e-participation
- What's the X-Factor?
22 May 2013 | 8 Visits |
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"e-participation
- tools, processes, policy", that is the name of the workshop, the
youthpart project organised within the framework of the conference
"Building tomorrows Europe" in Bonn, on May 7-8.
The conference
was the 25th anniversary celebration of the National Agency for the EU
programme "Youth in Action" and youth participation is a key field of
interest in international youth work. Consequently, the project youthpart that
aims to explore e-participation for young people and their inclusion into the
digital society, took over the challenge to bring a high-quality workshop on
e-participation & youth alive: 35 interested participants joined this
workshop, where experts from Ireland, Austria and Germany stirred up the
discussion and brought a broad variety of perspectives to the table.
The x-factor -
what makes online participation successful?
Listen here to the discussion
"There has
to be a binding agreement and the process has to be taken serious",
responds Eva Panek from Liquid Democracy e.V. "Of course, there are
different other factors, but these are
the most
important ones, according to my opinion". For Andreas Karsten from youthpolicy.org, the problem is a different
one. "Everyone assumes e-participation is cheap and quick. But it is
not and that
makes e-participation not completely working as it could be, at least at this
point in history where we are now". For him, the x-factor lies in the
assigned budget for programming and the website. "That should not
exceed 10% of the overall budget for the e-participation project".
Deirdre Lee from the European project Puzzled by Policy adds, that just the
website or a tool does not make the process. "Also," she
states,"Policy does not change overnight. It has to be an integrated
process with realistic goals". Judith Schossböck from the European project
Ourspace says, "There are direct and indirect ways of effective youth
participation. Yet, seeing the direct impact to the process is crucial for
individuals, and this can happen through by having fun or receive a form of
recognition, for example ".
Relationship
between e-participation and inclusion
Listen here to
the discussion
Lorena Jaume
from I&G Co:llaboratory who facilitated the workshop opened quickly the
floor for discussion and contributions from the audience. "Don't we reach
anyway the top 10%, the elite of society, through online participation, what
about the disadvantaged young people", a person from the audience asked.
Another contribution pointed out that youth people may be disadvantaged because
they live in rural areas and might be left behind when it comes to digital
participation due to lacking internet connection. One person from the audience
encountered that it has explicitly the so-called disadvantaged young people who
connected themselves through social media during the riots in England last
year. Andreas Karsten suggested that while most participation processes and
tools online still require text-based input. A change towards more interactive,
audio and visual input is needed.
An online tool
is participatory when...
Listen here to the discussion
One returning
question also in international debates is, what makes an online tool
participatory and how is the relation between online and offline. Hence, Lorena
Jaume took the chance to challenge the panelists with these questions. Most
panelists agreed that online and offline processes need to be combined in order
to be effective. Additionally, Eva Panek points out, there need to be
incentives for young people and tools need to be ad-hoc, flexible and with a
low threshold to be able to to pick young people up where they usually often
are, namely online. Deirdre Lee brings it down to three hallmarks, that make
tools participatory. "Clearly, that is accessibility, transparency and
accountability", she states. For Judith Schossböck a certain digital gap
is a part of the process, one need to deal with still at this point. Also
Andreas Karsten can list three specific hallmarks for participatory tools:
"A tool has to present that historic context of a debated topic,
furthermore, it is needed to include the position a person or institution has
towards a topic over time, and of course, accountability, meaning, what has
changed over time related to a debated topic".
10 years from
on there will be no more e-participation
Listen here to the discussion
Time flew by
quickly and the 75 minutes discussion time were approaching its end and Lorena
Jaume invited the panelists to become fortune tellers: "According to you
what has to be done 10 years from now on?".
Deirdre Lee
hopes that participation becomes a normal part of daily life and that
technology plays an important part in it. Also the movement of open data and
further developments in social media will support it. "Gaining experiences
about e-participation processes, more exchange about this still young
phenomenon, building up knowledge", summarizes Eva Panek. "The school
curriculum needs to take up these developments", states Judith Schossböck,"already
now we observe a generation gap in schools where teacher try to prevent pupils
in engaging with social media". Andreas Karsten hopes for smaller devices
and less big screens. He also draws a little bit of a doomsday
scenario:"The real battles are outside of youth sector when it comes to
e-participation. Everyone needs to know who Neelie Kroes is and what needs to
be done to keep the internet infrastructure open and decentralised. Otherwise,
in 10 years, it will be too late to debate about e-participation as we know it
now, as it will be a victim of media regulation".
Presented
Projects:
puzzledbypolicy
