better understanding of digital politics, digitalization processes, and democracy in general.

This book examines the central role media and communication play in the activities of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) around the globe, how NGOs communicate with key publics, engage stakeholders, target political actors, enable input from civil society, and create participatory opportunities. An international line-up of authors first discuss communication practices, strategies, and media uses by NGOs, providing insights into the specifics of NGO programs for social change goals and reveal particular sets of tactics NGOs commonly employ. The book then presents a set of case studies of NGO organizing from all over the world—ranging from Sudan via Brazil to China – to illustrate the particular contexts that make NGO advocacy necessary, while also highlighting successful initiatives to illuminate the important spaces NGOs occupy in civil society. This comprehensive and wide-ranging exploration of global NGO communication will be of great interest to scholars across communication studies, media studies, public relations, organizational studies, political science, and development studies, while offering accessible pieces for practitioners and organizers.

The changes brought about by digital technology and the consequent explosion of information known as Big Data have brought opportunities and challenges in all areas of society, and the law is no exception. This book, Knowledge of the Law in the Big Data Age contains a selection of the papers presented at the conference ‘Law via the Internet 2018’, held in Florence, Italy, on 11-12 October 2018. This annual conference of the ‘Free Access to Law Movement’ (http://www.fatlm.org) hosted more than 60 international speakers from universities, government and research bodies as well as EU institutions. Topics covered range from free access to law and Big Data and data analytics in the legal domain, to policy issues concerning access, publishing and the dissemination of legal information, tools to support democratic participation and opportunities for digital democracy. The book is divided into 3 sections: Part I provides an introductory background, covering aspects such as the evolution of legal science and models for representing the law; Part II addresses the present and future of access to law and to various legal information sources; and Part III covers updates in projects, initiatives, and concrete achievements in the field. The book provides an overview of the practical implementation of legal information systems and the tools to manage this special kind of information, as well as some of the critical issues which must be faced, and will be of interest to all those working at the intersection of law and technology.

The European Conference on e-Government has been running now for 18 years. This event has been held in Italy, Ireland, Belgium, UK, Slovenia, to mention a few of the countries who have hosted it. This year we are refocusing the conference to look more broadly at the area of Digital Government. The conference is generally attended by participants from more than 40 countries and attracts an interesting combination of academic scholars, public sector workers and individuals who are engaged in various aspects of Digital Government research and application.

Like every other walk of modern life, the law has embraced digital technology, and is increasingly reliant on information systems for its efficient functioning. This book presents papers from the 30th International Conference on Legal Knowledge and Information Systems (JURIX 2017), held in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, in December 2017. In the three decades since they began, the JURIX conferences have been held under the auspices of the Dutch Foundation for Legal Knowledge Based Systems, and have become a fully European conference series which addresses familiar topics and extends known techniques, as well as exploring newer topics such as question answering and the use of data mining and machine learning. Of the 42 submissions received for this edition, 12 have been selected for publication as full papers and 13 as short papers, with an acceptance rate of around 59%. The papers address a wide range of topics in artificial intelligence and law, such as argumentation, norms, evidence, belief revision, citations, case-based reasoning and ontologies. Diverse techniques such as information retrieval and extraction, machine learning, semantic web, and network analysis were applied, among others, and textual sources include legal cases, bar examinations, and legislative/regulatory documents. The book will be of interest to all those working in the legal system who wish to keep abreast of the latest developments in information systems.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 13th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference on Electronic Participation, ePart 2021, held in Granada, Spain, in September 2021, in conjunction with IFIP WG 8.5 Electronic Government (EGOV 2021), the Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government Conference (CeDEM 2021). The 16 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 37 submissions. The papers are clustered under the following topical sections: digital participation, digital society, digital government and legal issues.

In Going Viral, Nahon and Hemsley uncover the factors that make things go viral online. They analyze the characteristics of networks that shape virality, including the crucial role of gatekeepers who control the flow of information and connect networks to one another. They also explore the role of human attention, showing how phenomena like word of mouth, bandwagon effects, homophily and interest networks help to explain the patterns of individual behavior that make viral events.