Title: M-Democracy: A Disruptive
Innovation for Democracy-hungry Groups
Abstract: The
M-Democracy concept has evolved taking advantage of the increasing
advancement and ubiquity of mobile communications and the failure of
traditional civic engagement tools to facilitate political inclusion of
the society at large. Mobile technologies have the potential to provide
ubiquitous civic engagement tools for the mobile workforce, youths,
rural communities and developing societies. The lack
of proper political participation instruments broadens the political
participation of these groups. This study employs the disruptive
innovation theory to
argue that M-Democracy technologies have emerged to compete with or
supplement
mainstream civic engagement tools. This is because they can provide
affordable,
real-time, many-to-many, customized, and less-regulated civic
engagement
capabilities. We have used grounded theory and multiple case studies to
demonstrate
the increasing impact of emerging mobile technologies on political
participation. This study is particularly important to improve the
adaptation of M-Democracy innovations which would help in decreasing
political marginalization and
improving the equity of policy the outcomes.
Author:Abdelnasser M. Abdelaal and Hesham
H. Ali