Download presentation
Presentation is loading. Please wait.
Published byMelvin Sones Modified over 10 years ago
1
Engaging Citizens and Building Social Capital: The Exceptional Civic Story of Portland Oregon and the Role of Information Technology. Steve Johnson, Ph.D. Portland State University Portland, Oregon USA
2
Background Experiments with online communications early 1970s Social network project on Arpanet, 1978- First NGO computer technical assistance network, late 1980s
3
Where is Portland Oregon? Portland Oregon Metropolitan population: 1.5 million State of Oregon: 3.5 million 98,000 square miles
10
Trends of Civic Engagement in America
11
www.BowlingAlone.com
12
What is social capital? If physical capital is wholly tangible, being embodied in observable material form, and human capital is less tangible, being embodied in the skills and knowledge acquired by an individual, social capital is less tangible yet, for it exists in the relations among persons. Example, a park that is safe in a neighborhood vs. having to secure it with police
13
Civic engagement and Trust A society characterized by generalized reciprocity is more efficient than a distrustful society Frequent interaction among a diverse set of people tends to produce a norm of generalized reciprocity. Civic engagement and social capital entail mutual obligation and responsibility for action.
14
AVERAGE MEMBERSHIP RATE IN 32 NATIONAL CHAPTER-BASED VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS 1900-1997 Mean membership rate for the 20th century
15
ATTENDANCE AT PUBLIC MEETINGS ON LOCAL AFFAIRS COLLAPSES
16
FAMILY DINNERS BECOME LESS COMMON 1977-1999 “ Our whole family usually eats dinner together.” (married respondents only)
17
FOUR DECADES OF DWINDLING TRUST-ADULTS AND TEENAGERS 1960-1999 Percent Who say “most people can be trusted” instead of you can’t be too careful in dealing with people.”
18
Putnam’s Assessment of social capital and civic engagement decline
19
Character of Today’s Civic Participation The more that activities depend on the actions of others, the greater the drop-off in participation. Cooperative forms of behavior have declined more rapidly than expressive forms of behavior (e.g. letter writing) More citizens participate through issue focused groups, extreme views are overly represented
20
The Exceptional Civic Life of Portland, Oregon
22
Photo courtesy of Portland Oregon Visitors Association
23
Depth of Citizen Participation in Portland and Oregon 3000 civic organizations 1 out of 15 people significantly involved in civic life Current neighborhood system, 60 paid staff, 600+ volunteer positions with neighborhood associations
24
Honors Best Bicycling city (Bicycling magazine) Best Walking City (Prevention magazine) Most Sustainable Policies (SustainLane) Most Vegan Friendly (Vegetarian magazine) Most Enlightened (Utne Reader) Best city for dogs (Dog Fancy magazine) Most woman-owned businesses (SBA) Second best city for disabled citizens One of the most attractive for young creatives (Rise of Creative Class)
25
The Health of a Civic Infrastructure
26
Elements of a Healthy Civic Infrastructure Opportunity Effective actions Civic Space Global & Local Facilitative leadership Deliberative Democratic dialogue Sustainable civic story These Audiences Young Elder New comers Disadvantaged Challenging groups Diverse population
27
Wisdom of Crowds
28
Difficult choice facing American democracy predicted by De Tocqueville Many social and environmental problems can’t be solved without participation (chart) Government becomes facilitator of community problem solving Citizens need new civic skills and knowledge to be effective citizens The example of naming a candy bar
29
Hardware and Software Solutions
30
Civic Engagement and the Internet
31
Overview of Internet Use
32
Internet and Broadband 1996--2006
33
Internet Users X X X X
34
Growth of use of Internet by NGOs
35
Access to Political Information and Public Affairs
36
Americans Getting More News Online
37
News: the double edged sword Internet features such as customization can narrow the information obtained online. Latest surveys show that more people now only access standard news sources, just online now.
38
E Government
39
E Government--Use Profile 97 million or 77% of internet users have gone online to search for government information and to communicate with them. More Americans contact government by telephone but the WWW is the second most popular means Internet users accessing government information online are more successful in achieving their purpose (65% to 53% margin)
40
Digital Divides
41
Most Important Digital Divides--in terms of civic engagement Age. Highest along young, lowest among older Americans Educational Attainment. High among college graduates, low without high school diplomas Income. Highest use with households with $75,000 or more Disability Status—low with people with disabilities Language Preference—low among people with language other than English Race and ethnicity—Highest among Whites and Asian-Americans, lower among African Americans Community type—Highest in urban and suburban areas, lowest in rural areas
42
Digital Divide: Education X X
43
Civic Engagement Gap Internet does not appear to be increasing youth involved in civic life The youngest and least educated remain the least involved Older and well education the most involved
44
Local Places and Non-Local Places
45
Putnam on Importance of Place “Technologies like the Internet mean that our connections with people around the country and around the world are getting closer, while our ties to our neighbors across the street are weakening.” (Putnam)
46
Loss of Local Citizens access more national but not local news online Some evidence suggests long distance social networks strengthened at expense of local social networks Blogs, likewise tend to be about general news and information not local
47
Public Space and Deliberative Democracy
48
Public or Civic Space Habermas linked the birth of the modern liberal democracy during the 18th century to the emergence of public spaces, such as coffeehouses, clubs, salons, societies, and voluntary associations, and the press where the public can organize itself as the bearer of public opinion. He also noted the current trend to privatize public space which undermines the role of civic space.
49
Deliberative Democracy The internet prompts more knee-jerk reactions than deliberative responses (Stephen Bates, Annenberg) And when there is more interesting discourse, you can tell it's people who just love to hear the sound of their own voices. They're not really listening to other people. It gives people a way to respond instantly and often angrily and aggressively without taking the time to mull something over.
50
The Blog World 30% (50 million) of all American Internet users visited a Blog site in first quarter of 2005 8% (12 million) adult users of the Internet have a blog 54% of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations More than half (54%) of bloggers are under the age of 30. bloggers are less likely to be white than the general internet population.
51
Conclusion
52
Social and Political Characteristics of Online World--organizations Organizational membership may be loose, drive by, quick to form and quick to dissolve Increase in intra-organizational communication Local groups can have more national and global ties and perspective Social networks displacing traditional group membership, “networked individuals” Strengthening affinity groups at expense of cross-differences
53
Social and Political characteristics-- Individual May increase expressive forms of citizen participation Individual actions may have more power Fosters weak ties at a distance Citizens may retreat to comfort zones Community moves in doors may be hard to detect
54
Broadband Growth
55
Crowds of Wisdom Software Wikipedia RSS feeds Del.icio.us Facebook Podcasts Youtube Bit Torrent Flickr Digg FlashofBrilliance.net
56
It’s a “Long Tail” world – Chris Anderson notion Traffic Content 20%-40% of traffic or sales in the “long tail”
57
NGOs and the Long Tail The increasing willingness of individuals to make online transactions plus the significantly lower transaction costs of online giving has flipped this longstanding rule on its head. As a result, organizations and campaigns are experiencing an increase in the number of smaller contributions. For example, Dean for America raised more money than any Democratic presidential primary campaign in history, all with donations averaging less than $100 each.
58
Civic Democracy--Innovations Democracy Portal--Seattle Open Politics, Canada Moveon.com Popandpolitics.com and Rock the Vote Meetup.com http://dowire.org/ http://dowire.org/ Democracies online Blog http://dowire.org/ Advokit
59
ChangeEverything Sponsored by large credit union/bank in Canada People list their social and environmental goals Others share theirs, support groups form to help individuals meet their goals
60
Civic Engagement and Internet Scorecard
61
EXTRA SLIDES
62
The Digital Natives
63
NPO Computing General support, http://www.501c3cast.com/# http://www.501c3cast.com/# PACE, Philanthropy for new style of NPO E-Volve Foundation, support for online civic engagement Craig’s List Bay Area Boot Camp Community Technology Center’s Network http://www.ctcnet.org/ http://www.ctcnet.org/
64
What to Do in the Civil Society Sector Design connective strategies Push power to the edges Meet them where they are Learn from and with the grassroots Membership alone is not enough Need for organizational flexibility (like Dell Computer) Develop New sets of civic skills Take advantage of spontaneous intelligent mobs
65
Civic Engagement: Definition Civic engagement refers to activities by which people participate in civic, community and political life and by doing so express their commitment to community Such activities include volunteering, voting, community organizing, political advocacy
66
What Information Citizens Access
Similar presentations
© 2025 SlidePlayer.com Inc.
All rights reserved.