Design and Use of New Media in Urban Development Processes

Abstract

This on-going research paper reports initial evidence gathered as part of the Democratic Urban Development in the Digital Age (DEMUDIG) project, which aims to investigate citizens' use of the internet and new media as channels for participation in urban development processes, with a focus on city governments' efforts to promote and make use of citizen initiatives through such channels. This on-going research paper focuses specifically on the new media platforms used to establish interactive dialogues with local communities. Preliminary results show that Oslo, Melbourne, and Madrid have used new media platforms for engaging public participation in a variety of urban development processes. Local districts in Oslo have begun to experiment with using social networking sites in conjunction with more traditional forms of digital communication such as email and SMS. In contrast, Melbourne has adopted Your City Your Voice, where citizens can engage with local government through surveys. Finally, the Decide Madrid platform has allowed citizens to directly impact area-based initiatives in the city and local districts of Madrid. The results additionally indicate that Oslo has relied to a greater extent than Melbourne or Madrid on mainstream new media platforms - i.e., Facebook.