Ricardo Morais

Curriculum

Ricardo Morais é investigador de Doutoramento em Ciências da Comunicação na Universidade da Beira Interior. Nesta mesma Universidade tirou a licenciatura em Ciências da Comunicação e o Mestrado em Jornalismo, onde apresentou a dissertação intitulada “Família, Educação e Media: os desafios educativos dos meios de comunicação”. Trabalhou ainda como jornalista multimédia na cobertura das últimas campanhas eleitorais em Portugal. Neste momento para além do Doutoramento é bolseiro de investigação do projecto “Agenda dos Cidadãos: jornalismo e participação cívica nos media portugueses”.

Abstract

Democracy, Participation and Deliberation: new media as an arena for online deliberation

All over the world, there have been further discussions about how to revitalize democracy. In many countries there is growing concern about the democratic deficit or the loss of vitality of democracy. The people distance themselves more and more of the traditional representative mechanisms.

On the other hand, it is unanimous the role of media as one of the key elements to characterize the contemporary democratic societies. The media is fundamental to realizing the opportunities for public discussion.

In this sense, the issues surrounding media are central to the existence of deliberative democracy, which implies the existence of a public sphere understood as a network of communication, information and exchange of views whose influence should be reflected later in the debate on matters of public interest. It is exactly this range that this work wants to explore.

Taking as its starting point the deliberative turn in democratic political theory, seeks to explore empirically the deliberative potential offered by the new media opposed to mass media in order to determine the quality of public debate in modern democratic societies.

Keywords: Democracy, Participation, Deliberation, New Media