Public displays and citizen participation: a systematic literature review and research agenda

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this research is to study how current research reports reflect on using public displays in the smart city. In particular, it looks at the state-of-the-art of this domain from two angles. On the one hand, it investigates the participation of citizens in the development of public displays. On the other hand, it aims at understanding how public displays may foster citizen participation in addressing urban issues. Its goal is to provide a literature review of this field, and a research agenda. Design/methodology/approach A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted following a thoroughly detailed protocol. It surveys 34 recent papers through multiple aspects, including interaction modality, level of participation, socio-demographics of participating citizens, topic of participation, evaluation of the display and participation of end-users in the early development stages of the display. Then, a research agenda informed by the results of the SLR is discussed in light of related literature. Findings The SLR showed that further research is needed to improve the involvement of citizens in the early stages of the development of public displays, broaden the spectrum of citizen participation achieved through public displays, integrate public displays with other means of participation and handle the changing urban context to improve the participation experience. Originality/value Previous literature reviews have been conducted in the field of public displays, including one specifically related to citizen participation. However, they have emphasized the technological aspects of public displays and omitted other essential aspects. This article aims at addressing this gap by conducting a literature review, including also non-technological perspectives such as socio-demographics and participation in development, complementing other works.

The Stakeholder Perspective on Using Public Polling Displays for Civic Engagement

“…Yet when being re-appropriated as temporary, interactive "plug-in" interfaces [28], public displays can also form an opportunistic medium to target a very narrowly defined community by being physically located in the actual context of discussion about a local concern. Moreover, PPDs may be deployed by the local community members themselves to raise awareness on local challenges via accessible, low-tech PPD tools, such as paper posters augmented with off-the-shelf electronics [63] While interaction with public displays for civic engagement is often facilitated through personal devices such as a mobile phone [13], a PPD can also be controlled via modalities like touch (e.g. [14]), mechanical push-buttons (e.g.…”

Systematic literature review of context-awareness applications supported by smart cities’ infrastructures

“…In turn, the IEEE smart cities initiative [17,18] proposed the smart water, smart energy, smart mobility, smart food and agriculture, smart health, and smart waste domains. Among these frameworks, the one proposed by Giffinger et al [5,6] was widely quoted [19,20] and was used to frame different reviews (e.g., [21][22][23][24]).…”

“…Several articles published in scientific journals [1, 3, 10, 25-28, 32, 33, 35-56] reported different types of reviews, including systematic literature reviews, related to various aspects of smart cities' implementation: (1) bibliometrics (e.g., bibliometric analysis of the literature of the first decades of research on smart cities [20,39] or identification of the conceptual dimensions and areas of smart cities based on bibliometric analysis [10]); (2) international standards (e.g., identification of relevant smart cities standards [48] or review of the standardisation activities that are being carried out by the United for Smart Sustainable Cities initiative [44]); (3) data analytics (e.g., the various data learning techniques being applied in smart cities [41] or big data applications to support urban environment, society, and sustainability [46]); (4) systems architectures (e.g., the contribution of the enterprise architecture towards digital transformation in smart cities [49]); (5) data security (e.g., identification of the barriers and hurdles in smart city and how these hurdles might be mitigated by the blockchain technology [45]); (6) IoT and data analytics (e.g., identification of key areas of application, current trends, data architectures, and ongoing challenges of the application of IoT and data analytics in smart cities [50]); (7) ontologies (e.g., how ontologies are being used to support smart city services [51]); (8) healthcare (e.g., relevant smart cities applications with impact in the provision of healthcare [42]); (9) energy efficiency (e.g., identification of the barriers to the progression to sustainable smart cities [52]), (10) citizenship (e.g., how public displays may foster citizen participation in addressing urban issues [23]); (11) smart city indicators (e.g., identification of potential indicators for implementing smart cities [22] or provision of a critical analysis of smart city assessment tools and their potential contribution to the evolution of the smart city movement [15]); (12) mobility (e.g., systematization of enabling technologies, current trends and solutions to support smart mobility [53] or smart city applications to facilitate the mobility of older adults in urban spaces [55]); and ...…”

Conceptualizing Walking and Walkability in the Smart City through a Model Composite w2 Smart City Utility Index

“…As research on smart cities evolves, pleas for inter-and multidisciplinary approaches abound [18][19][20][21][22][23]. Implicit in these calls for a broader research agenda on smart cities is the concern that current research has been either too narrowly focused on what is technically feasible, i.e., ICT-wise, or has been preoccupied with the ideological dimensions of cities adopting technology and thereby being transformed [24][25][26][27].…”

“…Implicit in these calls for a broader research agenda on smart cities is the concern that current research has been either too narrowly focused on what is technically feasible, i.e., ICT-wise, or has been preoccupied with the ideological dimensions of cities adopting technology and thereby being transformed [24][25][26][27]. A way out of the conundrum has been offered by approaches that make a case for shifting the research attention from technology and politics toward the end-user [19,27,28], or, if you wish, to the citizen [13,20,29], or even, to the individual inhabiting the smart city.…”