E-participación en el Senado chileno: ¿aplicaciones deliberativas?

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have benefited citizen participation and led to a closer relationship between authorities and citizens. In Chile, the Senate has developed two programs (Virtual Senator and Chat with senators), which allow citizens to be in touch with senators and present them their points of view on topics discussed in the legislative agenda. This paper studies how these programs let citizens engage both in public affairs and legislative-agenda debates. Specifically, it studies how these programs have worked and assesses whether they have been successful or not in accomplishing the legal objective of deliberation, which inspires academic debates on ICT and politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]