Having spent the last couple of weeks finalising a bid for Call 3 of the Policy Support Programme I find that I have fallen behind with the conversation streams that I find informative. What the Internet provides for me is a channel to the conversations about eParticipation from all around the world, not just here in the UK or the EU but as far afield as America and Australia.. What has struck me most recently is the way in which the conversations are diverging along a number of pathways, which is healthy in some respects, because divergence also brings diversity and diversity in debate is what brings learning. 

Most notably I can identify what I would describe as the "Apps" pathway where people talk about how Government held raw data can be turned into useful data for individuals and what the implications are for access, ownership and information law. Then there are the Gov 20 pathways where the contributers talk about how Goverments can (should?) talk to the people. There is much talk of marketing techniques and messages. Then there are the hyperlocal people who are talking about how communities can use technology to talk to government and make a difference, if only they could be heard.

I have found time to put together a couple of "Think Pieces" under the Democracy tag, the gist of which is that the divergence of conversation paths is not healthy because people are losing sight of the connectedness of all of these channels. What brought it home to me was a ten minute talk from Evgeny Morozov which not only highlights the potential but also the negative impact of eParticipation. In an interesting way it also points to the EU statement on Media Literacy as being so important for this agenda.