Affective Effect: Issue Engagement on a Youth E-Participation Platform

Authors

  • Thomas J. Lampoltshammer Department for E-Governance and Administration, Danube University Krems http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1122-6908
  • Qinfeng Zhu Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong
  • Peter Parycek Department for E-Government and Administration, Danube University Krems

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29379/jedem.v11i1.558

Keywords:

E-participation, emotions, ICT, public administration, policymaking

Abstract

While E-participation promotes citizen participation in democratic decision-making processes, and often takes place through deliberation, citizens are expected to be cool-headed individuals equipped with reason and logic, insulating their actions from the impulse of emotion. However, research in neuroscience and cognitive science has found that emotion plays a vital part in cognitive processing and is instrumental in decision-making. This study thus fills this research gap by examining the effect of emotions in eliciting participation on a youth E-participation platform. Following affective intelligence theory and appraisal theory, the authors specifically examined three types of emotions; namely, anger, anxiety, and sadness. By applying methods in the field of text and statistical analysis, the authors found that anxiety, although the least common type of emotion expressed on the E-participation platform, was associated with an increased level of engagement. On the contrary, anger dominated issue discussion across topics, and sadness prevailed in the discourse on system-level economic issues.

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Author Biography

Thomas J. Lampoltshammer, Department for E-Governance and Administration, Danube University Krems

Dr. Thomas Lampoltshammer works as an Assistant Professor and Deputy Head of the Centre for E-Governance at the Department of E-Governance and Administration at the Danube University Krems/Austria. Prior to his current position, he worked as a Researcher and Lecturer in Applied Informatics at the School of Information Technology and Systems Management at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences Salzburg/Austria. His research interests include - but are not limited to: Geoinformatics, Semantics, Open Data, Data Visualisation, and Software Engineering. His project experience as PI include EU-funded research projects and national grants in the domain of data management, organisational theory, and ICT in public administration. He is co-founder and co-chair of the International Data Science Conference (iDSC) series, as well as member of the ICA Commission on Cognitive Issues in Geographic Information Visualization and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Besides his academic activities within the International Conference for E-Democracy and Open Government (CeDEM), he acts as reviewer for several international conferences as well as for numerous SCI-indexed journals. His current research focus is in the domain of Open Data, the effects of ICT application in a connected society and the effects on a data-driven society.

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Published

16.12.2019

How to Cite

Lampoltshammer, T. J., Zhu, Q., & Parycek, P. (2019). Affective Effect: Issue Engagement on a Youth E-Participation Platform. JeDEM - EJournal of EDemocracy and Open Government, 11(1), 37–58. https://doi.org/10.29379/jedem.v11i1.558

Issue

Section

Research Papers