Title: Debate practices in French political party forums

Authors: Nicolas Desquinabo

Addresses: Cemagref, UMR G-Eau, 361 rue Jean-Francois Breton BP 5095, 34196 Montpellier, France

Abstract: During the last French presidential election, political party web forums have become a major place of political debate. In order to evaluate the use of this e-governance technology, we analysed the three main party forums (Socialist, Conservative and Liberal) between November 2006 and April 2007. We analysed the total levels of participation and interactivity and the pragmatic features of a sample of |political debate| threads. Our results point out the influence of institutional instructions on debate forms. The availability of status cues also seems to have specific effects as shown in the |computer-mediated groups| studies.

Keywords: internet; party forums; web forums; political debate; political parties; election campaigns; online deliberation; e-participation; interactivity; France; citizen; institutional design; website design; electronic participation; online participation; e-governance; electronic governance; French presidential election.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEG.2009.030526

International Journal of Electronic Governance, 2009 Vol.2 No.4, pp.344 - 356

Published online: 20 Dec 2009 *

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