Citizen Perceptions of The European Union: The Impact of the EU W ...

for example, the business or the government sector may try to control online content, be that for marketing or political reasons, as is the case in many regimes, the Internet, due to its very nature, provides the means to circumvent restrictions. Nevertheless, at this point, there are still several attempts to control online content, and it will be interesting to see how this develops in the long run and whether communicators, previously used to their power of information control, adapt to the changing conditions.¹⁶ Apart from these instances where control of information might infringe on the freedom of speech, there are, of course, those cases where governmental regulations and monitoring are called for, such as regarding pornography or terrorism. Hence, even if the Internet may foster deliberation and allow far more voices to be heard, this also means that there are voices one might not want to hear. On top of this is, naturally, the issue of who ‘listens’ and how individual users acting as communicators can be heard next to the ‘louder’ voices—in other words, the more obvious presence of established actors such as multinationals, major media outlets, or governments in an environment where there is an abundance of information but limited time, and therefore scarce attention for all this information (for further reading, see Bagdikian, 2004; McChesney, 1999). While these are highly interesting questions related to the development of the Internet and the use of this medium, the issues that are more directly related to the interaction between users, communicators, and Web sites require further attention, as in the context of this study the roles of production were still rather clear cut and lay with the communicators. Stressing the duality of users and producers/communicators is important, however, as it highlights the possibility of users actively engaging with the information provided, providing other forms of information themselves, or paying little, if any, attention to the information provided, due to the wealth of other sources. What follows from this line of thought is that communicators not only need to get the attention of their respective audience, they also need to hold it continually, as the next page is always ‘just a click away’ (Kaye & Medoff, 2001). Furthermore, this (possible) shift of roles requires communication that is open and truly seeks and offers interaction, so that feedback can be