Infoparticip@: journalism for citizen participation in the democratic control. Criteria, methodologies and tools

Abstract

Overview journalism has dehumanized: has expelled the citizens as protagonists of democracy and public debate. It is needed to renew it in order to retrieve its credibility that also affects the credibility of democracy. With the project Infoparticip@ (www.infoparticipa.com) we intend to collaborate to make it acquire human quality based on fundamental sources such as public administrations. We use the Internet to facilitate citizen participation in plural monitoring and evaluation of the actions of policy makers and public policies. This article explains the diagnosis we started from and the work we have done between 2008 and 2011 in order to define the criteria, methodologies and tools designed to foster renewal.