PhD

dissertationAs an application of deliberative democratic theory in practice, traditional public participation programs in urban planning seek to cultivate citizen input and produce public decisions agreeable to all stakeholders. However, the deliberative democratic ideals of these traditional public participation programs, consisting of town hall meetings, hearings, workshops, and design charrettes, are often stymied by interpersonal dynamics, special interest groups, and an absence of key stakeholder demographics due to logistical issues of meetings or lack of interest and awareness. This dissertation project proposes crowdsourcing as an online public participation alternative that may ameliorate some of the hindrances of traditional public participation methods

Designerly Ways of Knowing Internet Research: A Case for Critical Media Design

This essay presents a case for critical media design, a methodological framework for approaching Internet studies research that blends the investments of critical theory, the practice of applied, grounded research, and a design-driven way of conceiving of problem solving in practical ways

HOW CROWDFUNDING DISCOURSE THREATENS PUBLIC ARTS

Crowdfunding platforms, such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, have been the focus of considerable popular press news coverage in the past few years, with stories emphasizing how crowdfunding can bring indie creative projects into being through monetary contributions from several individuals online. As a method for financing small or risky artistic products unlikely to receive mainstream corporate or government support, crowdfunding has been celebrated in press coverage for “democratizing” the arts funding process. However, these same celebratory claims about crowdfunding giving everyday people a voice in bringing art into fruition eerily echo arguments in the U.S. by conservative and Tea Party groups to de-fund public arts programs. The very language crowdfunding proponents use may well fuel politicians hoping to unravel public arts funding. This paper presents a critical discourse analysis of news coverage about crowdfunding, analyzing the similarities between pro-crowdfunding sentiments and anti-public arts funding advocates to warn against the possibility of a future void of public funding for the arts because of uncritical popular embrace of an Internet trend

Studying Normal, Everyday Social Media

Social media research has tended to focus on stand-out cases and has made use of big data methods to make claims about human experience and sociality. This commentary urges researchers to consider the everyday, normal experiences of most social media users, to consider the place of social media in a broader social context, and to consider marrying big data approaches with interviews and surveys of users

The effectiveness of crowdsourcing public participation in a planning context

Governments increasingly turn to the Internet to facilitate public participation activities, part of a recent push toward transparency, accountability, and citizen involvement in decision-making. These activities take many forms, and one specific form, the crowdsourcing model, is examined here for its effectiveness as a public participation method. In 2009, the Next Stop Design project was launched to test the crowdsourcing model in an online public participation experiment for bus stop shelter design. Drawing on the ideals of online democratic deliberation, 23 Next Stop Design participants were interviewed via instant messenger for their perceptions of the project as an effective public participation activity. Findings suggest that crowdsourcing is a promising online public participation method that may complement off–line methods

Moving the crowd at iStockphoto: The composition of the crowd and motivations for participation in a crowdsourcing application

Crowdsourcing is an online, distributed problem solving and production model already in use by for-profit organizations such as Threadless, iStockphoto, and InnoCentive. Speculation in Weblogs and wisdom of crowds theory assumes a diverse crowd engaged in crowdsourcing labor. Furthermore, and as crowdsourcing is in some ways similar to open source software production, prior research suggests that individuals in the crowd likely participate in crowdsourcing ventures to gain peer recognition and to develop creative skills. The present study tests these assumptions in the crowdsourcing community at iStockphoto. An online survey obtained 651 responses from iStockers to demographic and motivations questions. Results indicate that the desire to make money, develop individual skills, and to have fun were the strongest motivators for participation at iStockphoto, and that the crowd at iStockphoto is quite homogenous and elite. These data have implications for future research into crowdsourcing, particularly regarding notions of professionalism and investment in online communities

Managing Unexpected Publics Online: The Challenge of Targeting Specific Groups with the Wide-Reaching Tool of the Internet

As Internet-based tactics become commonplace in public relations practice, targeting campaigns to specific publics becomes more challenging. The global reach of the Internet challenges a public relations practitioner’s confidence that an online message targeted at a set of specific demographics will reach only the intended audience. Internet-based public relations campaigns can attract unexpected, or even unwanted, publics to a project or brand, and practitioners must be ready to manage these unexpected participants. This article examines unexpected publics that engaged an online public participation project focused on architectural design and transit planning. The project, which was targeted at everyday bus riders in Salt Lake City, Utah, attracted an international base of design professionals. These unexpected publics, who learned of the project through the Internet, caused global-local and amateurprofessional tensions that complicated the outcomes of the project. Through website analytic data, user registration data on the website, and interviews with project participants, this article explores these tensions and offers practical advice for managing unexpected publics online. Best practices in public relations (PR) assume a set of specific publics to which PR practitioners can target messages and forge brand relationships. At the same time, the centrality of new media technologies in many people’s lives makes PR efforts via the Internet and other digital channels increasingly appealing. What happens, though, when these two assumptions collide? Online PR efforts, even those targeted to local or specific demographic groups operate on the global platform of the Internet, where unexpected—or even unwanted—publics may take interest in an organization’s campaign or brand. What happens when an online PR campaign targeted at a specific group of people engages participants beyond the intended scope? How should PR practitioners react

THE SPIRIT OF TECHNOLOGY IN E-GOVERNMENT: DESIGNING DEMOCRACY CAPABILITIES FOR ONLINE CITIZEN-GOVERNMENT INTERACTION

This paper aims to better understand the various democratic ideals manifested in designs of online crowdsourcing tools that are contracted by government entities. It seeks to answer questions about crowdsourced tools that are developed to serve a democratic purpose, including: (1) how are designers’ intentions incorporated? (2) what are the imagined user groups? and (3) what are the expected outcomes? The startup and technology vendors that contract with North American government bodies provide a particular context in which democratic freedoms are valued. The sample for this study consists of firms that have contracts for crowdsourced tools with Canadian or American government bodies. Questions were addressed through interviews with the founders or programmers of these technology firms to learn about the design of their products. To advance knowledge across disciplinary boundaries, we review literature on design from science and technology studies, democratic values from political science, and stakeholder theory from management. This study reveals how these perspectives have implications for contracting practical, technical solutions for government