資訊科技對於人類社會的影響，無疑是極廣泛而深遠的，從早期學者觀察到美國就業結構在資訊革命之後的變化，而提出資訊社會的概念，到晚近學者從社會階層分化和公共行政過程，在大量引介資訊科技之後帶來的數位落差和電子治理議題，都呈現了資訊科技為人類社會帶來的問題與契機。將資訊科技引入政治過程，當前學界的研究偏重於電子化政府的建置和電子民主的推展。然而，考量網際網路所隱喻的時間空間的壓縮，透過網際網路的協助，國際政府組織將比過去更能直接將各國人民納入其服務和協助的對象，國際公民社會將比過去更能直接動員人民參與跨國的社會運動。為此，本研究將以突尼斯世界資訊社會高峰會之前在「線上資訊社會高峰會」和「網路治理開放區域對話機制」計畫下的網路治理論壇為對象，探討電子公共論壇是否和如何促進開發中國家人民和公民社會團體對於資訊社會高峰會網路治理解決方案的參與和影響。

The impact of information technology on the society is by all means broad and profound. The opportunities and challenges information technology has brought to us can be traced to the industrial restructuring in the U.S. of the early days and evident in the discussion on digital divide and electronic government of the present days. As far as the application of information technology to political process, the current research efforts are on electronic government and electronic democracy as applied in the domestic context. However, recognizing the compression of time and space as information technology makes possible, international organizations of the information age should be able to serve local people more directly and international civil society able to conduct transnational grass root mobilization more easily with the aid of information technology. This paper observes the Online Forum on Internet Governance in held in 2004 and the IGOVAP forum in 2005 with two main inquiries. One is on the extent to which Internet helps mobilize local people from developing countries and civil society organizations to participate in global policy process, while the other is on the extent to which Internet helps local people from developing countries and civil society organizations have real impact on global policy outcome with regard to Internet Governance.