Youth participation in environmental sustainability: insights from the Lisbon participatory budget

PurposeThis article poses the question on whether and how youth participation in environmental sustainability makes a difference within participatory budgets (PBs). This is a question worth asking because PBs have pursued, from the very beginning, goals of social sustainability through the inclusion of social groups that struggle to make their voices heard, as in the case of the youth. As young people show an increasing capacity to self-organise around environmental issues, a knowledge gap emerges as to the contribution that youth can give to environmental sustainability within PBs.Design/methodology/approachThe 2021 edition of the Lisbon PB (2021PB) has been analysed through desk research - document analysis using the city council's website as the main source of information, and fieldwork - an organisation of one two-day workshop with 20 young students through a partnership between the local authority and the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon. Methods were applied to retrieve findings on youth participation in environmental sustainability in the 2021PB.FindingsThe youth show a relative increase of participation in the 2021PB and emerge as a key target group in funded proposals. Convergence with student proposals suggest shared awareness on the role of youth in the pursuit of social sustainability. The success of health-related proposals confirms ownership of (young) citizens over the concept of environmental sustainability, which further relies on the various scopes of funded proposals at both city and neighbourhood levels. In the workshop, students did not stick to specific themes and struggled to connect present criticalities and future imaginaries.Research limitations/implicationsFocus on one case study necessarily limits the generalisation of findings. Nevertheless, the 2021PB illuminates pathways of research on youth participation in environmental sustainability through participatory budgeting that are worth clearing in the future, such as the role of digital participation, dynamics induced by extreme events as the COVID-19 pandemic and PBs' capacity to intercept environmental activism.Practical implicationsDecision-makers and practitioners can take advantage of findings to acknowledge the potential of youth participation in PBs to reframe the take of environmental sustainability.Social implicationsThe article provides new inputs for future developments in the operationalisation of social and environmental sustainability through participatory budgeting.Originality/valueThis article examines original data retrieved from the 2021PB. Data analysis is backed by the literature review of key democratic challenges in social and environmental sustainability within participatory budgeting.

Stakeholder Participation in Planning of a Sustainable and Competitive Tourism Destination: The Genoa Integrated Action Plan

The outbreak of COVID-19 confronted the international community with critical health, social, and economic challenges. Travel and tourism were among the hardest affected sectors. In 2020 and 2021 new travel trends emerged, emphasizing local destinations, short distances, and consequently, lower-carbon transportation (proximity tourism). Post-pandemic recovery represents an opportunity to bounce back better by rethinking the sector's economic model for the sake of sustainability and innovation. This paper disseminates the research that led to the structuring of guidelines for a breakthrough and inclusive municipal-level action plan for the promotion of sustainable tourism, as part of the Tourism Friendly Cities project. An operational methodology is discussed here, whereby key stakeholder participation, conceptualized through a sextuple helix model, is the foundation of the planning process. A small-scale action and a qualitative assessment tool of the participatory process are also illustrated. The proposed methodology corroborates the vast positive effects deriving from stakeholder participation in terms of trust, ownership, planning quality, innovativeness and sustainability of interventions. In applying the methodology, although the digital framework was evaluated positively in terms of the number of participants that could be involved, data collection, and confidentiality of activities, the evaluation shows that hybrid modes of participation are more desirable.

Engaging citizen resources as catalysts of museum innovation

The key claim of the article is that the Covid pandemic has offered museums important new opportunities to foster more, and more diverse, citizen engagements;and such engagements may be key to sustainable museum innovation in the future. The claims are underpinned by first mapping the characteristics of two leading paradigms in existing museum interaction with the world: a technology paradigm and a personalisation paradigm. Second, the article provides three empirical examples on how museums may apply participatory designs to foster more inclusive and diverse citizen engagements. The examples are based on case studies conducted at a Danish R&D programme, Our Museum. By way of conclusion, it is discussed how and why citizen engagements can catalyse sustainable museum innovation. © 2023, Edicoes Universitarias Lusofonas. All rights reserved.

Investigating information dissemination and citizen engagement through government social media during the COVID-19 crisis

Purpose: This study explores how effectively the Indian government utilized social media to communicate emergency information and promote citizen engagement and awareness during the first wave of COVID-19 crisis. Design/methodology/approach: This research investigates the tweets scraped from the official Twitter handle "CovidnewsbyMIB" of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Government of India;the authors unearthed patterns in the communications between the government and its citizens by adopting various social media analysis techniques. Further, the authors also tried to examine the influence of media richness and dialogic loop on citizen engagement through government social media (CEGSM) using multivariate analysis method. Findings: The results highlighted clusters of words/terms present in the tweets related to COVID-19 combating strategies, guidelines, and updates. The authors also found that media richness has a significant positive relationship with CEGSM, but dialogic loop has an insignificant relationship with CEGSM. Originality/value: This study provides suggestions to government agencies about ways to improve CEGSM by enhancing media richness and dialogic loop elements such as surveys, polls, and responses in the crisis communication. Peer review: The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-06-2021-0307. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Online Information Review is the property of Emerald Publishing Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Older Adults' and Carers' Engagement in Democratic Governance

Advisory committees are some of the most prominent ways older adults and carers are represented in democratic governance in contemporary North America. Yet little is known about how older adults and unpaid carers interpret the meaning of their engagement within governmental advisory committees. A thematic, interpretive analysis of qualitative interview data from twenty-four current and former members of advisory committees in Manitoba, Canada, was conducted. Although all participants were motivated to serve by personal experience and/or the common good, interpretive tensions arose at times between their desire for systemic change or advocacy and the mandate and/or function of their committee. Tensions between advocacy and advising appear to be especially pronounced in the context of changes perceived by members as threatening both the quality of public supports and services, and chances for meaningfully engaging older adults and carers in governance. Perhaps in part to reconcile this tension (and in some cases their own ongoing involvement) participants often characterized these committees as at least partially valuable and effective ways to engage older adults/carers, primarily through talking about personal benefits, the quality and efficiency of meetings, and feeling valued. The subsequent emergence of COVID-19 after these data were collected will likely only intensify social changes affecting older adults and carers, highlighting an even more pressing need for their engagement in policy co-design in and beyond continuing care sectors.

Can Facebook really be a tool for supporting citizen engagement during emergencies?

The present study explores how Italian regions and their presidents employed Facebook during the Covid‐19 pandemic to encourage citizen engagement. To do so, it adopts quantitative methodologies. Our results show that most public actors increased their levels of social activity during the pandemic but mainly for promoting public communication and that citizens much prefer interacting with presidents. Moreover, citizen engagement was higher when posts were published during nonbusiness hours or weekends, while it decreased when posts contained photos or videos. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Public Affairs (14723891) is the property of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Driving citizen engagement through Twitter: The case of COVID‐19 vaccination drive in India

Effective crisis communication is essential to efficiently handle the uncertainty and anxiousness of citizens during the COVID‐19 crisis. Government Twitter handles are an excellent platform for faster information dissemination and engaging citizens. While most government ministries actively use Twitter, limited attention is given to its modus operandi. Using data retrieved from the official Twitter handle of 'The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare' (MOHFW) of India, the current study examines the effect of the content characteristics, including content type and media type, on citizen engagement measured as tweet likes and retweets. The findings are based on 3742 tweets from MOHFW, recording more than 4.06 million likes and 1.23 million retweets over the initial six months of the largest COVID‐19 vaccination drive. Results show that content‐sharing guidance for stakeholders gained the maximum engagement, while the latest news about the COVID‐19 crisis resulted in the least engagement. Photos gained maximum engagement, while statuses resulted in the least engagement. The results illuminate the textual features of the government's Twitter communication and will enable policymakers to manage their social media content strategy diligently. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Public Affairs (14723891) is the property of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Personas, the Pandemic, and Inclusive, Synthetic, Smart City Planning

In the era of COVID-19, planners, and more broadly, city administrators and policy makers, have learned to cope with the accelerated pace of change, the broad band of uncertainty, and the need for rapid decision-making strategies. In the context of ever more diverse communities and greater reliance on technology as an effective response to the social and public health challenges of the pandemic, "smart" cities harness distributed communication and service delivery technologies to enhance the quality of urban life. The voices of citizens from marginalized and under-served populations, such as older adults and people with disabilities, are vital to the development of inclusive smart cities. In this paper, expanding an inclusive policy design approach is proposed that uses `personas' to actively engage those citizens.

Futile or fertile? The effect of persuasive strategies on citizen engagement in COVID-19 vaccine-related tweets across six national health departments.

National health departments across the globe have utilized persuasive strategies to promote COVID-19 vaccines through Twitter. However, the effectiveness of those strategies is unclear. This study thereby examined how national health departments deployed persuasive strategies to promote citizen engagement in COVID-19 vaccine-related tweets in six countries, including the UK, the US, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and India. Guided by the heuristic-systematic model and the health belief model, we found that national health departments differed significantly in the use of systematic-heuristic cues and health belief constructs in COVID-19 vaccine-related tweets. Generally, the provision of scientific information and appeals to anecdotes and fear positively, while appeals to bandwagon negatively, predicted citizen engagement. Messages about overcoming barriers and promoting vaccine benefits and self-efficacy positively affected engagement. Emphases of COVID-19 threats and cues to vaccinate demonstrated negative impacts. Importantly, health departments across countries often used futile or detrimental strategies in tweets. A locally adapted evidence-based approach for COVID-19 vaccination persuasion was discussed.

Data Sharing and Information Platforms in Crisis Response and Preparedness: Exploring the Role of Open Data Sharing Platforms and Collective Intelligence in COVID-19 Response Efforts, and Preparedness for Future Pandemics

COVID-19 has wreaked unprecedented havoc in the world. Response efforts have also made huge evident gaps in preparedness and governments around the world's capacity to respond to a health crisis of this magnitude adequately. As a result, local communities have taken matters into their own hands and turned to technology platforms to coordinate mutual aid efforts, shed light on response gaps, and hold governments accountable. This paper explores the role of open data sharing platforms and collective intelligence in COVID-19 response efforts by studying two examples of community-led initiatives from Spain and Japan. Frena La Curva (Spain) and Safecast (Japan) utilized the Ushahidi platform, an open-source technology tool born out of Kenya's post-election violence that has been widely used in over 160 countries for crisis response since its inception in 2008. Research reports have been warning of pandemic breakouts for decades. However, the response to COVID-19 was inadequate, with healthcare systems buckling under the pressure of the spread of the disease. Moreover, existing social protection programs could not shield citizens despite having experienced similar economic impacts in the years that have passed. Data hugging and suppression of information regarding the pandemic outbreak led to significant delays in measures being put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19. This paper proposes that governments would benefit from leveraging open data and technology platforms to engage with ordinary citizens and eliminate data blind spots in the design of social protection programs. It also posits that we need to invest in interoperable data exchange systems to increase the speed of response and learning. Finally, it also proposes the need for internet freedom and access as a critical tool for preparedness by enabling the free flow of information. © 2022 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).

Online democratic participation during COVID-19

In terms of the inclusivity of democracy, both the opportunities and risks of using digital media have been highlighted in the literature. Empirical research into the use of digital media and the inclusivity of citizen participation, however, is limited. More specifically, we have a limited understand of the relation between the 'richness' of digital media and the inclusivity of citizen engagement The introduction of digital participation by governments during the COVID-19 pandemic presents a highly interesting situation for studying the relation between digital participation and the inclusivity of citizen engagement. This paper presents an assessment of five cases in the Netherlands to explore to what extent the media richness of digital participation affects the inclusivity of citizen engagement. Our findings present few indications for the exclusion of citizens and, in contrast, highlight the participation of more citizens when access was facilitated through digital media. The overall picture that emerges is that especially lean digital tools, webinars, enhance inclusivity in terms of access but only richer tools, interactive platforms, also facilitate participation as interaction with citizens. To our surprise, we found that hybrid forms of participation fall short in providing opportunities for inclusive interaction. We end the paper by recommending governments to realize both broad and in-depth inclusive democracy by sequential use of lean media - webinars - to boost the access to participation and rich media - platforms and offline meetings - for interactions with citizens. © 2022 - IOS Press.

The Shift to Online Engagement: Exploring Online Engagement Platforms and Tools

Public engagement is a crucial part to a public project as it gives citizens the opportunity to become involved in the decision-making process as well as provide decision-makers with valuable information from those impacted by the project. How the public is involved and when is crucial to those participating earning trust and supporting the project. Over the course of 2020, how people engaged on urban planning projects evolved quickly and drastically due to the surge of the COVID-19 virus. Prior to this time, most public engagement sessions were held in person as this allowed the public to connect with subject matter experts and engage with the people who could initiate the changes they were suggesting. However, following the global outbreak of the virus, the ability to bring people together in a common space disappeared while the online rooms appeared. With platforms such as Zoom and Bang the Table making it possible for “in person” meetings to continue, have they allowed for effective public engagement to take place? This article explores the number of tools that are required to host effective online engagement as well as compare the activities that can take place in-person to their online counterpart.

Are citizens engaging with government social media Covid 19 pandemic information? Why media richness and dialogic loop features matter

This study investigated the extent to which media richness, dialogic loop, and content type affect citizen engagement with local government social media information on the Covid-19 pandemic. Quantitative content analysis through scraping of Facebook posts by the local government was employed in this study. Effects of the determinant variables was tested using negative binomial regression. Results show that both media richness and dialogic loop have significant and positive effects on citizens' engagement. This means that the richer the media, and the more dialogic features present in a Facebook post, the higher the turnout of reactions, shares, and comments of such post. Content type, on the other hand, was found to have no significant effect, implying that the number of content categories a certain post belongs to does not influence engagement from citizens. The study focused only on the local government's pandemic information posted on Facebook. Local governments should continue utilizing social media in disseminating pandemic information, and in the process, consider maximum utilization of the social media features to generate more engagement from its citizens. This study is the first to determine the factors affecting citizen engagement with government social media during the Covid-19 pandemic in the Philippine context.

Online democratic participation during COVID-19

In terms of the inclusivity of democracy, both the opportunities and risks of using digital media have been highlighted in the literature. Empirical research into the use of digital media and the inclusivity of citizen participation, however, is limited. More specifically, we have a limited understand of the relation between the ‘richness’ of digital media and the inclusivity of citizen engagement The introduction of digital participation by governments during the COVID-19 pandemic presents a highly interesting situation for studying the relation between digital participation and the inclusivity of citizen engagement. This paper presents an assessment of five cases in the Netherlands to explore to what extent the media richness of digital participation affects the inclusivity of citizen engagement. Our findings present few indications for the exclusion of citizens and, in contrast, highlight the participation of more citizens when access was facilitated through digital media. The overall picture that emerges is that especially lean digital tools, webinars, enhance inclusivity in terms of access but only richer tools, interactive platforms, also facilitate participation as interaction with citizens. To our surprise, we found that hybrid forms of participation fall short in providing opportunities for inclusive interaction. We end the paper by recommending governments to realize both broad and in-depth inclusive democracy by sequential use of lean media – webinars – to boost the access to participation and rich media – platforms and offline meetings – for interactions with citizens. [ FROM AUTHOR]

Tips, Tidings, and Tech: Governmental Communication on Facebook during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic led governments to rely on the versatility of social media to communicate with their citizens. This paper analyzes the Facebook communication of political leaders and health departments from 17 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. We evaluate the citizen's response under the frameworks of media richness and user engagement. We note that governments and leaders communicate primarily through richer media (photos and videos), despite a negative correlation between media richness and user engagement. Plain-Text messages posted by country leaders attract the most engagement, while their COVID-19 communication tends to generate lower engagement. On the other hand, health departments' pages experienced a sharp increase in engagement around COVID-19 communication as citizens sought information during the pandemic. Finally, topical analysis shows that Discussions and Co-Use of COVID-19 with other topics can boost citizens' engagement. Our comparative analysis shows practical implications for social media users and social media designers. Our findings can help governments and organizations design effective social media communication during crises. © 2022 ACM.

Does Citizen Engagement With Government Social Media Accounts Differ During the Different Stages of Public Health Crises? An Empirical Examination of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has created one of the greatest challenges to humankind, developing long-lasting socio-economic impacts on our health and wellbeing, employment, and global economy. Citizen engagement with government social media accounts has proven crucial for the effective communication and management of public health crisis. Although much research has explored the societal impact of the pandemic, extant literature has failed to create a systematic and dynamic model that examines the formation mechanism of citizen engagement with government social media accounts at the different stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study fills this gap by employing the Heuristic-Systematic Model and investigating the effects of the heuristic clues including social media capital, information richness, language features, dialogic loop, and the systematic clue including content types, on citizen engagement with government social media across three different stages of the pandemic, employing the moderating role of emotional valence. Methods: The proposed model is validated by scraping 16,710 posts from 22 provincial and municipal government micro-blog accounts in the Hubei province, China. Results: Results show that the positive effects of social media capital on citizen engagement were observed at all stages. However, the effects of information richness, language features, dialogic loop, and content types, and the moderating effect of emotional valence, varied across the different pandemic development stages. Conclusions: The findings provide suggestions for the further effective use of government social media, and better cope with crises. Government agencies should pay attention to the content and form of information shared, using technical means to analyze the information needs of citizens at different stages of public health emergencies, understanding the content most concerned by citizens, and formulating the content type of posts.

Social media government communication and stakeholder engagement in the era of Covid-19: evidence from Italy

Purpose: Covid-19 is a worldwide pandemic disease that changed the government communication to citizens about the health emergency. This study aims to provide in-depth research about regional Italian government communication through social media (SM) and its effects on citizens' engagement. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses a case analysis, focusing on the Italian context. In detail, the authors analyse the more involved Italian regions in Covid-19 pandemic (Lombardy, Veneto, Piedmont, Emilia Romagna and Tuscany) applying the Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) model. Findings: The results reveal that SM is a powerful tool for communication during a health emergency and for facilitating the engagement with stakeholders. However, results also highlight a different perception about the timing of the Covid-19 crisis. Practical implications: Findings suggest a gap between the answer of the public government compared to the citizens' needs that are clear since the first earlier stage of the pandemic event. The engagement level is very high since the first phase of the pandemic event;however, to be adequately developed, it requires specific and timing information that are not always in line with the citizens’ communication needs. Originality/value: This is the first research that aims to study the citizens' engagement in the Italian regions during the Covid-19 pandemic. © 2022, Silvia Fissi, Elena Gori and Alberto Romolini.

Vaccine nationalism will persist: global public goods need effective engagement of global citizens.

Covid-19 presents a unique opportunity to transform democratic engagement in the governance of global public goods. In this paper, I describe a global public goods framework and how it relates to Covid-19 vaccines, and summarize some of the global responses to Covid-19. I discuss some of the global threats to health and prosperity posed by the inequitable distribution of vaccines, and propose transformative thinking to democratically engage citizens in the governance of global public goods. In recent years, public-private partnerships and philanthropic organizations have successfully stepped in to help international organizations like the UN and WHO provide global public goods, but they are not democratically elected or publicly accountable. Global public goods are critical to addressing Covid-19, future pandemic preparedness, global health policy, health equity, and the unfolding climate crisis. To make us more resistant and resilient to future global health crises we need transformative thinking to democratically engage global citizens. We need to lay the foundations for a 'global social contract' on global public goods.

MEASURING PARTICIPATION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY of CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT PROCESSES in URBAN PLANNING

While there is a growing practice of engagement processes in urban planning, with diverse strategies and actions, there are still many questions regarding the evaluation;the gap being how to conclude that a process has been successful or not, and in what terms. In this context, this paper analyses a series of international reference models over the last fifty years, including levels of participation (Arnstein, UN-Habitat, IAP2), key performance indicators (IISD), evaluation guidelines (IOPD) and quality standards and indicators for community engagement (NSfCE, OGP, UNICEF). Based on this analysis, the research proposes an evaluative framework specific for citizen engagement in urban design and planning processes. The framework includes consists of six standards, with quantitative and qualitative indicators to consider both a process's outputs as its outcomes. The standards are: Scope (level of engagement, process planning and structure), inclusion (diversity and quantity of stakeholders by gender, age, stake-holder type and others), mechanisms (typology, diversity and outreach), communication, building capacity (raising awareness and understanding), and impact (contribution to the urban plan). The research applies the framework to conduct a comparative study among cases of engagement processes in municipal-scale urban planning in the Basque Country, Navarre and Cantabria, in the north of Spain. Six case studies include small- and medium-sized towns and cities with a wide range in scale, from 4,000 to 350,000 people, and both pre-COVID and during- COVID experiences. Results reveal tendencies, common benefits and challenges. Conclusions allow for a better understanding of the matter and expect to be useful and transferable to future urban planning-related engagement processes in order to overcome initial preconceptions, avoid false expectations, and better design and undertake them to increase their social impact and contribution to the urban plans they are framed within. © 2021 WITPress. All rights reserved.

Analysing the impact of smart city service quality on citizen engagement in a public emergency.

The outbreak of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has brought great challenges to the improvement of global smart city services. To date, few studies have been conducted on the effects of service quality on citizen engagement in smart cities in a public emergency. Based on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model and uncertain management theory, this study analyses the impact of the service quality of smart city system on citizen engagement in a public emergency. Data were collected in Chinese smart cities. Three valuable and novel results are identified. First, high-quality information content, highly reliable systems and highly responsive systems have a significant positive effect on citizens' continuous experiences, but not on citizens' immediate experiences. Second, both the immediate and continuous experiences of citizens have a significant positive effect on citizen engagement. Third, continuous experiences impose a full mediation effect between information content and citizen engagement, between reliability and citizen engagement and between responsiveness and citizen engagement. As its main contribution, this study focuses on the construction of a theoretical model. Based on this model, smart city managers can understand citizens' reactions in public emergencies from stimulation to experience and their behaviours in relation to smart city services.