Exploring Social Media as a Public Participation Tool

Why Public Participation?

The idea of public participation is the foundation of a participatory democracy. Democratic legitimacy

really depends, above all else, on the character and quality of public decision making. Public participation

in a democratic society helps to hold government accountable to the people it serves and ensures the

people have a voice in matters that affect them. Many people may not participate due to a lack of

confidence in their knowledge of the subject, or in their communicative ability. They remain inactive

because they feel that the outcome will affect them in a way that would cost less than having to gain the

knowledge and competencies in order to participate.

The design and methods used in the public participation process can also be barriers themselves. There

are multiple traditional methods that can be used to design a public participation process. The oldest

and perhaps most widely used form of public participation is the public meeting. Today a public meeting

has become widely defined as a meeting where people can gather to ask questions or give opinions on

various matters pertaining to governance. It is also argued that public meetings today have become

antiquated and ineffective in achieving genuine participation.

Why used social media?

With the rise of social media networking sites since 2004, the public participation process may be

completely re-imagined. Today, technology allows for an entirely new generation of forms and practices

of public participation that promise to elevate the public discourse in an unprecedented manner while

providing an interactive, networked environment for decision making (Evans-Cowley & Hollander, 2010,

p. 397). While recognizing the potential of social media as a tool for public participation, Evans-Cowley

and Hollander conclude that the current use of social media tools and technologies has not yet brought

expected results. This may be attributed to the constantly changing of social media technologies, as well

as a lack of working knowledge of the technology and how it can be applied in the public participation

process by planners.

Social media is abroad, interactive network such as facebook, twitter, linked, youtube, etc. The Benefits

of Social Media such as connecting with the other people and processes more visible, Increases

participation by wider audience, namely younger adults, can lead to a more

personalized connection with citizens, and cost-effective. Why should you use social media? Because of

it, we could disseminating information the city desires to communicate to the public, easy to organize

around place based planning issues, provides the ability to conduct outreach at a new and exciting level,

and strong community support produces better plans. There are so many users use social media, from

young until adult. The main thing to keep in mind is that social media is social. When engaging with people

using social media, it is important to keep the conversation going. Social media is a relatively new

phenomenon, and it is changing rapidly. The sheer volume of information about social media can be

overwhelming, and it takes time and energy to collect and analyse the volumes of information.