The Deliberative Democracy Consortium

The big picture: Two impacts of the Internet 1.Empowering individual citizens (web, – wrapped up in other changes) 2.Empowering citizen groups (Facebook, Twitter, other social media)

First impact: How have citizens* changed?  More educated  More skeptical – different attitudes toward authority  Have less time to spare  Better able to find resources, allies * “citizens” = residents, people

First impact led to greater public engagement – success factors:  Proactive about recruitment  Bringing diverse perspectives together  Sharing experiences  Giving people chance to make up their own minds (deliberative)  Different levels of action: volunteers, teams, organizations, policy decisions  Increasing use of online tools

Second impact allows for new forms of engagement  More sustained  Larger, more diverse numbers of people  Easier for ‘engagers’ – recruitment doesn’t have to start from scratch  More open to ideas from the ‘engaged’  Need joint planning for engagement infrastructure – not just tools

What is not changing  Need for face-to-face relationships  Need for government and other institutions (!)

Digital divides (plural)  Overall, Internet access growing  “Access” – to Internet, to government – has never been enough  Different people use different hardware  Different people go to different places on the Internet  Communities just as complex online as off – recruitment must be proactive

Common mistakes  Treating Internet as a one-way medium  Not enough recruitment  Transparency without proactive engagement  Gathering ideas doesn’t mean you can implement them

Challenges for potential engagers  Not enough money or staff time  Uncertain legal frameworks  Engage people in new discussions/ activities vs. go where they are already engaged (top-down vs. bottom-up)

Need more sustained, holistic forms of engagement: regular, structured, enjoyable opportunities that enable people to:  Connect with other people (particularly people who are different from themselves)  Feel like they belong to a community that values their voices and contributions  Bring their concerns and priorities to the table (they help shape the agenda)  Participate in governance (they have a say/hand in decision-making and problem- solving)

Ways forward  Recruiting proactively (map networks, think about divides)  Mixing online and face-to-face  Allowing both ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom- up’  Planning jointly  Developing online spaces jointly