The participation process is influenced by many forces and trends, such as: economic impacts and the speed of social change, diminishing resources and the overall effects of suburbanization, shift in values, impacts of information technology.
The impacts of technology are a particularly interesting means of participation and fairly untested ground with many surprises.
The traditional newspaper used to be the public’s main source of information and a forum for discussion. Letters sent in from individual readers and a variety of columnists and editors who held forth on various public topics of interest were ardently followed by the general population. Our process of interaction with each other has not changed in its essentials, merely in the medium and its drastically improved efficiency.
As we are all experiencing information overload, are we turning into data addicts? Watching the news is not enough these days; we are frantically reading the bottom of the screen with not one but two or three information-spitting lines. We are tied to our mobile devices wherever we go and we are checking the facts on the internet while having a casual conversation with our peers. The era of the newspaper is coming to an end, not just because it’s production is costly and has increasingly serious environmental consequences, but mostly because it’s providing us with a restricted amount of news at a time, it is not driven by our preferences, it gives us sections we don’t want to know about, doesn’t allow for interactive chat with 10 of our friends, doesn’t play the music we like in the background and it is definitely not as sexy as an ipad…
The new technology platforms seam obviously beneficial for the participation process: it allows for information to reach more people more quickly, allows for more people to provide feedback, allows for routinely uploaded relevant content, etc. Although many web users still remain passive, social networking presents us with an opportunity to communicate the types of relevant opinions that can shape public view and impact political decision making. Its quick and powerful transmission to a mass, global audience should not be underestimated. This ease of information exchange is appealing for many reasons. But can this platform be used to successfully fully engage the public in the way comparable to face-to-face contact? This debate raises the question: where are the planners in this process?
