To study the efficiency of the 'Debating Europe' platform as a transnational communicative space, the project team will compare the degrees of engagement of European citizens and EU policymakers along three dimensions: (a) across seven debate strands (Future, Asia&Europe, Global, Greener, Quality, Security, Smarter, which, so far, embed more than 600 debate topics suggested by European citizens); (b) across countries (the countries with the most active online citizens); (c) over time (2011-2017). The research project will have four objectives: descriptive, explanatory, prospective and prescriptive. The descriptive objective is to provide a map of emergent tendencies towards a networking Europe along the three comparative dimensions (issues, countries and time). Through this objective we will show two important aspects: (a) degrees and forms of development, convergences and divergences of the seven debate strands over time (2011-2017); (b) differences and resemblances in degrees of European citizens' and officials' engagement in debating European issues. The explanatory objective is to identify the types of the discursive engagement of EU policymakers and European citizens as (de)legitimators of Europe through comparative analyses. The content generated by European citizens and EU policymakers will be tackled upon in two ways: (a) by determining the conceptual mapping of the debate strands and topics; (b) by interpreting the cluster formations through discursive approaches (Critical Discourse Analysis and Social Semiotics). Since online communication in European Union is an ongoing and open-ended process, the prospective objective is to assess the further development of a networking Europe through mobilizing and engaging more European citizens and EU policymakers. Through this objective we want: (1) to find out to what extent the debates on EU issues have evolved according to the 'Debating Europe' platform team members' expectations and how they will adapt to the new trends in online; and (2) to determine the impact that the debates on 'Debating Europe' platform has had for the most active online European citizens and to what extent they consider that their debates may influence the European policymakers. The
prescriptive objective will focus on recommendations for further engagement
strategies directed towards European citizens as active legitimators of
relevant EU issues in a transnational communicative space achieved through a
networking Europe.
STAGE 2 (January – December 2016) Estimated results
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