Presence Of Citizens Research Articles

Local Government Websites Accessibility: Evaluation and Finding from Italy

The Internet is dramatically changing the way that governments serve their citizens. Ensuring the municipal website is accessible to all citizens needs to be a top priority on the public digital marketing to-do list. Specifically, when we are in the presence of citizens who suffer from a specific impairment or technical hindrance, local governments have to provide them with equal access to their services. Starting from an analysis of the generic theoretical and legislative framework to which each municipality website must adhere, the paper investigates accessibility issues of local government websites taking into account specifically Italy's case. The Italian federal law, which is also known as the Stanca Act, aims to support access to information technologies for the disabled and addresses accessibility considerations in Italy. For ensuring that Italian government websites meet specific accessibility requirements, in this paper, we propose an evaluation strategy defined by an analysis of two validators: AChecker and VaMolà. 7,713 homepages were evaluated against WCAG 2.0 and Stanca Law recommendations. The analysis of results reveals relatively low web accessibility of municipal websites but highlights how to solve several of them is not a complex task also for non-technical users. For this reason, we developed a web application that allows municipality personnel to change the code of the homepage of a given municipality. All this can be made possible through the implementation of textual suggestions and the correct positional identification of the error within the HTML code of the page in question. Finally, the paper gives some directions on how to adapt the presented methodology for checking accessibility issues of local government websites of other countries.

POLITICAL PLURALISM: NOTION, CONCEPTUAL AND INTERPRETATIVE FORESHORTENING

In order to reveal the content of political pluralism, the article considers conceptual, conceptual and interpretative approaches to its definition in the context of constitutional relations with the foundations of the constitutional system, constitutional values, freedom of speech and expression. It is revealed that the absence of the term “political pluralism” in the constitutional text of Russia is made up for by its disclosure through the interpretation of the related principles of “ideological diversity”, “political diversity” and “multiparty”. It is this perspective of the study of political pluralism that helps to justify it as the basis of the constitutional system of Russia. It is noted that since freedom of speech and expression are associated primarily with political freedoms, they are most logically associated with political pluralism. It is proved that the latter implies the presence of citizens in society who have their own interests, adhere to different views on the development of the state and society and unite on this basis in groups, as well as finding a compromise between them based on common ideals and values when solving issues of national importance. The analysis of the motivational part of the decisions of the constitutional Court of the Russian Federation served to reveal the content of political pluralism. The authors concluded that the structure of political pluralism consists of political diversity, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and political compromise. As a generalization, the authors noted that the principle of political pluralism is revealed by this body through guarantees of political diversity and the possibility of finding a compromise of political interests at the level of the Parliament. In addition, it was stressed that the principle of political diversity in a democratic state is ensured through the functioning of such institutions of direct democracy as freedom of speech, free elections, freedom of peaceful public events, the right to Association and freedom of their activities, including political parties. It is concluded that the coordination of political interests should be provided by parliaments of various levels.

Public Place as a Legal Category

The concept of “public place” relating to the place of crime and other offenses doesn’t have a proper definition. The Author proposes to recognize as a public place a certain part of space, which has the exact coordinates, an exact intended function and has no restrictions regarding the presence of citizens in it. There are proposed the classification of public places of various reasons. There are showed the practical value of dividing public places into the types. There are assigned a necessity to distinguish a common place and public place, testified the ways of using the terms for constructing the rules of law in the sphere of ensuring safety, limiting certain actions and establishing responsibility for certain violation of a law.

СОЦІАЛЬНІ МЕРЕЖІ – СУЧАСНА МОВА КОМУНІКАЦІЙ ТА ЕФЕКТИВНИЙ МЕХАНІЗМ ПУБЛІЧНОГО УПРАВЛІННЯ

The article identifies the advantages of using social networks and highlights the disadvantages of traditional communication between government officials and citizens. As social media is a huge virtual community today, the peculiarities of communication on such platforms open new opportunities for communication with different audiences, and the presence of citizens on social networks emphasizes the need to involve them in government interaction. This article considers the online platform as one of the social communication media and provides a basis for measuring the indicators of effective communication. In turn, this implies concepts such as transparency, involvement, cooperation and comfort. And based on the analysis of a particular social network in the material identified indicators of successful communication as an integral part of public administration. In addition, communication in social networks between the state and citizens is viewed through the formation of a phased approach from initiation by one party to full interaction of both parties, when the audience focuses on the advocacy position towards the initiating party, abstracting from external circumstances. The article also focuses on the factors of influence to make decisions for the use of social networks by representatives of public administration. Thus, research on the effectiveness of the use of social networks examines the components of effective two-way communication. And in this case, it confirms the effectiveness of using social online platforms for the implementation of information campaigns in the future, already as a component of an improved communication process. Since the process of virtualizing changes the very way of transmitting information to the audience. The use of social networks enhances the role of the updated management mechanism through online channels. Therefore, the indicators for measuring the quality of interaction indicated in the article correlate with the concept of forming the image of public representatives in the modern information space and have prospects for mandatory use by both specific individuals and groups, and institutions.

Appropriating the Sidewalks for Physically-Motional Handicapped with the Approach of Safety (Case Study: Shahrdari Street in the Tajrish Neighborhood of Tehran)

Abstract. Disability, as a biological and social phenomenon, is a fact to be faced by all the societies regardless of their level of development; and their number is increasing every year as well. Due to a lot of issues like the war and the large numbers of handicapped and veterans in Iran, this has been considered so much. Therefore, developing the proper spatial and physical infrastructures is of particular importance. Today, so much physical deficiencies in cities have reduced the useful application of urban public spaces to minimum for the citizens and in many cases almost inconceivable to use. Meanwhile, we should note that among the urban spaces, sidewalks and walkways have specific importance, for the sidewalk is not only a passing way, but the major part of urban street network. Considering the limitations of physically- motional handicapped and the proper design of the sidewalks, by employing the useful physical and functional components, has great impact on improving safety, availability for pedestrians and as a result on the presence of citizens. Hence, the overall objective of this study is to develop the standards of appropriating the sidewalks for the physically-motional handicapped, in terms of safety. So Shahrdari street, located in Tajrish square of Tehran, as one of the most crowded streets of Iran`s capital has been chosen for the case study. This research is a descriptive-analytical study and the data is achieved by library and field studies.Afterwards, effective components of sidewalks` safety for physically-motional handicapped has been discovered by studying the former researches, appropriating sidewalks` criteria and interviewing with such disables, and these factors are categorized in two groups named physical properties and physical obstacles. Then by reviewing the questionnaires filled by the physically-motional disables, field observations in Shahrdari street`s sidewalks and interviewing with disables of welfare organization, there has been stated some strategies to improve these sidewalks` conditions, which the most important of them in terms of disables viewpoint is dedicated in the form of the appropriating design of Shahrdari street`s sidewalks.

POLITY, RELIGION AND SECULARISM IN INDIA: A STUDY OF INTERRELATIONSHIPS

POLITY, RELIGION AND SECULARISM IN INDIA: A STUDY OF INTERRELATIONSHIPS

Uso de Twitter en el Periodismo Científico. Caso: El Nacional y El Universal en Venezuela (septiembre-octubre de 2014)

Twitter ha logrado activar y fortalecer a la ciberciudadanía e incidir en un cambio en el quehacer periodístico. Esta investigación se plantea como objetivo describir el uso de Twitter por parte de los periodistas que cubren la fuente científica y tecnología en los diarios más antiguos de Venezuela: El Nacional y El Universal durante los meses de septiembre y octubre de 2014. La investigación corresponde a un estudio documental-descriptivo. Los resultados obtenidos muestran la poca presencia de noticias relacionadas con la ciencia en Twitter, un incremento de la labor periodística con el servicio público, escaso uso de elementos multimedia y alta presencia de los ciudadanos como fuente informativa por encima de la gubernamental. Se concluye que los periodistas están participando con frecuencia media en la generación de contenidos vinculados con la ciencia y tecnología.