“Participación y deliberación política on line en una democracia en crisis: una aproximación metodológica nueva” (Online political participation and deliberation in a democracy in crisis: a new methodological approach) is the title of the research project whose principal investigator is Mariano Torcal, full professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences and director of the Research and Expertise Centre for Survey and Methodology (RECSM) at UPF.

The main goal of the research project into online political participation and deliberation in Spain is to evaluate the levels and types of activism and debate on the network in this field among the citizens of the State and to study their attitudinal consequences. 

It is to receive funding of 78,000 euros under the 2016 call for the National Programme for Fostering Excellence in Scientific and Technical Research of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness’s (MINECO).

The coordination of the project, which will also involve Melanie Revilla, lecturer with the Department of Political and Social Sciences and member of RECSM-UPF, will be directed from Pompeu Fabra University.  Also taking part are other researchers associated with University Carlos III of Madrid and centres in the UK, Germany and the United States, in addition to Netquest, an online survey company.

Methodology used and aspects observed

The study, which will be carried out over a period of three years, aims to innovatively combine individual survey data, big data on people’s Internet activity, and survey experiments in order to measure political participation, deliberation by the citizenship and exposure to the media.

This assessment of activism and deliberation will serve to be able to observe the consequences of these factors on basics aspects of people’s behaviour and attitudes, such as the level of political knowledge, political disaffection, discontent, the degree of political interest and ties, and other essential features that define the Spanish population.

How often and through which media does online deliberation take place? What use is made of this new space for acquiring political information? How often are Spaniards more exposed to different views from their own through the use of the Internet? What is the reacion to this deliberation process? What effect does all of this have on their ideological or partisan preferences? These are some of the questions they will attempt to answer.