Open Source Urban Governance: Crowdsourcing, Neogeography, VGI, and Citizen Science

Background: The Concept Of E-Participation

E-participation is taken by some authors as synonymous of e-voting, while for others it has a broader meaning, being synonymous of e-democracy or digital democracy (Macintosh & Whyte, 2006). For this perspective, citizen e-participation includes e-voting but also innumerable other modes of citizen involvement in the policy making process. It is the case of Ann Macintosh (2004, p. 2), for whom “e-democracy is concerned with the use of information and communication technologies to engage citizens, to support the democratic decision-making processes and strengthen representative democracy.” It is also the case of Albrecht et al. (2008, p. 4), for whom e-Participation is “the participation of individuals and legal entities (including groups thereof) in political and administrative decision-making processes by means of information and communication technology.”

Therefore, in this broader perspective of e-democracy, the term e-Participation refers new modes of citizen involvement in the public policy process. It is an addition to conventional forms of citizen participation, more than a replacement for it. E-participation usually refers participatory initiatives within an institutional context, but can also be used to refer other modes of participation that emerge from the practices associated with the co-creation of digital content through the use of digital media technologies, as Saad-Sulonen (2012) shows in her study of Helsinki.