E-participation portals automated monitoring system for political and social research

Abstract

This paper presents the opportunities, advantages and limitations of e-participation portals automated monitoring system (AMS) in social and political research. The system was initially developed in 2013 to analyse petitioning and voting dynamics of the Russian e-petitions portal-the Russian Public Initiative-and then was further expanded. In the paper the architecture and working principles of the system are described. It is argued and exemplified that the data collected automatically from e-petition portals can be used to advance research in several areas: media and PR effects on political participation, issue salience, as well as factors of voting behavior and online political engagement.