Browsing by Author "Kallio, Milla"

Citizen participation and equality in digital spaces The importance of digital space and digital inclusion has increased due to processes of digitalization. Citizens can participate in democratic decision-making processes online and through several platforms organized by public administration or citizens themselves. Digital participation has an opportunity to enhance interaction and communication between citizens and governments or governmental organizations. Technology has long been seen as a way of making people’s everyday lives easier as well as levelling up the playing field through easy and affordable access to information, education and knowledge distribution. However, studies have shown that digital space can similarly exclude or include people based on norms and power relations that exists in those spaces and between people interacting in them. Digital inequality and exclusion have to be taken into consideration when planning on including people in decision making processes through digital participation in order to ensure equal opportunities and inclusive policies as a result. In this master’s thesis I study digital participation in particularly from the perspective of the residents. This study focuses on meanings and value given to digital participation and on how residents themselves experience digital space and the opportunities gained through accessing it. My thesis aims at understanding the motivations for participating in digital space and the meanings given to it. Through understanding meanings and motivations, I also thrive to analyse the possibility to create more inclusive digital spaces on a more structural level from the perspective of the public administration. The thesis in based on theories of space as created through interaction, and participation which in this study is understood as a subjective experience. Methods of this study were ethnographic observation and surf interviews, which combines interviews with participatory observation. This study concludes that digital participation is enhanced at the interfaces of digital and physical space through belonging and competence. The interviewees felt confident in their ways of using digital space and believed that the channels provided for participation were usable and that the administration was open towards their ideas. Being able to participate in digital space gave the interviewees experiences of learning and broadened their world view through exposure and interaction. However, the interviewees had negative experiences from participating in decision-making processes and felt that citizen participation did not have a true impact. But nevertheless, they believed in their possibilities in creating change and finding ways to participate if they would deem a case worthwhile. The importance of a physical place such as Maunulan Mediapaja was also brought forward in this study. It was evident that the place was meaningful to many users and that it also plays a role in activating and encouraging people to get involved in local issues, in physical events and also in digital spaces. It is portrayed as a low threshold space that functions at the interfaces of physical place and digital space.