ICTs, Public Access to Documents, and Transparency in the European Union

This chapter examines the relationship between Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and transparency in the public sphere. The link between the two is rather easy to conceive: ICTs facilitate flow and management of information, which is crucial to achieve openness and accountability and advance public debate. In this chapter, the issue is examined in the context of the European Union (EU), from the point of view of public access to documents and the role of the European Ombudsman (EO). The author presents the applicable legislative framework and discusses the role of the EO in facilitating and promoting public access to documents, with emphasis on the EO's mandate, the procedure followed, and its possible outcomes. The last part of the chapter examines the decision of the EO on a recent case concerning public access to documents of interest to a wide public, whereby it is illustrated that ICTs, by facilitating access to documents and information, advance openness, transparency, good governance, and accountability.

The Potential for ICT Tools to Promote Public Participation in Fighting Corruption

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been seen as pioneering tools for the promotion of the better delivery of government programmes and services, enabling the empowerment of citizens through greater access to information, delivery of more efficient government management processes, better transparency and accountability, and the mitigation of corruption risks. Based on a literature survey of previous research conducted on ICT systems implemented in various countries, this chapter discusses the potential of different ICT tools that have the capacity to help to promote public participation for the purpose of reducing corruption. The chapter specifically reviews the different ICT tools and platforms and their roles as potential weapons in fighting corruption. This chapter also evaluates different ICT tools, including e-government and public e-procurement. Finally, the authors develop a theoretical research model that depicts the anti-corruption capabilities of ICT tools, which in turn, has implications for academics, policy makers, and politicians.

We-Transparency

“Transparency” is a term that many speculate about. According to scholars, transparency has three inter-related aims: first, to inform citizens in a simple and understandable way on the government's decisions; second, to foster civil society participation and engagement; and, third, to monitor and to prevent corruption. Notwithstanding these shared thoughts, much has to be done in liberal democracies. The European Commission estimates that corruption costs the EU economy roughly 120 billion EUR per year. The lack of transparency is both an economic and political problem, since corruption and opaque policies may develop degenerative forms of governance, which, in turn, lessens citizens' political participation and understanding on how the governmental machine functions. This “participative deficit” is common in many Western democracies. The notion of popular empowerment, the “core of democracy,” has been diluted to the point that most citizens exercise their putative sovereignty only through periodic elections of representatives and thus have extremely limited input into political processes. This deficit is further exacerbated by the fact that elected representatives in fact embody a range of competing “interests”—party, ideological, corporate—which may or may not coincide with those of the voter. This chapter explores a new concept of transparency.

The Use and Design of Supplementary Visuals for the Enhancement of Listening Skills in Hypermedia

This chapter investigates the attitudes and opinions (perceptions) of 43 language learners (LLs) towards the use of supplementary contextual visuals (SCVs) in a HME for enhancing listening skills as a part of Foreign Language Learning (FLL). Forty-three LLs' attitudes towards the use of SCVs are examined in 3 areas: (1) at the pre-listening stage in preparing for listening texts, (2) with talking-heads video at the while-listening stage, and (3) with audio-only at the post-listening stage. The study is both quantitative and qualitative in nature. The results are analysed with SPSS (i.e. descriptive statistics including frequency, percentage, valid percentages, and cumulative percentages; Spearman test in Bivariate; Chi-square Test in the Crosstabs analysis; Fisher's exact Test). The results reveal that the LLs are in favour of the use of SCVs (a) at the pre-listening stage for preparation, (b) with talking-heads video at the while-listening stage, and (c) with audio-only clips at the post-listening stage. The LLs believe that SCVs could benefit them in a variety of ways that could contribute to the enhancement of their listening. There are also some significant relationships between their perceptions and some independent variables.

The Practice of Naming and Shaming through the Publicizing of “Culprit” Lists

A long, seemingly endless list of names of men and women “worthy of shame,” aimed at publicly shaming them, has taken the mass media and public authorities by storm. Such public shaming practices can be traced back to the Byzantine era, when culprits were made to sit backwards on a donkey as a punishment, or the judge placed his hands in cinder and smeared their faces with black film, thus publically pillorying them, based on the conviction that a punishment's most important aspect is social stigma and shame induced by public acts. This chapter examines various examples of “public shaming” lists and the general problematic of non-discrete publicizing of a full list of names.

Privacy and Accountability of Public Figures

Regarding the regular violation of the right of public figures to privacy by the media, through its jurisprudence, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) imposes profound changes on European countries concerning the equilibrium between the fundamental rights of privacy and the freedom of expression in the media. The lack of violation of privacy in various European countries does not elicit unified solutions in case of damage as a result of breach of the right to privacy. Therefore, taking into account the particularities of national courts, it is evident that the court rules more objectively by investigating the facts on a case-by-case basis, within the margin of the principle of proportionality, creating a point of reference for national courts to follow and ensuring the protection of the freedom of expression, as initially established in the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). This chapter explores this.

Privacy and Accountability of Public Figures

Privacy uses the theory of natural rights and generally responds to new information and communication technologies. In North America, Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis wrote that privacy is the “right to be let alone” (Warren & Brandeis, 1890) and focuses on protecting individuals. This citation was a response to recent technological developments, such as photography, and sensationalist journalism, also known as yellow journalism. Warren and Brandeis declared that information which was previously hidden and private could now be “shouted from the rooftops.” But whether the right to privacy may be limited in the case of public figures and whether public figures are accountable for their actions is up for debate. This issue is explored in this chapter through court decisions that occupied the public.

E-Participation

E-participation is a major part of e-government initiatives; it is a window through which governments interact with their citizens and allow for a healthier democratic environment. In addition, e-participation is one of the main elements in the free democratic world that is receiving growing interest by governments, through implementing Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to involve citizens. This chapter sheds light on different aspects of e-participation; it views a three dimensional picture of e-participation theories and concepts, presents a number of real life examples for successful e-participation initiatives, and ends with an example of how to measure an e-participation initiative and evaluate its success.

Digital Participation

This chapter focuses on the initiative named “Dialogue with Citizens” that the Italian Government introduced in 2012. The Dialogue was an entirely Web-based experiment of participatory democracy aimed at, first, informing citizens through documents and in-depth analysis and, second, designed for answering their questions and requests. During the year-and-half life of the initiative, roughly 90,000 people wrote. Additionally, almost 200,000 participated in a number of public online consultations that the government launched in concomitance with the adoption of crucial decisions (i.e. the spending review national program). From the analysis of this experiment of participatory democracy three questions can be raised: (1) How can a public institution maximize the profits of participation and minimize its costs? (2) How can public administrations manage the (growing) expectations of the citizens once they become accustomed to participation? (3) Is online participatory democracy going to develop further, and why?

Factors Affecting Listening

In this chapter, the author looks at the difficulties that stem from listening materials in terms of affecting listening. To be able to select or create effective listening materials, some of the vital points that need to be known are the difficulties that stem from listening materials. Providing that we know what and how they affect listening, adequate listening materials can then be selected or created. To this purpose, first, the author looks at them in detail to see clearly from what components listening materials might consist. Afterwards, they focus on and diagnose the problematic features, find out what difficulties these elements cause in listening, and show how such problems can be overcome.