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Voice or chatter? Making ICTs work for transformative engagement: research report summary

Published on 12 May 2026

What are the conditions in democratic governance that make information and communication technology (ICT)-mediated citizen engagement transformative? While substantial scholarship exists on the role of the Internet and digital
technologies in triggering moments of political disruption and cascading upheavals, academic interest in the sort of deep change that transforms institutional cultures of democratic governance, occurring in ‘slow time’, has been relatively muted. This study attempts to fill this gap. It is inspired by the idea of participation in everyday democracy and seeks to explore how ICT-mediated citizen engagement can promote democratic governance and amplify citizen voice. The study involved empirical explorations of citizen engagement initiatives in eight sites – two in Asia (India and Philippines), one in Africa (South Africa), three in South America (Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay) and two in Europe (Netherlands and Spain).

Cite this publication

Gurumurthy, A.; Bharthur, D. and Chami, N. (2017) Voice or chatter? Making ICTs work for transformative engagement, Making All Voices Count Research Report Summary, Brighton: IDS.

Publication details

published by
Institute of Development Studies
language
English

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