Democracy & Participation 111

3. Online Participation—Networking the Networked?

In this section, the characteristics and patterns of participation among members of the policy community is presented as a tiered typology of stakeholder participation (see Figure 1). The typology depicts the range of stakeholders in the consultation, and consists of three layers:

institutionalized, emerging, and unorganized stakeholders. Overall, the online consultation provided well-networked, institutionalized stakeholders the opportunity to build capacity by way of offline networking functions. Emerging stakeholders were able to effectively use the online forum as a platform to seek legitimacy and visibility for their policy perspectives within the policy community. For unorganized stakeholders, the online consultation served primarily as a point of entry into the policy community, with few auxiliary advantages.

Figure 1: Tiered Typology of Stakeholder Participation

Overall, the relative function of the online platform varied from stakeholder to stakeholder, according to their status, as well as the strength and nature of their ties within the policy community. The online nature of the consultation played a negligible role in encouraging the participation of institutionalized stakeholders when compared to emerging or unorganized stakeholders. This is primarily because institutionalized stakeholders held strong ties among each other (horizontal) and with policymakers (vertical) prior to the consultation. Thus, for institutionalized stakeholders, most networking and capacity-building activities relating to the consultation occurred offline rather than on. Holding strong ties in the policy community and through participation in offline events—such as roundtables and conferences—institutionalized stakeholders were most capable of engaging in networking and capacity building functions over the span of the consultation period. On the other hand, emerging and unorganized stakeholders with moderate, weak or no ties within the policy community relied most heavily upon the online forum as a networking platform. The details of each tier of stakeholder participation are explored in further detail below.

3.1. Institutionalized Stakeholders—Building Capacity

Institutionalized stakeholders possess strong vertical ties vis-à-vis policy-making bodies, as well as strong horizontal ties with other stakeholders in the policy community connected by collective interests or a shared policy vision. By virtue of their “institutionalized status”—and their

considerable bargaining power in the policy community—institutionalized stakeholders are well resourced and participate regularly in federal consultations. These stakeholders share similar organizational structures and cultures, and have internal processes in place for monitoring relevant policy developments. Furthermore, institutionalized stakeholders can afford the professional preparation of briefs and other documentation demanded by the increasingly bureaucratized policy process, as well as the costs of litigation or appearances before regulatory bodies (Pross, 1986).

Strong ties to likeminded organizations, government departments and policymakers heighten the ability of institutionalized stakeholders to engage with other members of the policy community offline beyond the confines of the consultations’ online forum. Thus, their participation in the consultation was not a function of its online focus per say, but rather an effect of their strategic position within the policy community itself.

Holding strong ties within the policy community, institutionalized stakeholders are typically privy to official information and were informed of the consultation directly by the government, or very soon after its announcement in the spring of 2010. In certain cases, stakeholders were aware that the consultation was up and coming prior to its formal announcement. These circumstances differ considerably when compared to those of unorganized or emerging stakeholders. These groups were not typically privy to sources of first-hand information, and became aware of the consultation in a more indirect manner through professional ties or outlets such as the print media or blogosphere. The active presence and strong ties held by institutionalized stakeholders within the policy community suggests that their participation in the consultation would be expected, regardless if the forum was online or off. This suggests that the online consultation does little to alter the means of participation, but is rather adapted by institutionalized stakeholders to the organizational processes already put in place by their executive. Because time and resources are already earmarked to ensure effective participation and influence within the sphere of policymaking, the consultation provided institutionalized stakeholders value-added offline networking opportunities in the form of conferences or roundtables.

3.2. Emerging Stakeholders—Gaining Visibility and Legitimacy

For emerging stakeholders, the internet reduced barriers to entry and participation in the policy process. These stakeholders are considered to be "emerging" within the policy community partially due to the participatory affordances granted by the online portion of the consultation. Within this tier of stakeholders are two subcategories: fringe organizations and issue networks. Fringe organizations are stakeholders that possess a mandate relevant to the consultation, but might not capture the primary focus of the consultation by way of their activity. Fringe organizations may resemble institutionalized stakeholders in terms of their organizational structure, but differ as they hold policy objectives that are second-order or even unpopular among policymaking bodies at the time. Because the internet reduces the opportunity cost of participating physically, online consultations encourage the participation of fringe organizations. Reducing both logistical and budget constraints, an online consultation becomes accessible to organizations from anywhere in Canada. This expands membership within the policy community, as well as the framework and analytical scope within which public policy is deliberated.

On the other hand, an issue network can be defined as a horizontal collection of loosely bounded individuals affiliated via their advocacy for a collective interest. Members of issue networks are often widely distributed, unlikely to share institutional ties, and are likely dependent on internet as a way to develop ties and form networks. The participation of issue networks in the online consultation was typically characterized by the collaborative drafting, distribution and approval of a position paper via email or listservs. Within an issue network, the development of a position paper typically occurred in a fluid, horizontal manner. This was markedly different from the

E-Democracy & E-Participation 113 heavily-managed, hierarchical participation of institutionalized stakeholders. Support for the policy perspectives held by issue-networks was also found through participation in the online forum.

Thus, the open space of the online consultation empowered new stakeholders to enter the policy community without the need to represent a formal institution. Using the internet, like-minded advocates eliminated the need to maintain formal institutional structures, such as headquarters, boards of directors, and were able to bypass the high overhead costs associated with the maintenance of formal organizational structures. By email, like-minded yet far-flung stakeholders with weak-to-moderate ties able to effectively coordinate and present a unified policy position to the federal government. This brought a new form of visibility and legitimacy to the policy positions held by emerging issue networks. Here, the internet marks a progressive and significant shift in political opportunity structure within the policy community. Less-resourced stakeholders no longer need to maintain resource-intensive bricks-and-mortar structures, which traditionally have served as a barrier to entry.

3.3. Unorganized Stakeholders—Gaining Entry

Unorganized stakeholders can be defined as individual participants in the consultation that do not possess apparent institutional affiliations or strong ties within the policy community. Resembling Pross’s “attentive public”, they are active and interested citizens without the resources to effectively participate in or influence the policy process. For unorganized stakeholders, the openness of the online forum provided a new point of entry into the policy community. Here, the online consultation—and specifically the discussion forum—enabled the attentive public to become active in the policy community without the need to hold institutional ties to an interest group or network.

Anyone with an internet connection and an opinion was free to openly share their opinions with decision-making bodies. Effectively, this has facilitated the emergence of a new tier of unorganized stakeholders within the policy community itself. In several documented cases, the participation of individuals was facilitated by the communicative and hyperlinked ecosystem of Web 2.0, through the use of Google Alerts or RSS feeds from the blogosphere. The case of unorganized stakeholders demonstrates how open online space can encourage individual citizens to become politically active within the policy process without the prerequisite of associational ties within the policy community. Here, the internet played a crucial role in helping overcome structural barriers to public engagement in the policymaking process, and also allowed a greater diversity of individuals to contribute throughout the process. However, it should be noted “public participation”

continues to suffer from an elite-bias, as effective participation was limited to individuals with the required digital literacy and topical knowledge to effectively contribute.

4. Online Deliberation—Forming Ideological Eco-chambers

The discussion forum one the consultation website was divided into five focus policy areas, thus distributing deliberative activity among five separate sub-forums. These forums were designed to facilitate discussion on the following five topics: 1) Innovation using Digital Technologies, 2) Digital Infrastructure, 3) Building the ICT Industry, 4) Canada’s Digital Content, and 5) Building Digital Skills. The second forum received the greatest number of threads, with a total of 46, while the third received the least amount of user activity, with only 15 threads generated. Between all five forums, a total of 137 threads were generated, with 547 unique messages and 271 active participants.

While a grand total of 137 threads were generated within the forum, 58, or 42%, did not develop beyond an initial seed message. This signifies a significant discrepancy in the distribution of user activity among threads. A total of 42% of threads did not generate any discussion at all, while 83%

of threads received only four messages. Thus, in roughly half of all cases, no comments on the initial ideas of a participant were given by other participants and in almost 85% of all threads, no

more than five messages were contained within a single thread. In total, only 17% of threads generated more than five messages in response to the seed message.

These figures suggest that the majority of ideas contributed to the forum received incredibly few replies, and those threads that did receive replies were distributed unequally among the five forums. Here, generally low response rates cast doubt upon the potential of deliberative dialogue flourishing online within a top-down participatory framework. Even within the most active thread of the forum, the discussion was 95% homogenous—comprised primarily of like-mind stakeholders supporting a similar policy position. While only a few threads received a significant level of attention from participants, the threads themselves did not facilitate deliberative dialogue, but rather a string of disjointed responses. A highly disproportionate concentration of activity on the forum is further demonstrated by the fact that 23, or 17% of threads, attracted the majority of dialogue. The skewed concentration of user participation can be seen as a result of the architecture of the discussion forum. Users were given the opportunity to vote for their most favored threads, raising the most popular ideas through the ranks and placing them at the top of the forum. Because these popular threads then dominated the top ranks within each of the five forums, they were consequently the first threads new participants would see upon logging in.

Meanwhile, less popular ideas were pushed to the lower ranks of the forum, requiring participants to scroll through a long list of threads before they became visible.

The position of a thread, either at the bottom or the top of the forum, played a significant role in influencing which ones received the most user activity. The hierarchy imposed on ideas and threads through the voting system patterned user participation within the forum according to a power-law distribution. The more votes a particular thread received within the forum, the more users it attracted, and hence, the more messages it received. Here, a reinforcing feedback loop was created. This cycle increased the likelihood that a “popular” thread would continue to receive votes and generate further discussion, reinforcing certain threads as “top ideas”, while others received negligible attention. Furthermore, a relationship existed between the skewed distribution of stakeholder participation within the forum, and the degree to which homophily dominated the little dialogue that did occur within the forum. While only 58% of threads received any dialogue, 83% of the overall dialogue within the forum occurred between like-minded individuals (see Figure 2). Thus, individuals typically sought to express their affinity for ideologies or policy positions expressed in the seed message of a thread. The greatest degree of homophily was found within the third forum on Digital Content, with a strong support for open access to publicly funded data, while the most diverse dialogue occurred within the second forum on Infrastructure, which is not surprising considering the continued debate on Canada’s telecommunication duopoly.

These trends suggest that within the top-down framework of a policy oriented consultation, participants will most likely be attracted to threads which express a policy position they themselves align with. Given the freedom to choose among several topics of debate, participants appear more likely to engage with other like-minded individuals—thus forming online ideological eco-chambers rather than deliberative spaces. This trend can be explained by two prevailing conditions of the consultation process. First, the open and the unmediated nature of the discussion forum allowed individuals to regulate their behavior online. Such self-regulation allowed stakeholders to choose which conversations they would like to join, and those they would rather avoid.