| Abstract: | The limited use of the ‘official’ e-participation websites by the citizens,
their high heterogeneity in terms of political interests, educational level and
technological skills and at the same time the emergence of the new web 2.0 social
media necessitate central and local administration to exploit the numerous usersdriven
virtual spaces, which have been launched through citizens initiatives with
dramatic success in terms of adoption and usage, in order to widen and enhance
e-participation. This paper describes a methodology for the systematic
exploitation of the emerging Web 2.0 social media, in combination with
established simulation modelling techniques and tools, by governmental
organizations in the processes of public policies formulation. It is based on the
concept of ‘Policy Gadget’ (Padget), which is defined as a micro web application
combining a policy message with underlying group knowledge in social media
and interacting with citizens in popular web 2.0 locations (such as social
networks, blogs, forums, news sites, etc) in order to get and convey their input to
policy makers. Such ‘Padgets’ will be created by a central platform-toolset and
then deployed in many different Web 2.0 media. Citizens input gathered through
‘Padgets’ will be used in various simulation modelling techniques and tools, such
as the Systems Dynamics methodology), which are going to simulate different
policy options and estimate their outcomes and effectiveness. Finally, a use case
scenario of the proposed methodology is presented, which outlines how it can be
used in ‘real life’ public policy design problems. |
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Greek