Dr Steve Ward

• Research Fellow, January 2005 - September 2007

Prior to arriving at OII, Steve Ward (BA Warwick, MSc LSE, PhD UWE) was a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Salford. His research interests are in the area of e-democracy, particularly, political participation and campaigning online. He has received funding for three ESRC projects including: Political organisations and participation online in the UK (2000-2003) funded under the ESRC's Democracy and Participation programme; Parliamentary representation in the age of the Internet: An Anglo-Australian comparison (2003-2005), which examined MPs and Parliaments' use of new information communications technologies (funded under the e-society initiative) and Campaigning in cyberspace: 2005 general election online (2005-2006), which examined the role and use of new ICTs in the 2005 UK election campaign.

He is currently involved in an international project funded by the Australian Research Council assessing online mobilisation networks. His research / publications archive and blog are available at the i-pol website.

Research interests

e-democracy, political participation, campaigning online

Contact information

Dr Steve Ward, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, 1 St Giles Oxford OX1 3JS, United Kingdom. Telephone: +44 (0)1865 287210 Fax: +44 (0)1865 287211 Email: enquiries@oii.ox.ac.uk

Publications

• Shifman, L., Coleman, S. and Ward, S. (2007) Only joking? Online Humour in the 2005 UK General Election. Information, Communication & Society 10: 465-487.

Projects

• Campaigning in cyberspace: 2005 general election online

  May 2005 - March 2006

  Research on the role and use of new ICTs in the 2005 UK election campaign, drawing on data from both a top-down party perspective and bottom-up voter perspective using qualitative and quantitative methods.

• Parliamentary representation in the age of the Internet: an Anglo-Australian comparison

  January - June 2005

  Evaluating the use of the Internet by parliaments and representatives in the UK and Australia, contributing to current debates about the health of representative parliamentary democracy and the role of political representatives in the 21st century.

• VOSON: Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks

  January - December 2006

  The first stage in the establishment of a 'Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks': a Grid-enabled research environment facilitating cutting-edge collaborative research into the existence and impact of online social and political networks.

Last updated on: 3 February 2010