To achieve the goal of easy participation in political discussions and public decision making process the potential of the Internet is used. The Internet allows novel forms of interactive communication between large numbers of participants.
To realise this potential however, there is a need for methodologies that match the media. They need to be able to aggregate and interrelate the individual contributions, to identify and foster the most promising aspects of the discussion, to profile different positions and to strive for convergence between them or at least to figure out what are the truly disputed aspects where no compromise can be achieved. In the latter case, we are always looking for a result from the discussion. Only if the discussion leads to a result is the discussion likely to have any influence on political decision-making procedures. This impact, of course, can be manifold: if the outcome is a clear statement supported by the broad public, it will not be ignored by elected representatives. If the result is merely a widespread collection of different viewpoints, it can serve as input to prospective laws or it can anticipate future objections to planned policies and the like. Taking a closer look at this methodology, we are basically planning to assemble and integrate three well-proven social research methods into a complex DEMOS process.

For deeper methodological insights read more about the DEMOS Process and the integrated Methods, namely the Survey technique, the Delphi Method and the Mediation Method.