Thesis

Read the thesis: Democratic Interfaces - PDF format, 107 pages / 6.5 MB.

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"Fatland’s final thesis work is a remarkable one. It is important not only as a design research but also makes an important contribution to political science and Internet research."

- from the evaluation by Teemu Leinonnen

"Online communication is seen by many theorists and practitioners of deliberative democracy as a promising means for democratic deliberation. But various obstacles still stand in the way of this promise being fulfilled. Fatland’s insight that some of these obstacles could be overcome by the practical means of software design, is, indeed, convincing and original."

"The work is written very well. Argumentation proceeds logically and comparisons to other projects and other types of design is often made through examples, making the points clear and illustrating the author’s thorough understanding of the problems at hand (illustration of the particularities of his design problem by comparison to designing a car is a case in point). Sometimes the best way to summarize and drive arguments home is to make the reader laugh, as the scenarios on page 28 do. All this makes the paper a very interesting and pleasant read."

(...)

"These critical remarks should by no means obscure the many reasons I have outlined above for considering Fatland's thesis to be an outstanding piece of work."

"The project is admirable in particular because of its relevance not only as a piece of design, but as an initiative for developing democracy."

- from the evaluation by Tuomas Ylä-Anttila