#InternetPart12 Santucci Intro

Editor's Notes

• #3: Ladies and Gentlemen, I welcome you to the Open lecture “Internet and participation” by professor Lasse Berntzen: a two day teaching focusing on two apparently separate sides of decision-making: social movements and open government. It is a honour for me to host Professor Berntzen, at the University of Torino, And I am sure we all will gain very useful insights On a crucial topic. Before introducing Professor Berntzen and myself, and briefly explaining the reason of this lecture, I’d like to welcome you all for being here: students, researchers, professionals, curious citizens – all interested in the topics we are going to discuss. I also welcome those who might take part in the event online via Twitter.
• #4: Indeed you all are invited to connect on Twitter And share updates and opinions about the initiative. Hashtag of the event is #internetpart12.
• #5: After a brief introduction by myself, And before you very warm questions, It will be Professor Berntzen to take the lead.
• #6: Professor Berntzen is here for a two days of teaching in the framework of a teaching exchange agreement signed by the University of Torino and the Vestfold University College as part of a ERASMUS Staff Mobility. Therefore I thank: The European Commission for funding all teaching assignment mobility initiatives the University of Torino for hosting the event The Vestfod University College for supporting the initiative
• #7: But must of all I thank professor Lasse Berntzen for being here and sharing his knowledge in the field. Lasse Berntzen  is Associate Professor at Vestfold University College in Norway. For the last ten years, his research has focused on the Information Society and ICT in public sector with emphasis on e-government and e-democracy. He has been involved in several research projects on national and international level. His current interests include automatic assessment of e-government services different aspects of e-participation and the use of geographic information systems to improve public decision making and democratic participation. He has worked on regulatory aspects of e-democracy as an expert for the Council of Europe’s Ad-hoc Committee on e-democracy. Since 2008, he has been one of the chairs of the International Conference on the Digital Society (ICDS). He is currently a member of “ International Federation for Information Processing” working group on Information Systems in Public Administration.
• #8: Myself, I am a Ph.D. in Political Science, I am a Professor of Web Communication Semiotics at the University of Torino and I work as a Communications Expert for the Torino Chamber of Commerce. I deal with innovation, communication and participatory processes. Also a journalist, I write for several webzines. I‘ve been cooperating with the Council of Europe ad hoc Committee on e-democracy The European Council and the European Commission new media teams the Advisory Board on the European Citizens' Initiative the Laboratory of e-democracy, University of Padova I serve on the College of public administration of the Interior Ministry.  Every so often I have the privilege to give lectures in other Universities and in international conferences. I contributed to the book "Political campaigning on the web", Transcript Verlag, Bielefeld, 2009. In 2008 I followed the Obama For America Campaign, which I analysed in the paper "M'Obama o non m'Obama" (it).
• #9: A curious aspect of this two days lecture is that it’s subject I what made it possible. The lecture is is about how people and governments can better interact through the internet To achieve concrete results. And the Internet was what made it possible for Lasse and I to get to know each other network and share knowledge. I contacted Lasse in 2006 first, to interview him for my PhD thesis on online petitions. Then we met again in Vienna, on a workshop on e-parliament in the Austrian Parliament. We decided to further cooperated, so Lasse came twice to Italy: Once in Torino, on the occasion of the eGov conference at the Politecnico, where we held a panel together with a German colleague, Ralf Lindner Following, in Rome on the occasion of the Social Media Week, where he accepted my invitation to a bottom-up, not-funded event on online engagement.
• #11: The next two days will start with an overview of both aspects of people and institutions, the two sides that we will explore throught the intervention of Professor Lasse Berntzen. Monday 14/5: Web 2.0 and social movements After mentioning the historical development of social media use, the module will introduce a maturity model. The social movement theory will the be discussed as a framework for discussing social media use in campaigns and social movements. Tuesday 15/5: Web 2.0 and open government After introducing the themes of openness and open government, the module will cover transparency, user centricity, and participation. Technical aspects will then be discussed, such as open source code, open data, and how technology can be used to achieve an open government. Before passing on to Lasses’ presentation Just a few words to know a little more about the context.
• #13: Let me start with an introduction to how spicy we feel the internet world is.
• #14: Let me start with an introduction to Italy’s “diet”.
• #15: Let me start with an introduction to Italy’s “diet”. According to research (Censis), at least once a week Italians feed themselves with Television (97.4); eight out of ten consume a weekly pill of radio. In the last two years the consumption of written press has decreased of 7%, whereas the Internet has grown by 6%. Numbers show that almost half of the Italian population is not concerned by the written press, as it survives only on audiovisual and internet. A new divide is identified: the press divide, instead of the digital. So let’s go straight to internet users.
• #16: Another research (Audiweb) reports 35.8 million of Italians, between 11 and 74 years old, accessed the Internet last year – with a huge increase in mobile devices, that more than doubled. But what is Internet for: mainly for listening to music, but also for booking trips or – in 9.7% of the cases – for carrying out administrative tasks. Social media come out in this context, since 7 out of 10 Italians declare to “know” their existence. Every 10 youngsters, only 1 is not on Facebook. And for every hour we surf the internet, 20 minutes are spent on social networks and blogs.
• #17: This is the mediatic context where Italian public administration operate, facing the new challenges in services provision, information and communication. 30% of about 250 public bodies have a social media official account – a 2011 research shows. As an example, on 20 regions: 11 have a Youtube profile 5 a Twitter account and 4 a Facebook one. Despite interactive opportunities, public administration tend to use these tools mainly to provide information. Here’s the context your audience is merged into, Lasse. So now please let’s go into your case study.
• #18: Let me start with an introduction to Italy’s “diet”.