Towards a multi-actor theory of public value co-creation

This essay suggests changes to the theory of public value and, in particular, the strategic triangle framework, in order to adapt it to an emerging world where policy makers and managers in the public, private, voluntary and informal community sectors have to somehow separately and jointly create public value. One set of possible changes concerns what might be in the centre of the strategic triangle besides the public manager. Additional suggestions are made concerning how multiple actors, levels, arenas and/or spheres of action, and logics might be accommodated. Finally, possibilities are outlined for how the strategic triangle might be adapted to complex policy fields in which there are multiple, often conflicting organizations, interests and agendas. In other words, how might politics be more explicitly accommodated. The essay concludes with a number of research suggestions

Emotions and Digital Well-being. The rationalistic bias of social media design in online deliberations

In this chapter we argue that emotions are mediated in an incomplete way in online social media because of the heavy reliance on textual messages which fosters a rationalistic bias and an inclination towards less nuanced emotional expressions. This incompleteness can happen either by obscuring emotions, showing less than the original intensity, misinterpreting emotions, or eliciting emotions without feedback and context. Online interactions and deliberations tend to contribute rather than overcome stalemates and informational bubbles, partially due to prevalence of anti-social emotions. It is tempting to see emotions as being the cause of the problem of online verbal aggression and bullying. However, we argue that social media are actually designed in a predominantly rationalistic way, because of the reliance on text-based communication, thereby filtering out social emotions and leaving space for easily expressed antisocial emotions. Based on research on emotions that sees these as key ingredients to moral interaction and deliberation, as well as on research on text-based versus non-verbal communication, we propose a richer understanding of emotions, requiring different designs of online deliberation platforms. We propose that such designs should move from text-centred designs and should find ways to incorporate the complete expression of the full range of human emotions so that these can play a constructive role in online deliberations

(Re)Design to Mitigate Political Polarization : Reflecting Habermas' ideal communication space in the United States of America and Finland

Social Media platforms are increasingly being used for political activities and communication, and research suggests that social media design and use is contributing to the polarization of the public sphere. This study draws on Habermas' ideals concerning deliberative democracy to explore if novel interface designs that diversify information sources through content recommendation, can decrease polarization. Through a design-probe interview approach and insights generated from 19 political and citizen experts in Finland and the United States, we found that our deliberative design can lead to depolarization, while creating additional complexity through which users question content and information. We discuss the need to move beyond naive content recommendation, and user interface level changes, in order to work towards a depolarized public sphere.Peer reviewe

Design Principles for Online Platforms Fostering Deliberative Political Discourse

The design choices behind participatory platforms, intended to facilitate interaction between citizens and government representatives, frequently undermine the potential for genuine democratic deliberation. This article presents a set of six success criteria for publicly owned online participatory platforms designed to facilitate the process of deliberation: political privacy, discursive diversity, reciprocity, reflexivity, availability of information, and perceived impact. In addition, 12 design principles that support these success criteria are formulated, whose use might increase the effective implementation and take-up of online participatory platforms fostering democratic deliberation

New Approaches to Urban Planning - Insights from Participatory Communities

The new approaches to urban planning, such as participatory time and e-planning, comprise methods that allow us to analyse, develop, implement and monitor physical, functional and participatory structures at the neighbourhood level and beyond. They enable models of planning that may bring about an architecture of opportunities. This means the building of a supportive infrastructure of everyday life that encourages citizens to participate not only in formal decision-making, but actually in the co-design and co-production of their own local environment, on the basis of daily and future activities, at different scales

An Impossible object? Ecological Democracy after the Anthropocene

El paper se pregunta en qué medida la democracia -o sea, una democracia ecológica- puede ocuparse del Antropoceno, la nueva era geológica que describe una masiva penetración humana en los sistemas naturales.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Andalucía Tec

Constructing Digital Democracies: Facebook, Arendt, and the Politics of Design

Deliberative democracy requires both equality and difference, with structures that organize a cohesive public while still accommodating the unique perspectives of each participant. While institutions like laws and norms can help to provide this balance, the built environment also plays a role supporting democratic politics—both on- and off-line. In this article, I use the work of Hannah Arendt to articulate two characteristics the built environment needs to support democratic politics: it must (1) serves as a common world, drawing users together and emphasizing their common interests and must also (2) preserve spaces of appearance, accommodating diverse perspectives and inviting disagreement. I, then, turn to the example of Facebook to show how these characteristics can be used as criteria for evaluating how well a particular digital platform supports democratic politics and providing alternative mechanisms these sites might use to fulfill their role as a public realm

Identity Work of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders on Reddit: Traversals of Deliberation, Moderation, and Decolonization

Marginalized groups experience issues in managing their identities for a variety of reasons, and online spaces afford them the opportunity to make sense of and revise their intersectional identities. One such group is Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs), who are at the receiving end of stereotypes that often manifest in inaccurate public perceptions. The dissertation consists of three empirical studies that disentangle how AAPIs construct and express their identity in online communities within Reddit. The first study examines how users engage in an online community through a deliberation lens to understand the extent to which Reddit supports identity work as a deliberative process. Through a content analysis of 4,406 Reddit comments collected during the 2016 US Presidential Election, I discuss how the expression of identity, and thereby solidarity, in a politicized online setting may lead to a social movement. The second study uncovers how moderators on Reddit shape the norms of their subreddit through the analytic lens of emotional labor. I conduct interviews with 21 moderators who facilitate identity work discourse in AAPI subreddits, present a thematic analysis of their moderation practices, offer recommendations for improving moderation in online communities centered around identity work, and discuss implications of emotional labor in the design of Reddit and similar platforms. The third study examines marginalization through the analytic framework of decolonization, uncovering the threats and tactics that AAPI redditors encounter and employ to decolonize their collective identity. I find that moderators of AAPI subreddits develop collective resilience within their online communities by reclaiming space to confront brigade invasion, recording collective memory to circumvent systemic erasure, and revising cultural narratives to deconstruct colonial mentality. I discuss how algorithmic configurations within sociotechnical systems reaffirm existing hegemonic values and describe ways in which redditors may work toward resistance. These three studies are woven together to uncover ways in which AAPIs negotiate collective action in the context of online identity work