New Publication: From Data to Discourse: How Communicating Civic Data Can Provide a Participatory Structure for Sustainable Cities and Communities

Our research fellows Yuya Shibuya (University of Tokyo), Christoph Raetzsch (Aarhus University), and Andrea Hamm (RIoT, Weizenbaum Institute) have published a multi-method study on bicycle counters and civic urban data taking into account SDG 11 “sustainable cities and communities.”

Abstract: This study explores how Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have leveraged civic data to facilitate democratic participatory structure for sustainability transitions around the case of bicycle counters in three US cities over a ten-year period (Seattle, San Francisco, Portland). We identified that CSOs have played crucial roles in public discourse by (1) sustaining long-term public issues through shaping affective as well as analytical discourses and (2) fostering citizens’ sense of ownership and contributions toward sensor devices and the data they generate by contextualizing them through local civic life as well as connecting issues to actors in other cities.

Keywords: Civil Society Organizations, Civic Data, Bicycle counter, Participatory structures, Sustainable Development Goals

Full Paper Download: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-74871-6