Changes in the Public Experience of Citizens due to Digital Transformation

Abstract

Public experience (in German, öffentliche Erfahrung) is a general term for activities in the public domain as a citizen, such as direct or indirect public opinion forming process as opposed to private experience, that is, activities with private benefits. The widespread use of intelligent information technology affects not only private activities in industry and life, but also public experience. From the perspective of inclusion, it is necessary to examine digital transformation or technological development and changes in public experience in two directions. First, it should be considered that digital transformation in the public domain cannot be viewed as having only a positive function through technological progress. Second, it is necessary to explore what is a desirable method of public debate for the social acceptance of intelligent information technology. From these two perspectives, it is needed to look at what kind of change public experience shows. Next, in order to incorporate the values pursued by society into a changing society, it is required to explore how to systematically utilize and adjust such changes. In terms of public experience, digital transformation has the advantage of being able to increase participation quantitatively as well as materializing it through digital communication technology. However, in terms of inclusion, technology can rather cause digital divide and public experience divide, and such divides are not limited to individual problems, but also extend to regional problems. Due to the digitization of the means of public experience, the adverse effects of increasing controllability, problems of anonymity and bias, and weakening the accountability of participants are also conceivable. In order to maximize the advantages of intelligent information technology for public experiences and to promote the path to an inclusive society, institutional considerations are needed to solve the above problems. Measures are needed to eliminate the personal gap caused by the use of intelligent information technology and the competency gap of local governments related to the implementation of the public experience system. In addition, in order to minimize adverse functions related to individual public experiences of participants, it is necessary to take long-term and short-term measures to enhance digital citizenship as well as organized governance for various data management including public data.