A secretly-negotiated deal to protect intellectual property would always be something for the net community to get worked up about. Following the signature of the treaty, only MEPs can block it. They are the targets of an Avaaz petition, which has just rolled over the million mark at the time of writing, imploring them not to let it through.

ACTA is an international treaty aimed at preventing trade in counterfeit goods, with implications for alleged copyright infringements on the internet. The treaty, which has attracted controversy because it was negotiated in private, has been adopted by the EU but still needs formal ratification by the EU Parliament. The provision of ACTA that is most controversial is article 27 (4):

“A Party may provide, in accordance with its laws and regulations, its competent authorities with the authority to order an online service provider to disclose expeditiously to a right holder information sufficient to identify a subscriber whose account was allegedly used for infringement, where that right holder has filed a legally sufficient claim of trademark or copyright or related rights infringement, and where such information is being sought for the purpose of protecting or enforcing those rights.”

In other words, the treaty suggests that signatory countries may want to empower their authorities to force website owners to hand over users’ details, if they are alleged to have used their account for unlawful purposes. As opponents argue, requiring service providers to divulge information about users is problematic for services that encrypt information in a way that means that they themselves cannot access it. It also means that infrastructure is put into place that can be abused for less peaceful purposes such as threatening privacy rights and freedom of expression.

Kader Arif, French MEP and rapporteur for the treaty, resigned as a result of the signing. (In case you’re wondering what a rapporteur is/does: here’s a description.) As reported in the Telegraph, Polish MPs covered their faces with masks from the political hacker group Anonymous and there have been street protests in Poland against the treaty.

Gathering around the hashtag #acta, there are already calls for street protests in other countries including Germany. Between now and June, when the vote in the Parliament is due to be held, we will find out whether net advocates in Europe will come into their own in the same way that they did in the US.

Protecting citizens' data (photo by jaime.silva, Flickr)

The Region of Hanover (yes, that’s the correct English spelling) has dropped its Facebook page due to data protection concerns. Kommune21, an E-Government magazine, reports that recent statements from some of Germany’s regional Data Protection Commissioners (the best known example coming from Schleswig-Holstein) led the region to take drastic steps, despite the advantages of the Facebook page in reaching younger users.

As Berlin celebrates its millionth Facebook fan, this will continue to keep concerns about data protection protection high on the agenda. The Schleswig-Holstein Data Protection Commissioner’s controversial findings earlier this year ordered all organisations in his state to drop their Facebook pages and cease to use the Facebook ‘like’ button on their websites. This is because data about users is sent to servers in the US and, according to the Commissioner, not enough is done to inform users about what data are collected and what happens to them.

The Commissioner also raised concerns about the use of the Facebook “Like” plugin, which allows users to recommend a page to their Facebook friends by clicking on a button on the website concerned instead of pasting a link onto Facebook. It would appear that information about users, even those who do not have Facebook accounts, are sent to Facebook and logged-in users of the social networking site can be tracked across websites.

At the start of September, Heise, a German publisher, got itself into trouble with Facebook for developing a ‘Like’ plugin that first has to be activated by the user, in order to avoid sending any data to Facebook without the user’s consent. The dispute appears to have been resolved since Heise developed an alternative logo and only shows the Facebook logo once the user has clicked on it to activate the sharing function. You can see it in action on heise.de (the ‘Empfehlen’ button at the end of each article).

In this PeP-NET post we would like to share a tool we have developed, “The matrix of civic implication”, whose main aim is to support the development of conceptual clarity when analyzing participatory venues and participatory initiatives. If used wisely, we think the matrix is a powerful “tool”, that goes beyond alternative models (like OECD, IAP2 or Fung’s), and should allow researchers, practitioners and the ‘man in the street’ to better understand the core dimensions of participatory activities.

 The Matrix of Civic Implication

Since Sherry Arnstein presented her “Ladder of Citizen Participation” in 1969, tens of models have been proposed with the aim to describe “participation”.

The problem with these models is that they tend to be either too basic -and thus they add less value- or they are too complex and specialized, and in this case they are too cumbersome to be applied.

For this reason… a lot of confusion exist in this field.

Our matrix tries to find a pragmatic balance between usefulness and complexity, and provide a tool that is at the same time powerful, practical and easy to use. It allows practitioners and theorists to compare in a matter of minutes different Participatory experiences. The model was developed to be applied to “municipal participation” initiatives, but it can be applied to other kind of participatory experiences.

The Matrix identifies four fundamental dimensions of participatory initiatives, which be informally “visualized”, and thus make this model especially suitable for comparing initiatives:

1. INTENSITY OF COLLABORATION:

This level is based on the original ladder, and describes the level of collaboration exercised. It goes from Manipulation, Information and Consultation levels up to the levels of Collaboration, Delegated Power and Delegated control. We have slightly renamed some of Arnstein’s rungs and added some fundamental extra rungs, like the ones corresponding to “Conflict” and the “transparency” rung, which is considered as a pre-requisite for any real “Collaborative Participation”. More details on the meaning of the different levels are provided below.

2. ACTORS involved in the participatory exercise:

This dimension allows differentiating the actors, grouping them under the categories of “affected”, “participants”, “promoters” and “decision makers”. It also classifies them as political actors, corporate actors, civil society actors, or others. More categories and actors can be considered. The ones shown in the picture are just an example. The actors’ names displayed in the attached matrix have just and illustrative character: more categories and actors could be considered, in case they were needed to analyze the participatory exercises. Thanks to the inclusion of this dimension, the model can be applied to analyze both “administrative, top-down participation” (sponsored and organized by governments) and “autonomous participation”, which could be really bottom-up (initiated by citizens) or initiated by some other Civil or Corporate actors. More details below.

3. INSTITUTIONALIZATION LEVEL:

This essential dimension has often been neglected in most participation models. The institutionalization levels range from the lowest “Sporadic” and “Episodic”, through “Periodic” and “Continuous” levels of institutionalization, to the highest “Functional Institutionalization” and “Organic Institutionalization”.

Functional Institutionalization refers to cases where laws have been approved that enact legal procedures and channels, which allow citizens to initiate some kind of participatory interaction. For example: citizens’ initiatives, right of petition, mandatory hearings in urban planning, participation in city council, etc.

Organic Institutionalization, finally, refers to the cases where participatory organs have been constituted with a permanent or semi-permanent character, with representation of different actors involved. These organs generally have a decision-making or a controlling mandate, and allow interested citizens and/or citizen groups to become involved in the policy areas covered by the participatory institution.

4. DELIBERATIVENESS:

This dimension allows to, informally, specify the kind and intensity of deliberation that the participatory experience motivates. Deliberation is a particular form of reasoning and dialogue, in which the costs and consequences of various policy options are carefully weighed, taking into account the views of all concerned.

The Matrix of Civic Implication is a tool that helps project managers, practitioners and researchers to describe what they are doing or what they are planning to do, taking into account the most fundamental participatory dimensions, and making it possible to compare between different options or approaches.

This conceptual model is intended to remain open and flexible: additions or changes are welcomed in the case the analyzed participatory experiences require them.

For example, it could be interesting to consider the moment within the “policy making cycle” (from Agenda Setting to Evaluation) where the participation happens. Another possible addition could consider the technological tools or the participatory methodologies used. But these extra dimensions are normally not essential to understand the core of the participatory experience, and are thus not part of the base model.

In many cases a participatory initiative is composed of different participatory activities, each of them with different aims and different stakeholders involved in them. The matrix could also be used to depict individually each of these activities, to get a deeper understanding of the whole experience.

The aim of the model is NOT prescriptive, but descriptive. It does NOT claim that higher intensity of collaboration, or a dense deliberativeness, or an extreme institutionalization level is always better. This actually depends of the environment and the objectives that are pursued with the initiative. The model thus explicitly recognizes that different situations require different approaches. It is the quality of participation that matters more, not the amount, nor necessarily the level at which it, suppossedly, happens.

The model is explained in these videos, which are part of the teaching materials we prepared for a course on “Citizen Participation and Digital Technologies”, that we imparted in collaboration with the Inter-American Organization for Higher Education. The course materials are in Spanish, but these videos include English subtitles:

YOUTUBE: 10.a. The Advent of Civic Implication. Part 1

YOUTUBE: 10.b. The Advent of Civic Implication. Part 2

More detailed descriptions of the “Intensity of collaboration” levels

Let’s have a more detailed look at the meaning of the “Intensity of collaboration” levels, starting with the lowest.

The rung “Manipulation”, that is part of the “Non-Participation” category is characterized by the attempts to manipulate: to keep people quiet, satisfied, with the impression that they are being heard… but actually there is no real intention to listen to them.

With different levels of sofistication, participatory venues are designed by decision-makers so they can exert control of it, and use it just to ratify decission that have already been taken, or to comply with legal requirements, etc.

All this was linked by Arnstein with the idea of “therapy”. And sadly enough… much of the political participation that is carried out nowadays is of this type.

Under the “Non-participation” level we have included the “Conflict” category.

This happens when citizens realise that the existing participatory venues are not satisfactory, and decide to show their dissatisfaction.

The firs rung, “Legitimate coercion”, is when the means used are “pacific”, civic protest, civil disobedience. We are speaking here of things like the Spanish “Indignados”, the #occupywallstreet movement, or the #realdemocracynow.

People’s capacity to connect one with another is increasing, and the current global crisis is evidencing that our current representative democracies are very “low-quality”. It is clear that this ‘Legitimate coercion’ will continue growing. Without losing its “pacific” character, this kind of action could win more and more disrupting capacity: coordinated demonstrations and strikes, boycotts, delays in paying taxes, etc. This coordinated actions can increasingly get directed at punishing political actors by means of voting, and thus “biting where it hurts” to them.

The rung of “Illegal Duress” refers to even stronger conflicts, and includes harder responses: sabotage, property destruction and robbery, terrorism… all this kind of actions can be understood, in many cases, as a way of expression when the “existing” mechanisms are considered as “non-working”.

With regards to the upper rungs: “Information, Consultation, Advisement”, they reflect the traditional levels in which a decision-maker can engage with people to improve the decisions.

The most basic rung -“Information”- means the case where some (or even much) information about what is being done, or planned to be done, is provided. That’s already a difference, with respect to “Manipulation”.

“Consultation” means that some channels (like polling, or focus groups, or… whatever you can imagine) are created that allow some kind of feedback from the citizens to be heard by the decision maker.

“Advisement” rung goes a little bit further, and allows that the citizens, their associations… are providing elaborate advice to the decision maker, as part of a conversation.

The most important aspect with regards to this category, called “Consultative Participation”, is that the decision maker is finally taking the decision that he prefers. She is just asking for opinions, argumentations, views… but retains the capacity to judge them and act in any way that suits her understanding and convenience. How much consideration receive the views expressed through the engagement mechanisms… depends entirely on the will of the decision maker. This is why Arnstein termed it “Tokenism”.

Let’s now go to the top.

Above the “Consultative Participation” category that we have just reviewd, the category for “Collaborative Participation” comes. This is the category where the “Intensity of Collaboration” is stronger. This is a type of participation where “real collaboration” is expected, in its various levels.

At the very top is the “Delegated Control” rung. It means that the control of some decision-making area is delegated to the participatory institution or organism. Usually the decision maker could reclaim the control in case of emergency… but by default he would be willing to accept the results of the participatory collaboration (normally, the decision maker will also be member of the participatory mechanism, and thus able to defend his interests).

The next rung, “Delegated Power” is a more conservative approach, that just delegates some partial, limited “power”, to the participatory institution. This way, more safeguards could be in place (veto, etc.).

The next level is “Collaboration”. In it, even if no power is explicitly delegated, the decision making capacity is implicitly or explicitly shared through the principles of “honest collaboration”, understanding that participants are partnering together to find good solutions. Thus what is recognized and agreed by means of this cooperation should necessarily influence, in a sensible way, the final decision, as well as the actions of all participants.

Thus, we come to the “Transparency” rung, which is the most radical change with respect to Arnstein model.
First of all: it is important to recognise that the nature of this rung is a little different than the others. It is more a “pre-requisite” for the collaborative participation than a way of collaboration on its own.

Why a pre-requisite? Well, because if you want to really collaborate, in a trustful way… all participants should have access to all relevant information available.

Transparency means open data and open government: a compromise to proactively share all relevant data, so all partners can inspect and work on it, both pro-actively (to ellaborate proposals, for example), or after some issue has happened (to discover ineficiencies or corruption, for example).

Transparency has a tremendous effect on the incentives of any administrative body. If you know that all your actions are visible, that they can be inspected… the ‘margin for corruption’ is strongly reduced.

Hidden agendas are also more difficult to keep: decision making can thus become more fact-based and deliberative, and all participants will be more motivated to find real “best solutions” and win-win arrangements.

For this reason, the “transparency” rung, and its “Pre-participation” category, are placed above the “Consultative Participation”. Consultative participation can actually happen under a dictatorial structure. Transparency is necessarily linked to collaborative and democratic settings.

One final remark: All this levels are, in first place, considered with relation to public authorities and government. But in general they can be applied to any institution with capacity to make decisions, and share this capacity with other stakeholders. In particular: corporations will increasingly be subject to demands to increase their “transparency”, as a requisite to collaborative participation of the people (which, should not be forgotten: are also customers, and able to harm companies in weeks, just by slightly coordinating their buying behavior).

Increasingly, if there is not enough transparency, or if the ethical behaviours of the companies are not satisfactory, people will go for “CONFLICT”, meaning boycotts or even stronger measures (imagine a coordinated action to retire funds from “un-ethical” banks: no public money will be able to save a bank whera a big share of their customers coordinately decide to claim their money back).

So… everybody should pay more attention to the developments in this field.

There is a strong demand for powerful collaboration tools. Internet is about to impact democracy, when the use of these tools gets critical mass. We should all try to make sure this happens in a constructive way.

How to handle top-down and bottom-up participation in the matrix

The Matrix intend to cover not only “top-down” public participation, but also the “bottom-up”. And even a new form of civic engagement we invented (partly, as a joke), called “from-the-middle-and-around”. Both the “top-down” and the “bottom-up” perspectives are too simple conceptualizations… that are not able to comprehend the nuances of such a complex phenomenom as civic engagement.

In fact, we consider more interesting the bottom-up or mixed engagement models, as the pure “top-down”/ administrative participation has proven to be quite limited in its transformative effect during the whole 20th century. All this is related to the “administrative” and “autonomous” forms of participation that we previously referred to (see image).

Actually, it is because of this willingness to embrace autonomous “engagement” that we chose not to name the model the “Matrix of Citizen Participation” (following Arnstein) but the “Matrix of Civic Implication”.

Citizen Participation somehow suggest that “citizens” (no immigrants? no kids?) slightly “participate”, collaborate… with an initiative whose ownership lies somewhere else. “Civic implication”, on the other hand, aims to suggest an “engagement”, a “personal implication” with something that is recognized as “own” by person, by the neighbor.

How would the “top-down / bottom-up” character of the participation be reflected in the model?

Well, especially through the recognition and configuration of the “Actors” involved, at the top of the matrix, which by default is used to displays different possible administrative, corporate and civil society actors, as a way to facilitate the comparison of initiatives (see, for example, this comparation of “Mayor talks with neighbors” and the “Participatory Budgeting of Fortaleza (BR)”.

Let’s imagine a case of bottom-up participation. For example, the case where the “participants”, “promoters” and “affected” are just the citizens of a neighborhood, which autonomously organize themselves (maybe with the support of a NGO) to propose the mayor (decision-maker) some kind of action… we would have this kind of autonomous participation in action.

If there is no request to be presented to the Mayor, but just a process of community self-organization… this would be reflected by not including any “decision-maker” or considering the “decision-maker” to be the own community.
And for sure, depending of the kind activities carried out (running a poll in the neighborhood, or deliberatively elaborate the proposal, or even voting at the end on the open points…) you would have different levels of involvement, or “intensities of collaboration”.
It is, anyway, just a tool -like, for example, scissors- whose real value is shown when it is put to work. In the same way that you would use slightly different scissors to clean a fish, to cut your fiancee’s hair, or to allow your daughter to handicraft… the matrix might need to be modified, extended, complemented with other analysis or… whatever, to suit the need of the user. It all depends on what is desired to illuminate with its help. The Matrix “humble aim” is to provide a clear base-line for analysis and communication. On top of that, all additions are welcomed, if they make sense.

Another example: in case there was interest in analyzing, or making more visible, the “power” relations in a concrete participatory initiative, you could decide to display only the actors that are participating, and perform some kind of “stakeholders analysis” to asses each actors’  power, urgency and legitimacy toward the issue, and thus determine the kind of role they can play (Dominant, Dormant, Dependent,  Demanding, Definitive, etc.). [see http://www.jstor.org/pss/259247 ]. Thus, you could use different intensities of colors to reflect the power, etc.

That’s all, sorry for such a long entry. We thought it was worth sharing. We are waiting for your comments!

CeDEM12 presents the following tracks:

• E-Participation
• Government 2.0
• Social/Web Media and Public Administration
• E-Politics and E-Campaigning
• European Citizen Initiative
• Participatory Budgeting
• Bottom-Up Movements
• Open Data and Open Access

Publications:

Important Dates: 

Birmingham Civic Dashboard screenshot

In its recent consultation document ‘Making Open Data Real’, the UK Government expresses high hopes for open data, heralding it as possibly “the most powerful lever of 21st century public policy”. Following several years of open data advocacy, activism and hack days, in the UK open data is moving towards the mainstream thanks to unanimous backing from the coalition government and the opposition.

The latest move in open data comes from Birmingham City Council, which today launched its ‘Civic Dashboard’. This is a web site publishing raw customer services data along with a slick visualisation, which was made possible by a grant that Digital Birmingham received as a result of winning a competition run by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA).

The Civic Dashboard draws its data from the customer service centre set up as part of the Council’s Business Transformation programme. An extract of data about all customer enquiries, whether by telephone, internet or email, is recorded by the customer relationship management system and fed into the Civic Dashboard in an aggregated (anonymised) form once per day. Where the data is geocoded, it can be presented on a map to show how many contacts originate from a particular ward or constituency. You can even see which channels the enquiries come through, which shows that the Council receives far more enquiries by telephone than through other channels.

This is an important step towards bridging the gap between eGovernment and ‘weGovernment’. Coming from the Council that was heavily criticised for spending £2.8m on its website as part of its eGovernment transformation, especially by Birmingham’s vocal social media users, opening up the data that is produced in the background shows what the new infrastructure can do beyond serving up static content. Doubtless there are many more datasets that exist as a result of the transformation programme, and if these are released in the future, perhaps Brummies will feel they got a better deal out of transformation than they first thought.

This itself is quite a paradox: such a handover of control to the citizen wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the huge transformation programme because IT is absolutely necessary for the collection of data in a reusable form.

Another important aspect is the fact that the raw data comes with a ready-made visualisation tool, which is presumably what most people will interact with. On the one hand, some would argue that it should be left to non-state entities to interpret the data. Although this will probably be the case in future, Birmingham (together with NESTA) engaged Mudlark, a local service provider, to develop the website on their behalf. This model – of commissioning the data visualisation, not developing it in-house – addresses the issue of risk sharing: especially in the early days of open data, small companies may not be able to afford to risk creating applications based on data that there may not be a market for, and that – for all they know – may not be collected for ever, at least in the current format.

Even where an authority doesn’t publish its own visualisation of the data, in my opinion there will still be a role for them to intervene in some cases. For instance, if someone were to notice that there are far more requests from Hodge Hill than Sutton Coldfield (a more affluent area), and claim that resources are unfairly distributed, a Council official might intervene using social media to draw attention to the fact that far more council housing tenants are located in that area, and are most likely making enquiries to the Council as their landlord. This assumes that the necessary data (on distribution of council housing) is available; if not, it could lead to calls for more data to be opened. Thus, opening some data can lead to calls for more.

There is much more to be said about this example of open data in practice, which is possibly the first time a large public authority has bridged the gap between between e-government and ‘we-government’ using open data. I’m sure it will be said on this blog and elsewhere for a good while to come!

Many thanks to Simon Whitehouse, of Digital Birmingham (part of Birmingham City Council), for explaining the Civic Dashboard to me.

Target groups: Authorities in national and local level involved in e-democracy and e-governance, persons from immigrant and multicultural non-governmental organisations as well as researchers and others in related fields interested in e-democracy and inclusion of immigrants in participatory decision-making.

Aim of the International Joint Workshop: Creating a discussion forum and a dialogue between authorities, NGO actors and immigrant societies on immigrant inclusion by e-participation.

There will be cross-border exchange of best results as experienced in practice, in projects or in research. The sessions will all have participatory elements such as discussions, collaboration, brainstorms and debates and will utilize participatory tools and methods. E-participation will be also possible, the links will appear later.

The event is free of charge, but make sure you register by the 21st of October 2011, since the venue only has a limited amount of seats.

Keynote speakers, Presentations, Abstracts and Biographys
The keynote speakers and their preliminary topics are:

Nico Carpentier, Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies, Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, UK
“Mediated participation. ‘New’ technologies’ claims to increased participation, novelty and uniqueness”

Edward Andersson, Deputy Director of Involve, UK, Expert on methods of participatory decision making
“Engaging for the long term -Successful strategies and examples”

Auksė Balcytiené, Professor, Department of Public Communications, Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy, Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania
“Diasporic groups online – alternative discourses”

Gavan Titley, Dr, Lecturer in Media Studies, Centre for Media Studies, National University of Ireland Maynooth and Vice-Chair of the ‘Diaspora, Migration and Media’ section of European Communication Research Association – ECREA Centre for Media Studies
“Racialized media literacies: online networks, public discourse and the new ‘new racism’ in Europe.”

Randi Marselis, Associate Professor, Institute for Literature, Culture and Media, University of Southern Denmark
“Web-magazines, cultural memory and transnational belongings”

Andoni Alonso, Professor, Universidad de Extremadura, Spain
”Diasporas, the Web 2.0 and how the Commons are in Danger”

The presentations will be published here after the workshop when possible:

Presentations

Abstracts

Andoni Alonso
Abstract: The notion of Web 2.0 brings many different issues that should be discussed. One of the most interesting is how these electronic social networks can generate an added value in terms of content and shared knowledge. The question is to show how diasporans are also generating such content and how it can be privatized through companies such as FaceBook. Starting point would be to consider how all that on-line knowledge can be treated as a commons, because it is put on line, shared and improved by particulars. So diasporans can be deprived from their physical as well as their electronic homeland.

Randi Marselis
Abstract: Social media on the internet have potential to strengthen transnational belongings amongst ethnic minority groups. However, young people of minority background often prefer to set up websites in the language of their country of settlement. This presentation focuses on journalistic Web-magazines run by Dutch Moluccan and Danish Kurdish youths. In what way do such Web-magazines give room for the cultural memory of migration? And how do belongings to a transnational community intersect with social and political engagement in the country of settlement?

Keywords: Websites, cultural memory, transnationalism, Dutch Moluccan youth, Danish Kurdish youth

Nico Carpentier
Abstract: New media discourses are often engulfed by a variety of claims that emphasize their specificity. We can find the formulation of strong claims of novelty and uniqueness, in combination with processes of forgetfulness in relation to the societal roles of old media technologies. This presentation starts with a discussion on (new) audience theory, mapping and structuring the diversity of audience articulations with a focus on two of its main dimensions: the active/passive and the interaction/participation dimension. This mapping will then be used to problematize and critique the strong claims of novelty and uniqueness that ’new’ participatory technologies have generated. Moreover, this theoretical mapping will also show that audience theory turns out to be quite stable in its capacity to facilitate the understanding of the diversity of relations between humans and media technology. Three claims are scrutinized: the shift from one-to-many to many-to-many communication; the rearticulation of the audience into the ‘producer’; and the convergence of top-down business with bottom-up production and consumption practices. Each of these claims is critically evaluated, in combination with a case study discussion that shows the complexities and contradictions of these claims. These three case studies are the BBC’s Video Nation project in the UK, a reception study of nine films on the Belgian online video-sharing platform 16plus, and formal participatory (alternative and community media) organizations.

Edward Andersson
Abstract: This workshop will look at the practice of e-participation with a particular focus on achieving long term engagement. It will draw on practical examples from numerous countries as well as a two and a half year research project exploring the individual motivations for participation in three sites in England.
Different approaches and rationales for participation will be explored, as well as differences between online engagement and face to face engagement. Some engaging approaches (both online and face to face) will be demonstrated; allowing participant interaction.

Biographys

Andoni Alonso, got his degree at the Universidad de Navarre and his PH. D. at the Basque Country University. Visiting researcher at the Penn State University and Visiting Professor at Nevada University at Reno, Reno. He has taught at the Universidad de Extremadura and presently is associate professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He won the 5th Award Prize by the Epson Institute of Techno-Ethics with the book La Quinta columna digital. His field of interest has been the informational society and its ethical, political and aesthetical implication in books like La nueva ciudad de Dios, Siruela, Madrid, 2002 and Carta al homo cibernéticus, Edaf, Madrid 2003. Recently has published the following books: Diasporas in the New Media Age (Nevada University Press, 2010), Knowledge Communities (CBS Reno, 2011) and Autoridad Expandida, Naturaleza Común y saber profano (Universidad de Quilmes).

Randi Marselis (PhD) is an associate professor at Institute of Literature, Media and Cultural Studies, University of Southern Denmark. Her research interests are on ethnic relations and the media in multiethnic societies with special focus on Denmark and the Netherlands. The aim of her current research is to examine the role of the Web in the remediation of migration memories. This project is part of a collective project: Changing Borderlines: Mediatization and Cultural citizenship (2008-2011; supported by the Danish Council for Independent Research, Culture and Communication). She has for the past years been an active participant in the NordForsk-funded network on migration and media, MigraNord, and she will continue her collaboration with other Nordic researchers within this field through the newly established NordForsk-network TheoryNord.

Nico Carpentier is Senior Lecturer at the Social Sciences Department of the University of Loughborough and Associate Professor at the Communication Studies Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB – Free University of Brussels). He is also vice-president of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). His theoretical focus is on discourse theory, his research interests are situated in the relationship between media, journalism, politics and culture, especially towards social domains as war & conflict, ideology, participation and democracy. His most recent publications include the following books Discourse Theory and Cultural Analysis. Media, Arts and Literature (ed.)(2008); Democracy, journalism and technology (ed.)(2008), Communicative approaches to politics and ethics in Europe (ed.)(2009), Trans-reality television. The transgression of reality, genre, politics and audience (ed.)(2010) and Media and Participation. A Site of Ideological-Democratic Struggle (2011).

Edward Andersson is the Deputy Director of Involve, a UK based charity and think tank. He is an established expert on methods of participatory decision making. He set up peopleandparticipation.net – the UKs leading public engagement site, and has advised a number of organisations on public engagement strategies, including the Home Office, the European Commission, the OECD and numerous Local Authorities and Health Trusts. His research covers how to measure the business case for engagement, achieving efficiencies through engagement, and involving the public in developing new solutions to problems such as climate change.
He is a Professional Facilitator (Certified by the International Association of Facilitators), sits on the National Expert Panel on Local Governance for the Department for Communities and Local Government and is a board member of the international not-for profit e-Democracy.org. He is a guest lecturer at Birkbeck College at the University of London and has written thought pieces for WHO Europe and the OECD among others.

e.gov conference, Belfast

At the “Open.gov & e-participation” conference in Belfast on 22nd September I said a few off-the-cuff words about open data in Germany before presenting DEMOS-Plan, the spatial planning consultation software that we have developed together with the local authority in Hamburg.

I think it’s fair to say that the open data debate is not quite as far ahead in Germany as it is in the UK. Although there are good examples (MOGDy, Apps4Berlin, Berlin’s new open data portal, the Bremen open data recommendation) here of local authorities and third parties opening their data and demonstrating what they can do, the UK government’s commitment to opening data as demonstrated by data.gov.uk and its recent consultation on ‘Making Open Data Real‘ show that the debate has moved on from ‘whether’ to ‘how’.

However, I argued, based on experience of eParticipation more generally, when Germany does catch up it will commit to well thought-out solutions that are implemented sustainably. The examples I used were Hamburg’s social media guidelines — which I have previously mentioned on PEP-NET and which describe in detail how Hamburg handles social media — and our own DEMOS-Plan, which is fully integrated into Hamburg’s infrastructure, is ‘business as usual’ because it will from now on be used for all local plan consultations in Hamburg, and is backed up by a procedure that gives citizens and stakeholder organisations a legal right to participate in urban planning, both online and offline.

If things happen in a similar way, I think open data will take off in Germany and many of the same issues that the UK is wrestling with will apply: so it will be necessary to think about the costs of opening datasets and to decide on which ones have priority. How do you decide which datasets are worth the investment? Do you assume that businesses will be built on the data public bodies publish, or do you prescribe a specific purpose that data should be used for? The UK government is quite clear in its white paper that enabling service users to make a more informed choice about which providers they use is an important motivation.

One issue that I think will be get more attention in Germany than in the UK is data protection. You get a good idea of how jealously Germans guard their privacy if you have a look around a residential area with Google Street View — in some cases, so many houses are blurred out that it is pretty much useless. Or see the Unabhängiges Landeszentrum für Datenschutz Schleswig-Holstein’s (Data-protection Commission for the State of Schleswig-Holstein’s) decision that Facebook pages and ‘like’ buttons on third-party websites contravene data protection law and should be stopped with immediate effect. In this context, I find it difficult to foresee Germany adopting an ‘open by default’ policy with regards to data. The risk that personal data could slip through the net could be too high.

So I think the German public sector is working on these issues and when the strategy is nailed down, it will be embedded for the long term. In short, open data will at some point be business as usual, even if it Germany doesn’t do ‘open by default’.

This results in a test report, including actions and recommendations for product development enhancement generated by experts in eParticipation.  Software and services which meet a certain grade will be granted the use of a logo which can be used on all marketing materials as a sign of product confidence.

An announcement will be made on 29^th September regarding the first vendor to achieve successful accreditation during the annual TCI ‘Technologies for public engagement and consultation event’ (London).

For enquiries, please email Fraser.henderson@btinternet.com

Nikolaus gained inspiration for the idea when he took part in a European exchange programme in 2009, completing a secondment at Birmingham City Council. That is where I met him and where he learned about Birmingham News Room. Apart from anything, I think this is a nice bit of European best practice exchange, which can often be hard to quantify. It’s also nice to see Frankfurt getting something in return for the Christmas Market that they send to Birmingham ever winter!

John Heaven (JH): What is a Social Media Newsroom?

Nikolaus Münster (NM): Our Social Media Newsroom brings together all of our social media channels on one website. The user can view this site to see news about the city on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube and other media at a glance.

We have been using these means of communication for a while now. Since 2009 we have been on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. When we started we wanted to gain experience before actively publicising our social media presences. Now, social media are central to our communication strategy.

JH: What is the main aim of the Newsroom?

NM: The Newsroom representes an improvement in user experience. The most important point is that all channels are brought together on a single website, enabling users to get an overview of what is being put out by the city — whether on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube or other channels. This is more convenient for all users, not only those that aren’t Facebook or Twitter members.

JH: How does Frankfurt choose which tools to communicate with?

NM: Communications and PR always have to keep up with current developments in the way people communicate. Newspaper and email, for example, still play an important role. However, the channels that we currently use are simply the most important in terms of reaching large numbers of citizens. This may change in the future, so we keep an eye on new developments and must be open to trying new things. We are monitoring Google+, for example.

JH: Where did the idea for the Newsroom come from?

NM: It was Birmigham News Room that gave me the idea when I was in Birmingham. The idea of a social media newsroom was unheard of in Germany. At first it was difficult to describe the idea concretely and plausibly. However, following a conversation with a SAP-employee, we were able to define it more exactly. He advised on the technical realisation, which in our case is based on WordPress. I think it’s really important to have people in-house who have a thirst for innovation and who are able to put ideas into action.

JH: Is there a big difference between Frankfurt Social Media Newsroom and Birmingham News Room?

NM: The biggest difference is that we don’t have the Media Watch. That is something that we are looking into, because it would be nice to have all news relevant to the city displayed in a prominent place on the website, although our newsroom does display news from local newspapers.

JH: How do you keep track of social media use when any employee is able to set up a Twitter account of Facebook page? And how do you stop the resources required from spinning out of control?

NM: We tackle this problem with our social media guidelines, which state that only the Press Office is allowed to represent the city in an official capacity. But we have nothing against departments opening social media accounts for their particular target audience. That can make a lot of sense for services with specific audiences. Of course employees are free to use social media in a personal capacity.

Social media does require investment of extra resources, because it’s not just about broadcasting information over a different channel. Instead, you have to be prepared to innovate. This extra cost is hard to manage. We started using social media without investing extra resources, but soon we will have to think about taking on extra staff. On the one hand you have to make sure you don’t spend your whole time on social media, but if you choose to do so you have to take it seriously and actively look for opportunities to make use of them.

JH: Under what conditions would you advise other cities to open a social media newsroom?

NM: I would advise cities with established social media presences and audiences, and therefore experience with social media, to open a social media newsroom.

JH: Do social media offer advantages over conventional media – newspaper adverts, letters, flyers etc. – other than being inexpensive?

NM: Yes, of course. Social media can be very labour-intensive. You have to respond to critical comments that people may post about you because social media is all about dialogue. But we get lots of “Likes” and social media represent a very direct channel to our target audience. They are really good for our purposes.

JH: Do you know of any examples of innovative social media use by other directorates?

NM: Above all, museums and organisations with direct contact to the public. Examples that occur to me are: Städelmuseum, Kunsthalle Schirn, das Museum für Angewandte Kunst, das Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK).

JH: What did you learn during your time in Birmingham? Does Birmingham communicate differently from Frankfurt?

NM: Birmingham invests a lot more in communication than Frankfurt does. They make a big effort to make their communication easy to understand and even produce some brochures with pictures and single sentences for people that can’t read so well as well as pamphlets for disabled people telling them about dangers that they should be aware of. Producing these materials is a painstaking process because they are tested on the target groups before being published.

JH: Would you advise others to take part in a similar exchange programme?

NM: Yes, definitely. I learnt a lot from colleagues during my time in Birmingham. While I was there I wrote an article every week for the staff intranet in Frankfurt to share my experience. There was a lot of interest from colleagues, with the articles receiving up to 1,000 views each. I really would recommend taking part in such a programme.

JH: Nikolaus, many thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

This competition is very related to the e-Participation field, as Ashoka considers it as linked with the fields of “Citizen participation” and “Journalism”.

Ashoka and Google are seeking innovations that will allow global citizens to have a voice and the information they need to make change. The competition welcomes solutions that work with any communication or information technologies—not just the Internet. The contest is open to solutions around the world: you ara allowed to present you entry in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Thai, Indonesian, Mandarin or Japanese.

Some of the benefits mentioned for participants are:

• Connect to a global online community that supports the impact you are making, or seeking to make, on the ground.
• Gain visibility with our community and our competition partner, Google.
• Position yourself as a candidate for an Ashoka Fellowship within our News & Knowledge program.

The prizes of the competition are:

• One of four US $5,000 cash prizes in unrestricted funding to boost your project.
• Consideration for an Ashoka Fellowship—complete with a three-year living stipend, international recognition, and access to a network of systems-changing social entrepreneurs.

Have a look at the webpage of Ashoka Changemakers for more details.

PS: By the way, there is an entry for our Kyopol System. We would be more that pleased if you’d like to give us any feedback about our proposal.