The Actualizing Citizen as Action Path User

Appealing to the community volunteering and community action propensities of the AC, Action Path creates a space that allows for distributed, ad-hoc participation in civic and community issues; what Bennet describes as “loose networks of community action”[1]. Self-Actualizing Citizenship values a sense of agency that is felt primarily when participation is not run through a hierarchical governmental authority structure. In Action Path, there exists the potential for a “lower” (hierarchically speaking) and hopefully deeper state of engagement with issues that affect the user directly. That said however, the perception of trust and community in this tool lies heavily on the origin of the prompt. If it is simply “the service” creating geo-fences and surveys, or businesses, or elite members of society, or even used simply as a channel to pre-established governmental organizations, it is possible that Action Path may not resonate with strictly individualized AC to the same degree. If, however, the prompts are crafted by community groups mobilized around issues they feel are being led by a group where ordinary citizens are underrepresented when discourse occurs, or if the tool is enabled in such a way that any given civically motivated actor can say “pinch and zoom” their own geo-fence and quickly add a prompt, dynamically creating a sphere in which the public can participate, it is possible that the AC would see the tool as a trustworthy space for civic reflection, rather than a part of the urban intelligence industrial complex [2].

The Dutiful Citizen as Action Path User

Appealing to the propensities of the DC to become informed about issues of government and voting as a core democratic act [1] Action Path provides a way to vote, not in the conventional sense, but in a technologically enabled way that allows them to participate in public debate when they might otherwise find themselves detached from issues local to them. The difference in affordances from the AC use of Action Path is that they may be more likely to engage or trust in the space the tool creates when the government or official sources are the origin of the prompts. Not quite a one-way communication, but with DC’s today being more technologically informed than in previous generations, Action Path provides a way that official communications coming through this channel could actually engage citizens in a way that the DC is comfortable and familiar with, simply via a new channel. While the AC may leverage social networks like Facebook and Twitter and feel they are actively participating in civic reflection and debate, it is less likely that the DC would be comfortable with this decentralized or distributed form of discourse. Depending on the affordances granted to users, and the perception that this gives to the them of the app as a channel for sanctioned vs. open citizen transmission, it is possible that the DC may see this as meaningful in a way that social networks are not. The tone of the communications also plays a factor. While DC’s are accustomed to communications that are “generally information rich, but also filled with the views of officials and government authorities” and that “generally lacks much in the way of citizen voices or action ideas”, if they see a platform run rampant by unofficial voices, it is possible the will discount the conversation, and the platform as well, as too messy and unconventional.

Designing for Different Models of Citizenship 

Finding a balance in designing tools that target both of these communities is a difficult challenge, as one risks alienating one or the other. It may require providing different sub-spheres of conversation users can opt into to feel that they are engaging in the type of citizenship that best matches the sources they trust for civic organization and discourse. A further challenge is not to downplay any one against another. Making, for instance, “official” or “verified” accounts for government officials may betray the AC’s confidence in who the platform favors as a valid viewpoint. Putting them at the same level hierarchically as every other citizen may be a turn-off to the DC, who expects some degree of official indication and a default trusted viewpoint that they see as impartial. It is perhaps possible, if one has as their goal the “migration” of one form of citizenship to another (and inherently taking a political stand that “up” in this migration means e.g. toward a more AC form of participation and reflection), it may be possible to channel a user through the platform’s structure in such a way that it  allows them to become accustomed to new modes of interaction. Care must be taken, however, as a more cynical perspective might call this indoctrination. In this case, transparency has a delicate role to play.

1. “Changing Citizenship in the Digital Age”. https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/9780262524827_sch_0001.pdf

2. “Action Path Presentation at 2014 Knight-MIT Civic Media Conference”.  https://vimeo.com/99736172#t=2437s

Before I discuss the power of a technology like Rynda, I’d first like to spend a paragraph or three in (poorly-researched) defense of the personal responsibility model of citizenship, whose cardinal sin in my view is historically poor implementation rather than any inherent flaw.

The goal of the personal responsibility model of citizenship is to instill in the citizenry the idea that the benefits afforded by membership in society also carry an ethical obligation to be good custodians of that society. Typically, this custodial duty is defined in terms of specific community actions: volunteerism, charity, respect for the law, etc. There are clear weaknesses to this approach, especially in its ability to affect a healthy level of government skepticism. But it is important to note that this traditional definition of responsibility is not the only possible definition.

I would like to advance a different model of personal responsibility citizenship, which in addition to volunteerism and charity, places great emphasis on a personal responsibility to affect social change. After all, the reason that the society of today is (almost certainly) a better place to live in than the society of 1930 is because of the actions of generations of social reformers. As the heirs of that society, we too have a duty to reform and improve. This carries a multitude of derivative duties: to be as informed as necessary and to advocate through voting, for example.

This updated responsibility model solves most of the problems with the old model, and when one considers the fact that it is applicable to both conservative and progressive ideologies, it may be the most widely acceptable model yet. If we can agree that this model of citizenship is worth promoting, the relevant question becomes “How to we enable this type of behavior?” Here a technology like Rynda shows great promise.

One of the greatest challenges with personally responsible citizenship is connecting individual resources with needs. My father, who is a perennial volunteer at local homeless shelters, experienced this living in Japan: he had a desire to help, and there were certainly people in need of help, but because he could not speak Japanese, he was unable to find good venues for volunteerism. While language is a particularly extreme barrier, shades of this problem exist in almost every community. Atomistic citizens who may not have a predictable or consistent ability to volunteer often lack a good way to quickly become involved when they do have time.

Rynda works by connecting requests for aid with offers of help from other users. The goal is to create an “Atlas of Help” that will promote mutual aid between citizens. The value that I see in a model like this is in the ability of individual users to rise to the occasion is response to a particular event or crisis, or just generally on their own terms. This presents certain advantages over traditional service organizations whose schedules may not permit many prospective volunteers to engage in group activities. Rynda would instead offer a more Uber-esque system whereby user can volunteer when and only when they want to. By making responsible citizenship easier and more accessible, Rynda could enable more responsibility-inspired mutual aid.

“Under the Dome” is a documentary produced by Chai Jing, an ex-anchorwoman at CCTV. This documentary covers topics such as the seriousness of air pollution in China now, the scientific nature and cause of air pollution, the international practice of reducing air pollution, why government agencies cannot stop air pollution, and what citizens can do for air pollution. The whole video (with English subtitles) can be found in Youtube. Chai Jing funded the filming herself.

This film is freely accessed online, soon reached 200 million viewers[1]. Discussions in social media are heated, and many political figures (such as government officers and congress members) jumped into the discussions. There are several reasons why this film is influential: it is made of high quality, with a Steve-Jobs style keynote setting and animations for scientific concepts; it has some sorts of support for the Department of Environment (DoE), with which it can have interviews with governmental officers; it has a personal storytelling style, which could effectively spur emotion and empathy; and it has clear call-to-action message (such as which phone number should they call, which app should they install on their phone, and what people can do if they see a restaurant without a air filter), telling people what should they do to stop pollution instead of just raising awareness. And finally, this film is censored (just before the Meeting of the People’s Congress) as a result, which adds to its mystery and interestingness.

This is an interesting example of citizenship, because it is a monitorial action by a group of citizens (filmmakers), and its final purpose is to turn a larger group of people into monitorial citizens. In fact, after the film is released, the servers of the air quality monitoring app is so overloaded that they sought help from IT experts in the technical community. The telephone number of the Department of Environment is also well known through this process (although I have no data how many people actually called). But there is more to be said about this film. It concerns about environment – a basic right of citizens, and the film cannot be made without help from scientists, communication professionals, policy experts (it involves a study of how pollution is regulated in other countries), and government officers. The filming crew act more or less like a professional NGO in finding experts and lobbying / cooperating with government to put forward policy issues (which may be one reason why it is censored). Speak of the complexity of environmental issues, this film also did some science publicity work that try to inform the citizens about the cause of this issue, and raise some deliberative debate (although many members in science communities are critical about its presentation of data and research results). Instead of challenging the government as a whole, the filmmakers tries to play with the power dynamic: it speaks against the state-owned fossil energy companies; it criticizes local governments for pursuing GDP despite of environmental costs; it calls for more power to the Department of Environment; and it is first released in the people.com.cn, an official media. This deep engagement goes beyond simple binary citizen-government relationships, such as ruling or being ruled, support or oppose etc.

The film has been on (and off) for days[2]. it certainly raised some awareness – it is said that one of three Chinese citizens having access to Internet have seen this; environment protection became a top topic in the Meeting of People’s Congress; the local DoE officer is investigated by the Commission of Discipline Inspection of the local government; the new minister of DoE of the central government personally thanked Chai Jing, although any part of the government refused to comment on this film later; the film itself is censored, resulting a “no search result could be shown due to laws and regulations” in various search engines despite some discussions and news articles are still there. By who, in what way, and why this film piece is censored is still unknown.
1 – source
2 – more information and sources could be seen in this Wikipedia page (in Chinese)

Monithon, its name a contraction of the words monitor and marathon, is citizen-based monitoring effort in Italy that seeks to evaluate the success of local projects funded by the EU. Small groups of volunteers, sometimes from the Monithon development team and otherwise comprised of concerned citizens, assess the progress of projects and identify potential problems as they crop up. Finding projects to watch over is made easy due to OpenCoesione, a government-initiated open data portal that provides visualizations for funds allocated and projects supported. The result is ample access to valuable data given to committed volunteers armed with the skills needed to make sense of it.

This entire model demonstrates well what monitorial citizenship entails – groups of individuals paying attention to government-funded works in their areas of interest. When split into its discrete components, however, elements of both participatory and justice-oriented citizenship also shine through. Much of it has to do with OpenCoesione and the willingness of the government to release data to the public. But, as mentioned in Ethan Zuckerman’s post, just having data is never enough. Luckily, “open data days” and other data analysis workshops have sprung up in Italy in order to teach individuals and young students how to interpret the information at their disposal. This data literacy is vital as it sets the foundation for multiple types of civic engagement. From the technical skills taught come the potential of participatory citizenship; students who know how to assemble garbled data into coherent narratives are capable of participating in projects such as Monithon that rely on skilled interpreters of statistics. Such workshops can also introduce students to the critical mindset held by justice-oriented citizens. It takes a stolid mind to work on discerning between good government practices and poor ones without thinking about the structural implications of the results. Thus, while being trained in data analysis might not be a direct exposure to the more abstract, structural analytics associated with justice-oriented citizenship, it certainly offers a glimpse of what problems may lie deep within the data and what flaws may exist in the system.

Questions remain as to how Monithon might be made even better. For one, participatory movements are difficult to expand. The case study on Rynda pointed out that the platform created served more as a way for previously active citizens to interact and allocate resources, rather than encouraging support from usually disinterested segments of the population. Giving workshops for students and getting them involved early on certainly approaches this problem , but it’s possible that participation could be harnessed from a greater number of people, as with Social Cops. What was required from the average contributor for Social Cops, however, was simply an indication of whether or not their trash was collected. While movements can be made highly successful by decreasing the commitment necessary to be involved, it’s a markedly different sort of participating than what developers or data analysts do. Providing data may even be more akin to an act of personally responsible citizenship – donating information as one would food or money. The efficacy of limited scope can also be brought into question. Can many groups of people narrowly focused on specific projects lead to national discussions about things such as systematic disenfranchisement of certain social groups, or other dialogues that require an analysis of structural as well as infrastructural context? Perhaps a new method could be made, similar to Monithon but with a slightly different purpose: for the identification of far more nebulous systemic failures.

The example of monitorial citizenship that I want to discuss in this blog post is Textizen. Capitalizing on the reality that the majority of the American population has a phone, Textizen sends text messages to help its users spread their message. Through these text messages, users can inform a greater audience about a topic or event as well as collect data regarding the topic. This feature of the website allows users to establish a loop where they can ask users for their input on certain topics through surveys and then ask for them to engage in events pertaining to those topics. If the receiver of the text wants to continue to stay informed on the topic, they could be set up to receive texts regularly. Textizen helps citizens or groups impact more people by spreading their idea/event to a greater amount of people.

Even though Textizen has a general procedure for how its supposed to be used, different citizens might focus on or eliminate certain aspects of the system. For example, the different types of citizens discussed in last week’s class would use Textizen in different ways. A participatory citizen would see Textizen as another route to spread information and get people involved whereas a justice-oriented citizen would rely on the discussion and data collection side of Textizen. As usual, this Textizen user would set up their account, register what issue or topic they want to be discussed and decide what is their target audience. From there, Textizen would send out texts to get the people who the user desired to join their discussion.

At this point, the participatory citizen and the justice-oriented citizen would begin to employ the different tools of Textizen. A participatory citizen would still use surveys to gather information regarding their topic but that would not be their primary concern. If anything, a participatory citizen might use surveys to decide whether or not someone would be willing to physically be a part of an event. When a participatory citizen uses Textizen, they want to get more people to join their cause and to get more people to physically participate in events. For a participatory citizen, the final aspect of Textizen, sustaining engagement, is the most important feature.

The same cannot be said for citizens operating with a justice-oriented mindset. When a justice-oriented citizen uses Textizen, the surveys and other methods of data collection as well as discussions are whats very important. These type of citizens examine the problem and look for a solution to it. In order to discover this solution, the opinions of people and their own proposed solutions as well as data that represents the impact the issue has had on society are going to have to be assessed. This doesn’t mean that a justice-oriented person wouldn’t propose events to try to combat an issue. These events would probably just be stepping stones towards the solution or ways to resolve the issue for a limited time.

Even though these users would probably use Textizen in a different way, this does not mean one is less effective than the other. Both are looking to get other people involved in addressing an issue. As long as Textizen is being used to improve society, both of these examples of citizen are using it correctly.

Source: http://viatrolebus.com.br/2013/03/moradores-querem-bonde-de-santa-teresa-de-volta/bonde-santa-tereza/

Rio de Janeiro is probably the most known Brazilian city around the world. The city image is shaped by natural beauties, Bossa Nova, samba, carnival, the big statue of Christ the Redeemer [o Cristo Redentor] and the Pão de Açucar Mountain. (Of course we may not forget some sad things that is also part of the city, like the urban violence and inappropriate housing in favelas). Rio de Janeiro is both one important city for the Brazilian history and for the tourism economy. So the historic heritage should be carefully preserved, right? Yes, but it doesn’t always happen. A historic icon is in danger to be extinct: the electric trolley of Santa Teresa.

The electric trolley of Santa Teresa started run in 1896. Therefore, the trolley is almost 120 years old and since 1968 this is the only historic trolley yet in operation in Rio. Who visited Rio de Janeiro during the 20th century or during the first decade of the 21th century probably saw the trolley in operation. Passengers could take the train from the center of Rio to the Santa Teresa neighborhood, so they could cross the famous Arcos da Lapa.

Source: http://www.mjturismo.com.br/news-tour/brasil-imperial-12-a-24-de-maio-2015/attachment/bondinho-no-arco-da-lapa/

After decades of insufficient maintenance by public authorities, the trolleys stopped run in 2011. In this year, a sad accident killed six people and injured more than 50 passengers. Since then, the trolleys have not worked and they are stored in a workshop. The government is building and testing new trolleys, but the service don’t come back yet.

In this carelessness context with the historical heritage, an organization called Meu Rio [My Rio] took action. This is an organization that operates mainly in the city of Rio de Janeiro and its main action is to pressure public officials and other authorities to defend the citizens. For example, they achieve success in ask maintenance for some public schools and opening of GPS data from buses of the public transport system.

Source: http://deguarda.nossascidades.org/

Regarding to the trolley of Santa Teresa, the Meu Rio mobilized people to monitor the fate of the historical trolleys. They are especially concerned about the irregular grant to third parties. So they created a petition to request an inventory of goods from all trolley system. The argument is that some of the historic trolley (as old as 1896) can be recovered and operate together with the new trolleys that are under construction.

Source: http://deguardanobondinho.meurio.org.br/

After the government put the trolleys at a workshop, the Meu Rio created the page called De Guarda no Bondinho [on guard on the trolley]. The idea is basically push towards the trolleys’ preservation instead of being donated or thrown away. They put a camera in front of the workshop to monitor whether someone remove the trains. People who are concerned about this issue can register on the platform and inform his/her phone number. Thus, in case of the need for a flash mobilization, Meu Rio promises to send SMS to everyone. The idea is simple but looks efficient.

Until this week, the site has 2478 people registered, which are called guardians. Meu Rio explains the reasons and the procedure: “If it continues, the cable cars there will be only in the memory. Thus we are on guard! We will prevent the removal of parts until it’s done a rigorous and updated inventory of this heritage. Enlist now: we will send a SMS calling all guardians for the workshop door, if we suspect they removed parts. The city is ours. The trolleys too!”

However, there is no record that there was a mobilization in front of the workshop. This week, the camera is not working. Anyway, my goal is not to evaluate the effectiveness of this project, but discuss how this model can be inspiring for other actions and for our reflection on the exercise of citizenship.

I think this case illustrates the Schudson’s idea on monitorial citizenship. “A monitorial citizen scans (rather than reads) the informational environment in a way so that he or she may be alerted on a very wide variety of issues for a very wide variety of ends and may be mobilized around those issues in a large variety of ways”. The author argues that citizens can be more monitorial than follows the news. This kind of citizenship is based on personal interests and due specialized. As professor Zuckerman said at the class, the big challenge of the monitorial practice is the fight for public attention, once there are a lot of agendas looking for visibility.

The Meu Rio acts as a vigilant that monitors closely what happens with the trolleys. Thus, the citizens don’t need themselves give up their daily activities to monitor this issue. They can just engage if necessary. This model is good and bad at the same time. It doesn’t require too much from the citizens who can engage with a low cognitive and emotional cost. But at the same time this kind of project doesn’t guarantee that people understand the reasons for the trolleys’ support. The citizen takes a political position, but they don’t necessarily learn from this experience.

This kind of project isn’t concerned to create broadly opportunities for the formation of citizens. Through this platform, citizens don’t have the opportunity to understand better the operation, maintenance and financing of the public transport. Likewise, there isn’t explanations on preservation of the trolleys as historical heritage. Anyway, in my opinion, making choice of a much focused political action in the “monitorial” paradigm, Meu Rio don’t teach the idea of the Santa Teresa trolley as a citizen’s rights. Schudson could say that there is a valorization of the monitor citizenship and a devaluation of the rights-conscious citizenship.

For this assignment I’m going to take Action Path as the example, the creation of a geofence and an APP to get into this fence and participate in issues that are happening or going to happen could help to improve the number of people that participate in certain issues, this kind of technology makes ubiquitous the citizen participation, enabling the citizens to participate at any hour and with little time and effort.

In societies where the citizen participation isn’t rooted and where the citizens voice isn’t generally listen, the use of new technologies could help to change this, for example getting a web with all the responses that Action Path received could help to gain attention to certain issues and put some pressure in the political or project leaders.

The use of this kind of apps also helps to change the mindset about participation in public issues, now it’s possible to participate via an app sitting in a local cafe or while waiting for the bus, instead of attend a public meeting or writing a letter to a government official, this shift in the participation process abilities new entry points into the system.

One of the critiques that could come with this technologies is the oversimplification of civic participation, the amount of attention that a person could put into a mobile device to engage with a project could be limited, also the participation could be reduced to answer surveys or tu up-vote or down-vote projects instead of generate a dialogue between the government and the citizens and within the citizens. But on the other hand this technology also helps to get attention that other wise could have gone unaware, and I think this is where one of the main assets of Action Path stands.

The facility to gain attention in some issues that otherwise could go unattended could help to get the people interested in that issues, and not only while they wait for the bus are at a cafe, it could help them to go around and discover the community, walk around and get more notifications and engage with other topics or projects.

I think that most of the technologies that are designed to the monitorial citizens could help the other types to engage with local communities, informing the public about what’s going on in a community and getting them a easy way to participate makes a shift in the citizens models, I don’t think that would be instantaneous but little by little more people could engage in more public issues.

Promise Tracker is a tool predicated partly on the idea of participatory citizenship. It requires a group of citizens who have an area of interest that they want to document or poll people about. After creating a survey they must go out into the community and talk to people and collect evidence about their area of interest. After gathering this data they are able to use it to form a narrative that they can use to try to influence various levers of power. In this sense, one possible end goal for people using Promise Tracker is to change or influence existing systems.

As an example, a group of citizens might believe that Boston has allocated insufficient resources to snow removal, and that this insufficient government activity is creating dangerous situations for everyone. Promise Tracker could be used to create a survey that might include questions like “have you been endangered by snow conditions this winter?” and “has the city of Boston done enough to make roads and sidewalks safe this winter?” Teams could then move around the city and start polling people. In addition to the survey, Promise Tracker allows you to upload geotagged photos. If dangerous conditions were encountered while the teams were conducting survey questions, they could be photographed and uploaded to a map. Once the data was collected the group could then analyze the data and start to craft stories that use their new information. With those stories in hand the truly model behavior of participatory citizenship begins. The team would need to decide which institutions to try to influence. They might try to get stories in the press, or start attending city planning meetings to inform planners of their findings. They could also try to work outside of existing institutions, using the data and stories to try to mobile a direct action campaign.

But this participatory citizen model isn’t the only one that works with Promise Tracker’s strengths. If we perhaps stretch the conception of a dutiful citizen slightly to include the idea that being dutiful means holding government accountable or exposing problems, such a person would also find a lot of reasons to use Promise Tracker. A dutiful citizen might feel it is their civic responsibility to participate in the volunteer group described above. That person might feel that the city of Boston is not aware of the dangers posed by uncleared snow, and they have a duty to inform the relevant agencies. Or this person might feel a sense of duty to their fellow citizens. If uncleared snow really is a public hazard, then raising the public’s awareness of this may lessen the risks and harms created by the uncleared snow.

This example hinges on concepts of duty. As a counter-example, we can also imagine a dutiful citizen who feels that being dutiful includes trusting government to do what is right and what is possible based on their financial constraints. In this case, perhaps our hypothetical citizen looks at the snow problem and believes that being dutiful means having faith that the city is doing as much as it can to clear snow, and hazards will be cleared as soon as the hard-working city employees can get to them. “Duty” has shifted to mean dutifully suffering through dangerous conditions while waiting for the government to finish important work. Westheimer and Kahne argue that there is nothing inherently democratic about dutiful citizenship, which is true, but one can imagine two very different versions of the dutiful citizen, and each has a very different relationship to government and institutions: one who believes it is their duty to hold government accountable and inform it when then are problems, and one who believes it is their duty to trust government institutions and processes. In general, the ability to have faith in government seems to be waning in the US, and perhaps globally, but I do think there are still people who hold the later belief.

The civic media projects need to be able to include everyone who want to engage. However, to translate the theoretical demands for inclusiveness on the real world is really complex. A historical example are the efforts of governments and social organizations to facilitate public access to the Internet. In the United States, there is policies to offer Internet access in public libraries and some cities are planning to offer free high-speed Internet for all citizens. In Brazil there are public spaces [telecentros] specifically designed to provide free internet for the population. The governments are concerned with providing the resources to access the internet, because they believe the digital divide results in damage to the exercise of citizenship.

But this interpretation of the digital divide is simplistic, according to Paul DiMaggio and Eszter Hargittai (2001). The problem would be more challenging than simply provide access to computers and the internet. According to the authors the use of technology can’t be summary in to have or not. The question is the different uses that people actually do. These authors reframe the digital divide: we should talk about digital inequalities. The challenge is not just have access, but have all conditions and skills required for each activity you want to do online.

DiMaggio and Hargittai (2001) talk about technical issues, like hardware, software, connection to internet; autonomy of use, how each user may use or not; skills to do what each one want to do; social support, like motivation and help. Therefore, if someone wants to design a platform is essential to think about the differences between users. The challenge is great, because the platforms need to be understandable and easy to use by everyone.

The good news from Jenkins’ work (2009) is that people can learn how to participate during the Internet use itself. Jenkins specifically studied youth fan communities. He believes that young people can learn how to participate, including in the politics, through the engagement in fan culture. He believes that the participatory pop culture is teaching the next generation how to participate in politics.

However, how to assess the level of inclusiveness in civic media projects? To answer this question, I am going to assess how a case shapes the demands for inclusiveness. I will analyze a Brazilian platform for political discussion called Participa.BR. The federal government created this platform last year to promote discussion between citizens. But the participation rates are low. There are just 6181 members, sorted by 53 communities. It is easy to become member. It is necessary just fill out a form, where is mandatory to inform city, state, profession and possible civil organization of which the person is a member. After a check by mail, the person can start using the platform. For beginners who do not know the platform’s features, there is a small guidebook[1].

After a quick navigation throughout this site, I can say that the platform offers no great difficulties for those who are interested to engage in discussions. But given the low participation rates, I have to ask one question: The Participa.BR is effectively inclusive? If we look at the platform design, we can say yes. However, if we look at the use, the answer is no.

I think to strengthen the Participa.BR environment you need to use the Jenkins advice. The platform needs to be cool. The platform needs to attract people who like the themes in discussion. Jenkins would say fans, we can say activists. You need to develop strategies to encourage the formation of online communities. The user experience must be really inside the community. People have to have respect and admiration for each other. Maybe the Parlio social network could be a good start point to redesign the Participa.BR.

References:

DiMaggio, P., & Hargittai, E. (2001). From the ‘digital divide’to ‘digital inequality’: Studying Internet use as penetration increases. Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, Working Paper Series number, 15.

Jenkins, H. (2009). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. Mit Press.

[1] http://www.participa.br/ajuda/duvidas-frequentes