After the toolkit: Anticipatory logics and the future of government

Introducing a special issue of Policy Design and Practice on designing future governments, this article draws on growing interest in the concepts and practices of anticipation, foresight and design among policy makers in international bodies, think tanks and governments. Building on the concept of anticipatory governance, we aim to show how approaches associated with foresight and design produce a capacity for future uncertainties to be made visible and graspable, with the potential to open up participation and reflexivity in discussions about public policy issues and anticipate ways to address them, beyond public administrations. The special issue includes six papers sharing insights about scenarios, workshops, public innovation labs and co-design projects from Europe, Latin America and Australia. Some are speculative—based on a small-scale intervention or experiment—while others are based on a larger scale project with the participation of relevant stakeholders such as public service providers, public administrations and local residents. Together, the contributions to the special issue suggest that futures and design approaches enact an anticipatory logic which is necessary for public administrations to achieve their goals, in the face of many uncertainties and in a context in which new forms of expertise, data and infrastructures are opening up government

Digital audiences' disempowerment: Participation or free labour

The appearance of digital interactive technologies opened up space where the audiences can express themselves freely through the user generated content. Often these new possibilities have been associated with the concepts of ‘ participation ’ and ‘ empowermen t ’ on one side, and ‘ free labour ’ and ‘ exploitation ’ on the other. Through literature published during the past decade, this paper explores the relationship, tensions and connections between different perspectives of cultural studies and political econom y on these phenomena. In some places this relationship is explained more directly, in the others indirectly. While the cultural studies perspective considers media users as active and productive, the political economy perspective looks at the audience ’ s ac tivities as producing profit for media industries. As both perspectives are important and interlaced in audiences ’ experiences, this essay argues that there is a need for more studies that will try to build bridges between participation and labour. This brings novelties and openings in the area of intersection of cultural studies and political economy

Digital audiences' disempowerment: Participation or free labour

The appearance of digital interactive technologies opened up space where the audiences can express themselves freely through the user generated content. Often these new possibilities have been associated with the concepts of ‘participation’ and ‘empowerment’ on one side, and ‘free labour’ and ‘exploitation’ on the other. Through literature published during the past decade, this paper explores the relationship, tensions and connections between different perspectives of cultural studies and political economy on these phenomena. In some places this relationship is explained more directly, in the others indirectly. While the cultural studies perspective considers media users as active and productive, the political economy perspective looks at the audience’s activities as producing profit for media industries. As both perspectives are important and interlaced in audiences’ experiences, this essay argues that there is a need for more studies that will try to build bridges between participation and labour. This brings novelties and openings in the area of intersection of cultural studies and political economy