Raising new voices, all voices, inclusively with digital engagement is the #1 unaddressed issue by the civic tech movement in my view.
It was great to learn about this new research: https://www.mysociety.org/research/novel-approaches-to-online-citizen-engagement-new-zealand-and-australia/ The hard truth is that foundation investments thus far are mostly empowering the kinds of people who have traditional already shown up despite their foundation's inclusion/equity missions. Hopefully this will change. (On the venture funded commercial side, the equation is even worse as services focus on those willing to pay (political interests seeking power/donations) or those more attractive to advertisers (e.g. home owners joining gated community style neighborhood sites with policies that broadly limit political organizing/campaigning.) Steven Clift E-Democracy.org P.S. Speaking of reaching under-represented groups with civic tech - see http://e-democracy.org/inclusion - specifically our survey results http://blog.e-democracy.org/posts/2610 and in-depth report on our early work with the Somali community in Minneapolis and others: http://e-democracy.org/evaluation Date: Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 6:10 AM Subject: mySociety: Our latest research: citizen engagement in New Zealand and Australia The latest paper from our Head of Research, Dr Rebecca Rumbul <http://ift.tt/1DuVgn0>, is available for download. Drawing on interviews with 40 individuals in government and civil society, this research strives to answer the question: *how do government and civil society initiatives and innovations in New Zealand and Australia attempt to reduce digital exclusion amongst digitally under-represented user-groups?* Rebecca pulls out the best practices from these two countries, and looks at how they could be replicated here. The result is four strong recommendations for the UK’s policymakers. Download the research now <http://ift.tt/1Kum6VU>.
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