Best-Practice Piloting Based on an Integrated Social Media Analysis and Visualization for E-Participation Simulation in Cities

Abstract

E-Participation and the engagement of citizens in politics are on the agenda in many countries. Therefore, a number of project and programs were initiated that aim at finding creative and effective solutions for involving citizens. One intended aspect is the provision of transparency that enables citizens to analyze socio-economical indicators and serves as basement for initial data storing for e-participation scenarios simulation. A beyond going step is to consider citizens’ opinions in the policy making process. Unfortunately this will only be possible; if a significant number of citizens know what concrete aspect should be realized. The growth and establishment of social media nowadays allow most people to discuss political ideas and critics virtually and anonymously achieving higher credibility of the data usable for policy making. However, the major barrier is the different topical languages, the representatives’ role and weak visualization of the results. This article dealt with a best-practice piloting approach for discussing and realizing innovative solutions with a variety of stakeholders from different domains. The core of this paper is how to deal and manage the different perspective on development process, to aim on designing a common set of requirements and development procedure. The methodology is practically and beneficial applied as social media integration solution in the EC FP7 FUPOL research project.