New options for public engagement with climate change adaptation using information and communication technologies

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation was inspired by the new possibilities offered by Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for strengthening citizen agency to meet the widely recognized need for active public inclusion in decision-making on adaptation to climate change. To ensure the success of adaptation polices it is essential that policy-makers both involve public knowledge and experience and gain public acceptance for the measures they propose to cope with climate change. Traditional forms of public participation are often intensive, time-consuming and limited to small-scale participatory activities. However, recent years have seen a significant increase in the visibility of different citizens’ perspectives in the online world. The two guiding questions behind the research for this thesis were thus as follows: 1) What is the role of ICT in current participatory processes?; and 2) Can ICT ensure efficient and meaningful public participation in climate change adaptation? To answer these questions, this dissertation analyses the use of online participation – eParticipation – in reaching out to the public. The paper draws on knowledge from different disciplines, including information and communication studies as well as classic works of social and political scientists, to understand the relation between social capital and adaptive capacity in the online world. The dissertation develops a theoretical framework for supporting online public participation in climate change adaptation. It further presents findings from tests undertaken as to the suitability of various online tools and social marketing approaches for applying different parts of this framework. The framework was implemented in a case study and the results obtained proved that eParticipation is efficient in terms of the time and money needed for participation. The results indicated the decreasing significance of the digital divide as an obstacle for using online spaces for public participation. For while a pre-existing online network of users is a prerequisite for conducting successful eParticipation involving high numbers of participants and obtaining meaningful results, we can reasonably expect different engagement approaches to become feasible with further Internet proliferation. Finally, eParticipation is not presented as a panacea but rather as an approach that can be combined with well-established participatory practices. For example, interviews were used in this study to ensure the acceptability and meaningfulness of the obtained results. The paper recommends assigning an important role to scientists, who are encouraged to reach out to the general public and act as “brokers” of information between different groups that would not otherwise be in contact. From a research point of view, this dissertation contributes to a still-emerging research agenda aimed at identifying and understanding the options and limitations of using ICT for engaging citizens. From an action point of view, the results of this research signal how ICT can scale up public participation in climate change decision-making and thus add to a more equal and democratic climate change governance.