Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Designing An Online Civic Engagement Platform: Balancing "More" Vs. "Better" Participation In Complex Public Policymaking, Cynthia Farina, Dmitry Epstein, Josiah Heidt, Mary Newhart

Cynthia R. Farina

A new form of online citizen participation in government decisionmaking has arisen in the United States (U.S.) under the Obama Administration. “Civic Participation 2.0” attempts to use Web 2.0 information and communication technologies to enable wider civic participation in government policymaking, based on three pillars of open government: transparency, participation, and collaboration. Thus far, the Administration has modeled Civic Participation 2.0 almost exclusively on a universalist/populist Web 2.0 philosophy of participation. In this model, content is created by users, who are enabled to shape the discussion and assess the value of contributions with little information or guidance from government decisionmakers. …