Communication and e-democracy.

Together Internet and democracy makes the yet quite new field called e-democracy.

It can be perceived as the use of Internet when the government, political parties and supportive groups use it to transfer the information, to communicate, to secure services or to help in the participation and in the making of the discussion among citizens¹.

To endeavor these all things, there are 4 important aspects, mentioned by A.H. Trechsel :

1) information in the home pages of the organizations;

2) bilateral interactivity of the home page;

3) friendliness of the home page;

4) multilateral interactivity of the home page.

So - the e-democracy we can perceive as a possibility for the citizens to use the customary communication channels of the everyday used home pages in the home pages of different political institutions.

The pluses of such kind of communication are the fastness and the easiness to get the information. But the major gain is that such kind of communication appeals to participate in the political processes.

Still the issue from now to the future is - how interested in the use of the internet communication channels is the institution, how it understands the term of e-democracy, what kind possibilities the institution can offer and what meaning of work the e-democracy can bring to the institution. As the information of the Latvian Internet Association shows, in this year 54% people uses the Internet.

So probably, e-democracy yet needs a time to become an usual communication model in Latvia.

¹Gronlund, A, Introduction to the Special Issue on e-Democracy in Practice, E-Service Journal, 2002, no National Project „Local e-Democracy” „What Works”, 2005:9