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Empowered Participation: How Citizens Use Technology in Local Governance

Authors:

Jennifer O. BurrellAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 2307 - 2319

https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025996

Published: 02 May 2017 Publication History

Abstract

The partnership between local residents and city officials to inform policy and decision-making about government resources, or participatory governance, has been extensively studied. In addition to numerous ethnographic studies about how citizens engage in-person, there has been increased focus in HCI to understand the impact of technology on citizen participation in local governance. Building upon those studies, this paper provides unique insight from a 3-year longitudinal study on the use of online tools that were organically adapted by citizens to engage in local governance in three diverse Chicago neighborhoods. Though the responsiveness of government officials varied across communities, our results suggest that citizens use technology to heighten the visibility of their concerns, to support mechanisms of government accountability, and to provide various options for resident participation in local governance. We argue that while communities may be effective in their use of ICTs, technology may not increase their political power.

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Index Terms

Empowered Participation: How Citizens Use Technology in Local Governance
1. Human-centered computing

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '17: Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

May 2017

7138 pages

ISBN:9781450346559

DOI:10.1145/3025453

General Chairs:
Gloria Mark
University of California Irvine
,
Susan Fussell
Cornell University
,
Program Chairs:
Cliff Lampe
University of Michigan
,
m.c. schraefel
University of Southampton
,
Juan Pablo Hourcade
University of Iowa
,
Caroline Appert
Université Paris-Sud
,
Daniel Wigdor
University of Toronto

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Published: 02 May 2017

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3687058
Choi APfohl GD'Ignazio CFoucault Welles BParker A(2024)Entangled Amid Misaligned Seams: Limitations to Technology-Mediated Care for Repairing Infrastructural Breakdowns in a Youth Empowerment ProgramProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36868968:CSCW2(1-33)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686896
Chordia IKim JLiu ZPark HGarrett LErete SLe Dantec CYip JHiniker A(2024)Tuning into the World: Designing Community Safety Technologies to Reduce Dysfunctional Fear of CrimeProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661578(3097-3116)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643834.3661578
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