The New Media in the Political Universe: Civil Society and Political Participation

With this article, we intend to achieve a clearer contribution to the role assumed by new media in the relationship between civil society and the political world, in Portugal. If it is argued that the internet fosters voters democratic participation, others are who see it as a booster of democracy problems. We are witnessing an expansion of the public sphere, especially of its interactional dimension. The possibility of counter-power of mass self - communication causes dilemmas to the structures of representative democracy, resulting in mobilizing of civil groups on the fringes of the political parties. What behavior is adopted by netizens, looking for political contents? Which web platforms are the most used to access political information? Is the political information conveyed in the internet sufficient or need the citizens to consult traditional media to? These are some of the starting questions of this research.