The Contradictory Effects in Efficiency and Citizens’ Participation when Employing Geo-ICT Apps within Local Government

Abstract

With the increasing use of web-based mapping applications, inter-mediation between public planning agencies and citizens is changing. This article investigates how one form of inter-mediation, geo-ICT-enabled apps (applications on mobile phones and/or internet that use maps or locations as basic references for any functional analysis), influences the degree of efficiency and participation in managing public space. The theoretical assumption here is that such apps encourage information disclosure and therefore have the potential to make a local government more responsive and transparent. Drawing on observation, interviews, and document and web content analysis conducted as part of a case study, this article suggests that the apps have indeed enhanced one municipality's response and have made citizens more active in uploading their complaints. However, unexpected and contradictory effects include an increase in trivial complaints, which has made the handling of reports less efficient, and the emergence of opportunistic behaviour by third parties on the basis of the complaints, which has made the services less effective. Consequently, the assumed causal relation between enhanced citizen participation and increased transparency and information disclosure requires an adaptation that incorporates such wicked effects.

Citizen-generated open data: An explorative analysis of 25 cases

“…The sector was sometimes easy to code -e.g. Bikemaps is about mobility -but in other cases more difficult due to the 1 The following previous studies were used for the analysis of specific initiatives: ImproveTheNeighborhood (Kurniawan & De Vries, 2015), Neighborhood NestWatch (Evans et al, 2005), ForestWatchers (Luz et al, 2014), Safecast (Brown et al, 2016), Smart Citizens (Grommé et al, 2017), USHADIDI (Marsden, 2013;Okolloh, 2009), Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Government (Sohail & Cavill, 2008), Missing Maps (Givoni, 2016), Bike Maps (Ferster et al, 2017;Nelson et al, 2015), Community Drones (Radjawali & Pye, 2017), Mundraub (Larondelle & Strohbach, 2016). In addition, we studied the following media sources: ImproveThe Neighborhood (Gelderlander, 2018), Neighborhood Nest Watch (The Denver Post, 2017), Open Elems Project (Computable, 2015), MafiaMaps (Bergamo Post, 2018), Safecast (Los Angeles Times, 2016), Smart Citizens (Open Democracy, 2017), Wheelmap (Merkur, 2017) The term 'website' is used when the initiative provides access to data through publications but does not offer the opportunity to enter data.…”

“…In the case of ImproveTheNeighborhood, for instance, citizens report street problems that bother them, such as trash or dog poo, thereby acting on an individual and collective interest (Gelderlander, 2018;Kurniawan & de Vries, 2015). The crowdsourced online map of Mundraub can serve the individual interest of people to find the places where they can freely pluck fruits and vegetables (Hannoversche Allgemeine, 2017;Larondelle & Strohbach, 2016).…”

On addressing privacy in disseminating judicial data: towards a methodology

“…those discussion-based exercises that are used for training emergency managers) so that every aspect of wicked problems can be addressed by such exercises. In Kurniawan and de Vries (2015), a case study is done about geo-applications (i.e. those applications that use maps or locations as basic enabling functionality) that intermediate between public planning agencies and citizens.…”

Outlaw Citizenship in Artistic Cities: Local Artistic Communities and Citizen Participation

“…When scholars have worked to answer the question of who participates, they have portrayed online participation as problematic, namely because it opens the door so widely to an extremely diffuse group (Bryer, 2013;Kurniawan & de Vries, 2015;Yetano & Royo, 2017). Bryer (2013) contends that this can actually hurt citizens in the end.…”

“…As scholars cautioned in the outlaw citizenship section, some public administration scholars portrayed online participation as problematic (Bryer, 2013;Kurniawan & de Vries, 2015;Yetano & Royo, 2015). Bryer (2013), Jimenez (2013), and Kurniawan and de Vries (2015) all pointed out that opening the door too much or at the wrong time could hurt citizens themselves, not just hinder the work of the bureaucracy.…”