As we are all aware of, the western model of representational democracy – with its integrative / corrective institutions of direct and consultative  democracy – is "suffering" from a consistent drop in citizens' participation.

Public administrations – in particular  local ones closer to the community and their expectations / demands – need to build consensus around choices they make, which should be based on wider community participation in the entire decision-making process. Services, structures, and procedures dedicated to communication are made available to citizens in order to foster a constant dialogue; in particular new interaction modes are being studied and tested, by also significant tapping relational and exchange venues opened in recent years by ICT and the Internet. Building an "information and knowledge society" in an E-Europe, coping with the "digital divide" risk, is not an easy task. Local administrations, the closest to the communities’ needs and expectations, have a central role to play in this challenge: warranting to everybody a really fair access to the technologies and the multimedia contents and services, promoting the "electronic public space dimension" at local level is a concrete way to set up the pre-conditions for e-democracy actions at any level.