The Age Of Participation

s people reject authoritarian government, bureaucracy and the denial of human rights. Featuring an opportunity for readers to participate by progressively completing an organization assessment, this book is a practical, experience-based handbook for instituting, sustaining and nurturing the changes necessary today.

Citizen involvement is considered the cornerstone of democratic theory and practice. Citizens today have the knowledge and ability to participate more fully in the political, technical, and administrative decisions that affect them. On the other hand, direct citizen participation is often viewed with skepticism, even wariness. Many argue that citizens do not have the time, preparation, or interest to be directly involved in public affairs, and suggest instead that representative democracy, or indirect citizen participation, is the most effective form of government. Some of the very best writings on this key topic - which is at the root of the entire "reinventing government" movement - can be found in the journals that ASPA publishes or sponsors. In this collection Nancy Roberts has brought together the emerging classics on the ongoing debate over citizen involvement. Her detailed introductory essay and section openers frame the key issues, provide historical context, and fill in any gaps not directly covered by the articles. More than just an anthology, "The Age of Direct Citizen Participation" provides a unique and useful framework for understanding this important subject. It is an ideal resource for any Public Administration course involving citizen engagement and performance management.

Citizen Participation in the Age of Contracting is based on a simple premise: in democracies, power originates with citizens. While citizen participation in government remains a central tenet of democracy, public service delivery structures are considerably more complex today than they were fifty years ago. Today, governments contract with private organizations to deliver a wide array of services. Yet, we know very little about how citizens influence government decisions and policies in the "hollow state." Based on nearly 100 interviews with public and private managers, our findings about the state of citizen participation in contract governance are somewhat disheartening. Public and private organizations engaged citizens in a number of ways. However, most of their efforts failed to shift the power structure in communities and did not give citizens a chance to fundamentally shape local priorities and programs. Instead, elected officials and professional staff largely maintained control over significant policy and administrative decisions. Widespread, but narrow in their forms and impact, the participation practices we uncovered did not live up to the ideals of democracy and self-governance. Citizen Participation in the Age of Contracting is suitable for those who study public administration, as well as in other closely related fields such as nonprofit management and organizational behavior.

This book explores the potential of the Internet for enabling new and flexible political participation modes. It meticulously illustrates how the Internet is responsible for citizens' participation practices from being general, high-threshold, temporally constricted, and dependent on physical presence to being topic-centered, low-threshold, temporally discontinuous, and independent from physical presence. With its ethnographic focus on Icelandic and German online participation tools Betri Reykjavík and LiquidFriesland, the book offers plentiful advice for citizens, programmers, politicians, and administrations alike on how to get the most out of online participation formats.

Turn intrinsic human desires into your most powerful marketing tool. Marketing in the Participation Age shows you how to rethink marketing. Transform consumers into active participants for your brand by capturing their interest, empowering them to contribute, and developing meaningful relationships that keep them involved. Learn how to create a marketing environment that fulfills your customers' desire to seek challenges and discover new things—and watch their participation yield greater revenues for your business. "Marketing is constantly evolving. Companies can't compete by using the same old, tired tools. This book provides fresh inspiration, with a new framework for doing things differently." —Sally Hogshead, author of Fascinate; inductee into the CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame "Participant marketing transformed the way we did business in the marketplace as an agency and provided a framework for doing business with clients that added unique value to their marketing efforts." —Kris Pinto, founder of Moxie Interactive

This book maps, describes and further explores all contemporary forms of interaction between radio and its public, with a specific focus on those forms of content co-creation that link producers and listeners. Each essay will analyze one or more case studies, piecing together a map of emerging co-creation practices in contemporary radio. Contributors describe the rise of a new class of radio listeners: the networked ones. Networked audiences are made up of listeners that are not only able to produce written and audio content for radio and co-create along with the radio producers (even definitively bypassing the central hub of the radio station, by making podcasts), but that also produce social data, calling for an alternative rating system, which is less focused on attention and more on other sources, such as engagement, sentiment, affection, reputation, and influence. What are the economic and political consequences of this paradigm shift? How are radio audiences perceived by radio producers in this new radioscape? What’s the true value of radio audiences in this new frame? How do radio audiences take part in the radio flow in this age? Are audiences’ interactions and co-creations overrated or underrated by radio producers? To what extent listeners' generated content can be considered a form of participation or "free labour" exploitation? What’s the role of community radio in this new context? These are some of the many issues that this book aims to explore. Visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Radio-Audience-and-Participation-in-the-Age-of-Network-Society/869169869799842 for the book's Facebook page.

This book maps, describes and further explores all contemporary forms of interaction between radio and its public, with a specific focus on those forms of content co-creation that link producers and listeners. Each essay will analyze one or more case studies, piecing together a map of emerging co-creation practices in contemporary radio. Contributors describe the rise of a new class of radio listeners: the networked ones. Networked audiences are made up of listeners that are not only able to produce written and audio content for radio and co-create along with the radio producers (even definitively bypassing the central hub of the radio station, by making podcasts), but that also produce social data, calling for an alternative rating system, which is less focused on attention and more on other sources, such as engagement, sentiment, affection, reputation, and influence. What are the economic and political consequences of this paradigm shift? How are radio audiences perceived by radio producers in this new radioscape? What’s the true value of radio audiences in this new frame? How do radio audiences take part in the radio flow in this age? Are audiences’ interactions and co-creations overrated or underrated by radio producers? To what extent listeners' generated content can be considered a form of participation or "free labour" exploitation? What’s the role of community radio in this new context? These are some of the many issues that this book aims to explore. Visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Radio-Audience-and-Participation-in-the-Age-of-Network-Society/869169869799842 for the book's Facebook page.