Latin American study about digital democracy. El Seminario/Taller que tiene como objetivo completar y cerrar el estudio comparativo de experiencias exitosas en América Latina y el Caribe sobre e – Democracia y promover el intercambio de buenas prácticas, el análisis y la documentación en torno a cómo consolidar la “democracia electrónica” en la región.

1. Networks for Citizen Consultation and Citizen Sourcing
of Expertise: Exploring Innovations in the Public Sector
Cristobal Cobo, Ph.D
Research Fellow 1
Oxford Internet Institute
University of Oxford

2. Continuous socio-
technical process:
community
engagement.
demand
Information supply
Electronic Government Cicles (adapted from Caldas, 2008) Yang and Zhiyong Lan (2010) 2

3. G2C
3

4. Can the new technology
make a positive difference? ✔
(+) Yang and Zhiyong Lan (2010): Internet has
reduced the disparity in resources between policy
experts and citizens.
(+)Castells (2011): Internet facilitates changes in all
aspects of life, society, the economy and culture
(‘Arab spring’).
(+) Brabham (2009): ICTs enable deeper levels of
engagement between people and governments.
Crowdsourcing : New methods for connecting
collective intellect and creative solutions from
networks of citizens. 4

5. ✗
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/jun/06/social-media-documentary-makers
Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images
(-) Alexander and Pal (1998): Information availability is different from
information utilisation.
(-) Van Dijk (2010): ICT does not cause more political and societal
interest among citizens.
(-) Yang and Zhiyong Lan (2010): Avoiding techno-reductionism. The
Internet can improve democratic public policy making but those
changes depend on education, institution building, culture and trust
relationship formation.
(-) Hardy, Lawrence and Grant (2005): Avoiding oversimplifications.
Many collaborations fail to produce innovative solutions. 5

6. atlas.ch
developer.mozilla.org
The Performance of Distributed
Problem Solving Networks:
+ peer production
+ social production
+ co-production sciencecommons.org innocentive.com
+ co-creation
+ mass collaboration
OII and McKinsey Technology Initiative (MTI).
Dutton, William H., Paul A. David, and Wolf
Richter. (2008). sermo.com digg.com
‘wisdom of crowds’ – the idea that ‘the many
are smarter than the few’ (Surowiecki), where
a large number of ordinary people can
outperform a few experts by sharing
information and solving problems.
wikipedia.org seriosity.com
(e.g. see Surowiecki 2004;
Benkler 2006; Tapscott aswarmofangels.com
and Williams 2006).
6
Source: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/?id=45

7. Management depends on Type of CNO
1.0 Sharing 2.0 Contributing 3.0 Collaborating
Architecture One to many Many to many Many to one
Openness Open, Low Managing access Tiering,
and Control Control management
control structures
IPR Information Platform Co-created
shared product
Performance Viewers Quantity of Engaging
Contributors targeted experts,
producers
1.0 sharing documents, data, and other digital objects. Hypertextual/
2.0 supporting contributions to (limited) collaboration. Hypertextual/ UGC
3.0 supporting cooperative co creation. Hypertextual/ UGC /Cooperative Work
7
William Dutton. Capturing the Value of Networked Individuals: Strategies for Citizen Sourcing. University of Oxford. Presentation to ‘NETworked
Organizations’, organized by SINTEF, at Kanonhallen, Oslo, Norway, 10 November 2010

8. Aims of this study :
1. To explore relevant EU website from public
sector to identify if they facilitate the creation of
networks for citizen consultation.
2. Identify the level of participation (1º Sharing; 2.º
Contributing & 3.º Co-creating of knowledge).
-> Architecture, Openness, Control, Modularization
• Governments strategies to foster online –’many-to-
many’ communication.
• Online mechanisms to incorporate crowdsourcing
and ‘distributed problem solving’.
8

9. Matrix of Collaboration
Levels of Architecture Value Openness Value Control Value Modularization Value Total
collaboration Value
“1.0. Sharing”: Here Focus on open 1 Enables access 1 The control of 1 Contributors have 1 3
the information can sharing of to information individual's limited level of
be shared, sold, or documents (one through deep participation is intervention in
advertised. to many) searching low or limited contents (low)
(Hypertextual) (open) (low)
“2.0. Contributing”: Enables user- 2 It allows sharing 2 The platform's 2 Modularization 2 6
The Web to facilitate generated insights, management is keeps the task at a
group content (many- information and based in the manageable level
communication, to-many). opinions. levels of (moderate, simple
thereby reshaping (networked) participation task).
who contributes (moderate,
information to the reputation).
collective group
(Hypertextual- User
Generated)
“3.0. Co-creating”: It Allows 3 Creates a 3 Hierarchical 3 Keeping tasks 3 9
allows attracting collaborative hierarchy of levels of modular, precise and
and sustaining production of rights and control over easy to complete
relevant information privileges who and how (high).
contributors or co- products (many- (managed). participates
creation to the to-many). (high).
creation of
information
products or services.
(Hypertextual- User
Generated –
Cooperative Work) 9

10. www.epractice.eu/awards
The boom in social media networks
2011-2015 European Action Plan
A more open (pro-active) model of design,
produce and deliver online services that foster
collaboration between citizens.
From 31 countries, 52 cases have been
shortlisted as finalists.
eGovernment:
• Supporting the single Market;
• Empowering citizens;
• Empowering businesses;
• Enabling administrative efficiency & effectiveness.
sample: the non-biased nature of this list gives us objective criteria for inclusion 10

11. Results
Number of Websites
Average of the total
Social Media Tool that include
websites of the study
“social media tools”
Twitter 8 16.3
Facebook 6 12.2
Youtube 4 8.2
Flickr 4 8.2
Linkedin 1 2
11 11

12. Classification + Ranking tinyurl.com/EUwebsites
[e-Catalunya] # 12
ecatalunya.gencat.net (Spain)
[PloneGov] # 12
Best Practices
plonegov.org (Belgium)
Participa Andalucía # 10
participaenandalucia.net
(Spain)
[Interoperability Infrastructure
for Serv. Transf.] # 10
ermis.gov.gr (Greece)
+Thematic citizens [Participatory Budgeting –Cologne] # 9
dialogue. buergerhaushalt.stadt-koeln.de
+Open Source
+ Self organized (Germany)
Community. + Citizens: propose,
communities.
+Facilitate the exchange and + Citizens suggest &
+ No external social transfer of citizen promote ideas. + Participatory
discuss ideas.
media tools. knowledge. budget (environment
+ Direct +Anonymity or & educ.)
+ Variety of + Ecosystem of interaction with authentication. + First 100 ideas >
participation tools. meta- + Promote the
local authorities. studied by local
+ Self developed collaboration + Linked to FB & T submission of ideas.
mechanism of admin. ( Cologne
to disseminate City council).
transactions. citizen ideas.
+ Crowdsourcing
(vote for the ideas)
12

13. C2G
13

14. 14
http://www.slideshare.net/oso/participatory-democracy-participatory-media

15. This map is taken from the following publication: "Graham, M., Hale, S. A. and Stephens, M. (2011)
Geographies of the World's Knowledge. London, Convoco! Edition."
15

16. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/8638292/Amazing-maps-show-Twitter-and-Flickr-activity-around-the-world.html?image=18
demanda
Orange dots = Flickr photos; blue = tweets; white dots = both
16
Picture: Eric Fischer

17. Apple pulls WikiLeaks app from the App Store
http://www.tuaw.com/2010/12/21/apple-pulls-wikileaks-app-from-the-app-store/
demanda
17

18. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/how-egypt-or-how-your-government-could-shut-down-the-internet.ars
http://thefifthwave.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/egyptwebshutdown.jpg
18

19. 19

20. Power to People
20

21. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/8638292/Amazing-maps-show-Twitter-and-Flickr-activity-around-the-world.html?image=18
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14493497
“Under social media,
Mr Cameron includes
Facebook, Twitter and
specific technologies such
as text messaging”.
Between 6 and 10 August 2011
Prime Minister
David Cameron
“We are making technology work
for us, by capturing the images of
London: The centre of the city. Twitter activity and the perpetrators on CCTV – so
photographies. even if they haven’t yet been
Orange dots = Flickr photos; blue = tweets;
arrested, their faces are known
white dots = both
Picture: Eric Fische and they will not escape the law”.
21
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/print/2011/09/the-middle-eastern-nation-most-vulnerable-to-internet-shutdown/244507/
http://www. number10.gov.uk/news/pm-statement-on-disorder-in-england/

22. http://www.flickr.com/photos/metropolitanpolice/sets/72157628402525369/?page=2
These images have been
released as part of the
Metropolitan Police Winter
Withern Campaign. Police
are seeking assistance in
identifying the following
individuals.
If anyone recognises an
individual please contact the
telephone number below the
image or call Crimestoppers
quoting the unique reference
code.
22

23. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/who-are-the-commons-moles-changing-wikipedia-entries-7545991.html
“MPs and staff working in the
House of Commons have been
responsible for making nearly
10,000 changes to pages of
the online encyclopaedia
Wikipedia”.
Trust? http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/07/putin-hacked-emails-russian-nashi?newsfeed=true
23

24. open data
visualization
24

25. http://www.socrata.com/opendata/open-data-its-more-than-publishing-a-csv/
demand/supply
25

26. 93,6 M. CLP
121m GBP
http://www.gobiernotransparentechile.cl/directorio/entidad/11/156/per_planta/A%C3%B1o%202012
open data
Instituto Federal de Acceso a la Información 26
Pública y Protección de Datos (IFAI)

27. http://reference.data.gov.uk/gov-structure/organogram/?dept=justice&post=1
146,9M CLP
184m GBP
open data
27

28. http://data.gov.uk/
Use the UK Police API
to retrieve
information about
neighborhood areas.
* View the crime stats
open data
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/crime-spy-uk/id420241073?mt=8 28

29. Open Data/visualization
29

30. US Federal Communications Commission: US communications objects
density (cellular tower density , TV digital towers by state).
http://www.gearthblog.com/images/images606/communicationsdensity.jpg

31. http://spatialanalysis.co.uk/2011/12/2011/
http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2011/8/18/the-power-of-data-visualization-iphone-tracking.html 31

32. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/stats-of-the-union/id432948008?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 32

33. Compare presidents approval/disapproval ratings in their
first 1000 days in office using Gallup Poll data.
http://visual.ly/us-presidents-job-approval-ratings?view=true 33

34. Appropriate conditions: The right social media tools; social
capital; digital literacy & trust >
conditions to supports public participation (crowdsourcing).
34
http://www.slideshare.net/missrogue/citizen-superheroesand-other-tales-of-government-20

35. 6 Conclusions
1. Rhetoric about participation is constantly present in the public
policies (G2C).
2. EU public websites: limited channels of
interaction/communication.
3. The C2G mechanisms of expression are dynamically
organized (beyond government based tools).
4. Instead of referring to the so-called “participation”, is
important to understand they vary according different levels
(Architecture, Openness, Control, Modularization).
5. Social media tools by no mean are synonymous of citizen
participation or transparency.
6. Further research are required to identify the causes of the low
levels of participation (political interest, digitally savvy, lack of
knowledge, etc.) and the direct benefits (awareness).
35

36. thanks!
Cristobal Cobo, Ph.D
Research Fellow
Oxford Internet Institute
University of Oxford
@cristobalcobo
Acknowledgments: This study was supported through the Knetworks project
(Knowledge Dissemination Network for the Atlantic Area
www.knetworks.gov.pt) and prepared in collaboration with the Socio-Economic
Services for European Research Project (SESERV www.seserv.eu).
36