ARE WE REALLY IN A PAPERLESS WORLD? REFLECTION ON CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES

Transcription

1 ARE WE REALLY IN A PAPERLESS WORLD? REFLECTION ON CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES Alfred Tat-Kei Ho Associate Professor School of Public Affairs and Administration University of Kansas

2 Why Should We Engage the Public?

3 Why Should We Engage the Public? Wasteful! Don t they know all the good work I ve done? Inefficient! Too many taxes! Do more with less!

4 Defining Citizen Engagement Purposes Tools Limitations/ Challenges Informing about policy priorities, challenges, process, and results Soliciting input Decision-making / approving decisions Evaluation press releases, media reports, website, newsletter, bulletin board committee work, survey, neighborhood meeting, townhall meeting Polling, elections, committee work surveys, 311 system, online complaint system, office hours, committee work One-way communication only Who pays attention? Cost and time Cost and time Who will come? Do they fully understand? Cost and time Who will come? Do they fully understand? Cost and time Who will complain? What about the silent majority? Do they fully understand?

5 So many different approaches and tools... There is no single approach that can serve all and do it all!

6 Citizen Engagement Preferences: Survey results from Indianapolis, 2009 Top choice 2nd choice 3rd choice Not picked Regular mail newsletter City website Electronic newsletters by Annual neighborhood meeting Telephone voice messages Facebook Monthly text messages to cell phones Twitter Don t throw away your printers yet!

7 Citizen Engagement Preferences: Results from the Tulsa Survey, 2011 Receive no information about the City Definitely not prefer district meetings To some extent prefer district meetings How Tulsa Residents Receive Information about the City Televison Newspaper Tulsa World Radio Water bills City website Tulsa TV Channel Calling the City Council website Urban Tulsa Other Tulsa Beacon Oklahoma Eagle Definitely prefer district meetings Don t get rid of your traditional media managers and community liaisons if there s a budget cut! Percentage of Respondents Note: n = 1,800. All responses were weighted by age.

8 Citizen Engagement Preferences: Results from the Tulsa Survey, % 70% Commuication Strategies 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% How to get info now Best way to communicate

9 Analysis of the Tulsa Survey Results shows The younger generation favors online tools, while the older generation still relies heavily on traditional media (newspaper, TV, mail inserts) More educated and richer residents favor new technology and are more engaged (they will call and complain!), but they may not prefer a lot of face-to-face meetings Racial minorities and poorer residents favor neighborhood meetings Long-time residents and the more educated expect more information and engagement Those contacted by the police are always more negative they need more engagement and information

10 Rising Role of Social Media - Promises and Challenges (In the 2013 Tulsa survey, only 4 percent of respondents prefer the city to use Twitter to communicate with them.)

11 Facebook is more heavily used by many people. At the same time, some citizens view Facebook as a private circle communication tool. How much they are willing to use it to interact with public officials or governmental agencies is still subject to more research. In the 2013 Tulsa survey, only 14 percent of respondents prefer the city to use Facebook to communicate with them.

12 How to Engage the Public? Think about the purpose of engagement (Educate? Consult? Decision-making? Political support building?) Think about your community s demographic and socioeconomic profiles What about your organization s capacity to organize, process requests, and respond? Staff time (and opportunity costs)? Will it matter? Will the results make a difference? How do you plan to report back to citizens about the results of engagement and your responses?

13 An Example -- Indianapolis Citizen engagement efforts:

14 Indianapolis Engagement Efforts The Mayor has his mayor s night-outs in African American churches, schools, nonprofit centers, libraries,

15 Then keep the public informed through: Mass media reports, press releases Monthly neighborhood meetings Social media connections Regular e-newsletters Government TV channel + webcast Community meetings organized by neighborhood liaisons Online complain/service requests, with tracking case IDs Customer service call-backs after citizens file a complaint and a case is resolved

16 Contact Information Dr. Alfred Ho Associate Professor School of Public Affairs and Administration University of Kansas Phone: