International Journal of E-politics 

About: International Journal of E-politics is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Politics & The Internet. Over the lifetime, 154 publications have been published receiving 1864 citations.

Networked: The New Social Operating System

Abstract: Reviewed by Jonathan Bishop, Centre for Research into Online Communities and E-Learning Systems, European Parliament, Brussels, BelgiumNetworked: The New Social Operating SystemLee Raine and Barry Wellman©2012 by The MIT Press358 pp.$29.95ISBN 978-026-2017-19-0This book by Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman aims to show how the large, loosely knit social circles of networked individuals expand oppor-tunities for learning, problem solving, decision making, and personal interaction. It does this quite successfully, through providing a strong introduction to the authors’ research specialism of networked individualism. The purpose of the book appears to be to consolidate over 30 years’ of research on networked individualism into one volume, which makes it easier for people getting to grips with online social networking to understand this important yet abstract area. Even so, one might still ask whether it is worth buying a whole book dedicated to a concept with a very narrow research base beyond that of the authors. This review might provide the answer.The book is made up of 11 chapters split into three sections. Organisationally it is very well assembled. Each section has a chapter linking it to the next, which although helpful, raises the question whether this should have been an inbuilt feature. The authors discuss in the introduction whether they should have named the book ‘Networked Individualism’, saying that this would confuse readers who might not know what it means. But to anyone who has followed the authors’ extensive works on the subject previously, it would probably have made more sense to have done so, if only to differentiate it from the more technological books on the market implied in the title. The book follows an interesting and well docu-mented biographical account of the lives of online community moderators, Peter and Trudy Johnson-Lenz, who first appeared in Wellman’s work in the 1990s (Wellman & Gulia, 1999). This provides consistency in terms of making the examples given easy to relate to, yet one can’t help but feel that it is not in keeping with the era of “YOU” conceptualised by Time Magazine. With the very nature of networked individualism being about the joining of differ-ent people across different frontiers, first spoken about by David Kemp in his three-decades long study of electoral behaviour and social mobility in Australia (Kemp, 1978), most would have

Smart Grid

Abstract: With no less than half a billion people in the world without electricity supply, and electricity being the back bone for technological development, it makes sense that electricity is the center of discussion. While innovation and technology have radically transformed other industrial sectors, the electric system, has continued to operate the same way for decades. The real challenge today is not to meet the minimum functionality but to be prepared for future demands. These demands make it necessary for the transformation from regular grid to a Smart Grid. In this paper, the Smart Grid was evaluated for its impacts on the environment, industry, and the global population. Additionally, the role of ICTs in solving the hurdles of Smart Grid has been examined.

Media and Participation: A Site of Ideological – Democratic Struggle

Abstract: Interestingly, media and participation a site of ideological democratic struggle that you really wait for now is coming. It's significant to wait for the representative and beneficial books to read. Every book that is provided in better way and utterance will be expected by many peoples. Even you are a good reader or not, feeling to read this book will always appear when you find it. But, when you feel hard to find it as yours, what to do? Borrow to your friends and don't know when to give back it to her or him.

Food Porn and the Invitation to Gaze: Ephemeral Consumption and the Digital Spectacle

Abstract: In the digital world, notions of intimacy, communion and sharing are increasingly enacted through new media technologies and social practices which emerge around them. These technologies with the ability to upload, download and disseminate content to select audiences or to a wider public provide opportunities for the creation of new forms of rituals which authenticate and diarise everyday experiences. Consumption cultures in many ways celebrate the notion of the exhibit and the spectacle inviting gaze through everyday objects and rituals. Food as a vital part of culture, identity, belonging, and meaning making celebrates both the everyday and the invitation to renew connections through food as a universal subject of appeal. Food imagery as a form of transacted materiality online offers familiarity, comfort, co-presence but above all a common elemental literacy where food transcends cultural barriers, offering a universal pull towards a commodity which is ephemeral yet preserved through the click economy. Food is symbolic of human solidarity, sociality and sharing and equally of difference creating a spectacle and platform for conversations, conventions, connections, and vicarious consumption. Food images symbolise connection at a distance through everyday material culture and practices.

Designing an Online Civic Engagement Platform: Balancing More vs. Better Participation in Complex Public Policymaking

Abstract: A new form of online citizen participation in government decisionmaking has arisen in the United States (U.S.) under the Obama Administration. "Civic Participation 2.0" attempts to use Web 2.0 information and communication technologies to enable wider civic participation in government policymaking, based on three pillars of open government: transparency, participation, and collaboration. Thus far, the Administration has modeled Civic Participation 2.0 almost exclusively on a universalist/populist Web 2.0 philosophy of participation. In this model, content is created by users, who are enabled to shape the discussion and assess the value of contributions with little information or guidance from government decisionmakers. The authors suggest that this model often produces "participation" unsatisfactory to both government and citizens. The authors propose instead a model of Civic Participation 2.0 rooted in the theory and practice of democratic deliberation. In this model, the goal of civic participation is to reveal the conclusions people reach when they are informed about the issues and have the opportunity and motivation seriously to discuss them. Accordingly, the task of civic participation design is to provide the factual and policy information and the kinds of participation mechanisms that support and encourage this sort of participatory output. Based on the authors' experience with Regulation Room, an experimental online platform for broadening effective civic participation in rulemaking (the process federal agencies use to make new regulations), the authors offer specific suggestions for how designers can strike the balance between ease of engagement and quality of engagement-and so bring new voices into public policymaking processes through participatory outputs that government decisionmakers will value.