These are the provisional conclusions of ICPPIT 99, as drafted and read at the end of the Conference. All participants are welcome to offer any comments, so that a final text can be finished shortly by the Committee, for divulgation in the media and inclusion in the Conference Proceedings. Please reply to both citidep@netcabo.pt and jjm@mail.fct.unl.pt. Best regards,
ICPPIT 99 Committee
1. Access of people to information technology should be considered a human right! In our complex world of today, education for and access to such technology is an inescapable condition for full citizenship.
2. Existing experiences show that the use of information technologies for public participation are useful and operative, but have also vast room for improvement. Research and development on this subject will likely improve dramatically both the scope and the quality of the use of new IT for public information and participation.
3. We already have adequate technology to provide much better information and participation opportunities than those commonly available today. Although not widely used in practice, there are many examples of tools for the dissemination of information and public participation on such different issues as county, city and natural resources planning, environmental impact assessment, small-scale community decision-making, global issues such as climate changes, negotiation helpers, monitoring the quality of the environment (including the concept of augmented reality), monitoring administrative or legislative processes going on in local, national or international institutions. Working examples of all those and more have been reviewed at the Conference. In short, although there is still much to do, technology seems to be the easy part.
4. The question that arises then is: why is this potential not being more widely used and explored? Some key reasons have been forwarded and discussed at the Conference: a) Lack of political will. The "powers that be" often do NOT want to facilitate the dissemination of information, let alone hearing the people; or at best they consider the exercise a waste of time. Two simple widespread examples: (i) environmental impact statements, that are public by definition in many countries, are not usually posted on the Web, despite fully available technology and lower cost than other means of information; (ii) most of the information detained by the Administrations (and paid for with taxpayers money) is either confidential or for sale, seldom free; b) Narrowness of participation procedures. Participation procedures are often, by accident or design, so narrow in scope, or so late in the decision process, that they become useless for both the decision-makers and the people at large - irrespective of the amount of information or the information technology provided; c) Lack of a communication strategy. Meaningful public participation requires a definition of a complex mosaic of publics, interests and lobbies. Language and interfaces must be carefully designed to address different relevant publics (IT are excedingly powerful tools, but still just tools); d) Mistrust of people in Government. Even in democratic countries, many people, perhaps the majority of people, do not trust their representatives or rulers at all. This renders many formal participatory processes a multiple monologue of deaf; e) Insufficient R&D. Research and development of applications of IT for public participation has been minimal, especially if compared with commercial applications. It has certainly not been a priority for R&D sponsors.
5. The political organization of our society is at stake. The foundations of our democratic system were designed two hundred years ago in a profoundly different world. More and more people in democratic countries feel or are in practice outside the political system; and many cultures worldwide do not seem to function at all with the "western" democracy model, even if they have no better alternative at hand. We must reinvent democracy, and information technologies are certainly one of the key tools we have to do that.
6. Mere participation in reactive processes is definitely not enough. We desperatly need people to think about the way we run our society - or those who do think will run the society at the expense of the rest of us. We must be pro-active in decision-making processes that will affect our lives and our children«s. For instance, how are we going to deal with global issues such as the climates changes, or the disproportionate power of multinational corporations? How are we going to use the tools we already have, namely the IT? What new tools do we need to create?
7. The dark side of new information technologies is that they have such a large potential for society control of the many by the few. Television is an old and known example, but the Internet poses new and challenging problems of protection of privacy, personal data and cultural diversity. We need to create safeguards for those values. Big Brother is looming around, but this time it is for realÉ
8. Our society is severely impaired by many misconceptions about science and technology in general and IT in particular. For instance: the fallacy that technology automatically means progress; the fallacy that technical problems must have technical solutions; the fallacy that pragmatism must rule over equity; the fallacy of the short run; the fallacy that if some information is good, the more the better; the fallacy that if it«s on the TV or the Web, it must be true; the fallacy that if it is possible to skate successfully on thin ice, it is acceptable to do so; and son on. We must improve scientific knowledge and fight such misconceptions.
In a nutshell, we have at our disposal many tools, namely the new information tecnologies, that enable us to improve dramatically public participation in decision-making, or may do so in the near future. The point now is: what do we want to do with them?
Subject: Re: Conclusions of ICPPIT 99
Hi all-
I hope it is not too late to send our comments. I didn't have time to think about this until this morning, so here it is:
Point 1 is right on track (this clearly was as one of the main conclusions of ICPPIT) NB: I would write "Access to information technologies should be considered a human right!"
I like point 4 and 8. They are specific, well detailed and original.
Point 5 and 6 are less specific and far less convincing precisely because they are too vague.
Personally, I would drop point 5. I am not sure the conference addressed how or why we must "reinvent democracy" and just saying that we should seem a bit too vague. Am I the only one thinking that way? As for point 6, is the "we" refering to scholars or citizens in general? are we saying that so-called experts must spend more time theorizing about ways to "run our societies" or that the citizens themselves should get more involved in public life and come up with ways to run their societies? If the argument is about citizens in general, this argument is about public apathy and I think it is worth mentioning that this apathy is a major contemporary problem. What are the benefits of IT for public participation if citizens don't want to participate? In sum, I would make point 6 about the need to overcome public apathy and I would move it to the end of the list, as a way to remind us that the role of IT in public life is contingent upon the citizens will to engage in public life.
These were my two cents worth of comments. Good job Joao! Overall, the document is well crafted and it nicely summarizes the conferences.
Chantal