Wikicité looks at how social media shape policy
Consultant says going digital offers fast access to quality information
How are social media affecting citizen participation in the digital age?
Is the Internet giving Montrealers a greater voice in decision-making, or accentuating the digital divide between people with access to communication technologies and those without?
About 300 people addressed those questions Friday at Wikicité, a public forum held at the Montreal Science Centre in the Old Port. The event was organized by the Office de consultation publique de Montréal ( OCPM) and brought together representatives of government, universities, the private sector and community groups.
Digital leaders like Frank Escoubès of Montreal-based Imagination for People (www.imaginationforpeople.org) and Carl Skelton of New York’s Gotham Innovation Greenhouse (gothaminnovationgreenhouse.com) described how new technology is being harnessed to empower citizens to shape public policy.
The Gazette asked OCPM Secretary General Luc Doray why the consultation agency organized the event: Doray: For the past two or three years, we’ve realized that citizen participation through the Web and social media like Facebook is increasing dramatically. For example, we’ve gone from 500 to 4,800 Facebook likes in less than two years. It’s an explosion.
Basically, social and digital media pose a number of questions for which we didn’t have answers. So we said if we don’t have the answer, let’s bring together people with similar interests and concerns to ours, so together we can find answers to these complex questions. Q: What questions does the growing popularity of social media raise? Doray: Are we losing control over the debate? Because basically, on Twitter, people are having a debate between themselves.
I remember when we held consultations on Griffintown in January 2012. There was a meeting with maybe 300 people in the room, some of whom were tweeting.
So within the meeting that was going on, they were having a second discussion. It was interesting, but at the same time it was beyond our control. It was a parallel debate. Q: What challenges lie ahead for public consultations in the digital age? Doray: One, for example, is how do we ensure that digital and social media do not diminish the quality of public consultations?
Social networks are often a culture of instantaneity. On Twitter, you express your opinion in 140 characters, bing bang.
Whereas in public consultations, we have a culture of working with well thoughtout, written briefs. So the challenge is to ensure digital media don’t alter the quality of the consultations.
The second challenge is that if you go digital, are you creating a digital divide between people who are adept with social media on one side and people on the other side who lack the skills or the means, for example people on low incomes and the elderly. So one challenge is to not go completely digital because a portion of the population will be left out. Q: What are the benefits of digital media for public consultation? Doray: One of the advantages is that digital media have given citizens access to much more information, much faster. Over the years, we’ve seen a huge improvement in the quality of briefs that people submit to consultations, because information is more easily available. Now you can find everything on the Web. Q: Who is attending this forum? Doray: It seemed to us that the questions we’re asking, other people must be asking as well. So we decided to bring together people who are grappling with the same issues we’re dealing with. There are also people with answers, because there are specialists who have developed software and methodologies. Those are on display here because we also have a small exhibition.
There are people from the city, from the federal and provincial governments, academics, people from the private sector and community groups. This interview has been translated and condensed.