The case of LiquidFeedback and the citizen 2.0

Abstract

The clash between politics and 2.0 web engendered its own digital myths. One of them is the utopia of a perfect liquid democracy, embedded into a software. It’s about LiquidFeedback, the E-voting platform studied here, that we analyze in term of interface, modality of functioning of the issues, to end with the discursive rhetoric that accompanied the recent history of the platform. From Piraten to 5 Stars in Italy, until the two main Italian projects involving LiquidFeedback, by Ambrosoli and Puppato in 2013, several subjects tried to establish a dialogue between political powers and active citizenship. The failure of the two last attempts, for different reasons, is the occasion to semiotically treat more in depth the meaning of voting and participation in virtual environments, where the affective dimension of the body as well as the social constraints of a subject, are purified in order to create alternative forms of aggregation.