Building Civic Participation Through Mobile Reporting Apps: Efficient, Engaging, or Both?

• In Event: Mobile Motivations

Abstract

From web-based tools to mobile applications, cities are adopting and developing a variety of digital media to enable communication with citizens while simultaneously inviting them to provide input or feedback with the goal of influencing and collaboratively executing policy decisions. Through this reciprocal communication, government organizations and officials are increasingly leveraging ICTs to enable participation in politics and civic life. This paper focuses on the use of mobile technology to facilitate political participation by means of reporting local problems by engaging in 311 systems through telephone hotlines or mobile applications, and investigates its capacity to facilitate participation that is deeply democratic versus merely efficient. To explore this, we ask, what are the differences between traditional 311 hotlines and mobile apps? Can mobile versions of these traditionally telephone-based systems be said to increase civic behavior or disposition, or do they simply facilitate efficient transactions with government?

Authors

• Jessica Baldwin-Philippi, Fordham U

• Eric Gordon, Emerson College