After verifying, in a previous post on "Network and citizen participation", the lack of adequacy of public information to the needs for decision-making of all kinds of citizens and agents, it is worth questioning the requirements that public information has of gathering to attract users' interest and gain their trust.
What requirements must public information have to be effective?
In light of the foregoing, it could be said that the characteristics that public information must have are related to a series of desirable attributes, to increase its attractiveness and its potential to influence action. Hence, public information must be:
1. Visual, that "enters through the eyes"
2. Useful for required purposes
3. Easily accessible, in friendly formats and in real time, 4. Updated, incorporating the latest available data
5. Adaptable to the needs of the user of the same.
This can be summarized by saying that public information must be oriented to satisfy the needs of the agents, that is, it must provide information considered by users as relevant for decision-making (of all kinds). In the case of a council, for example, some purposes for which citizens need the information provided by a council and for which their information should be conceived and designed should be mentioned:
• To open a new business. This shows the importance of information and its correct presentation, by conditioning the opening of new activities and, therefore, influencing the levels of well-being and attractiveness of a municipality as well as its potential for generating wealth and added value.. All this results in the range of services offered by it, in the level of development and, by extension, in the "attractiveness" of the municipality.
• On the other hand, among the required purposes, there is also the process of Reporting on the activity of the City Council. Projects, plans, priorities, achievements,… as a means through which to faithfully and transparently transfer aspects of municipal life that are of interest to the citizen and that communicate the decisions taken by the city council in the various areas of its competence.
• Constitute virtual communities with similar interests, reinforcing the interrelation and sense of belonging of citizens.
• Facilitate relationship procedures with the city council (taxes, surcharges, licenses, certificates,…)
• Other purposes (to be completed by the reader).
What do we find in reality ?: many aspects of improvement in the information offered
Considering some of the requirements for public information from a theoretical level, it should be noted, however, that, far from satisfying such requirements, and despite the meritorious advances that have been made in the information formats available, usually, the raw In reality, it shows us how the information provided responds only to a “supply” scheme; It is not interactive, rarely allows customization and almost never is relevant to efficiently decide on aspects related to a business or similar. In other words, the public information offered rarely meets the requirements that we have defined as useful for decision-making, be it due to its format, scope, lack of homogeneity,...
We are therefore in a field where the margin for improvement of public information is very wide. This fuels a certain mistrust of public managers. As stated in “Participation, politics and public management” by Enrique Sacanel, in these moments in which the feeling of dissatisfaction is widespread due to the drift that democracies have taken, it is not easy to change the panorama or recover relational trust between users and public institutions. Therefore, I believe that a first step such as addressing modern alternatives, different ways of presenting information to users in a disruptive way, with a service mentality and taking into consideration criteria of adaptation to their needs, could be a sign of progress in the proper line.
It is therefore necessary to regain the trust of users through information, in a context in which the existing factors of change significantly alter the scenario and the relationship between them and the administration.
It is known that trust between two people is expensive to achieve, which is based on long-lasting and precise relationships, therefore perseverance and perseverance to achieve it. In the same sense, trust is also fragile: once broken, rebuilding it is even more difficult to recover. Something similar happens when a public institution wants to establish relationships of trust and service with its users. This difficult endeavor is complicated by also including the factors that affect the change of scenery.
What are the main factors of change that affect this relationship?
Among the elements that cause the accelerated change of scenery, it is worth mentioning:
a) The generalization of new technologies and digitization expand and democratize access to information. Visualization is one of the rapidly spreading principles. Information recipients have to do so in such a way that they understand the problem to be solved or the unknowns to be solved in a very graphic way. This phenomenon contributes to improving solutions and carrying out more accurate diagnoses.
b) The connection between people and agents and the promotion of interrelation through social networks, are also characteristics that promote collective knowledge and allow to take advantage of collective intelligence and knowledge, increasing the potential of the information distributed and managed in various lattice nodes. Group-based movements are emerging strongly in various settings. Thus experiences such as coworking, cofunding, crowdsourcing,… highlight the growing importance of the collective approach compared to the individual.
c) The third area to highlight is the change in Governance. Power relations are increasingly tilted with greater clarity on the part of the administered, acting individually and increasingly influencing the decisions of the administrations. Principles such as transparency in management, codes of good governance and partnership, are gaining more and more prominence in the relations between administration and citizens. The conjunction of these environmental factors influences power relations and the behavior of economic and social agents, manifestly altering them.
Conclusions
The presentation of public information, adapting it to the real needs of users, constitutes a task with a long way to go for improvement. However, appropriate and effective information is necessary to rebuild relationships of trust with users, as a previous step to achieve greater participation, wanted, voluntary and interested in improving aspects in which citizens feel concerned, despite the difficulties or inconveniences that the intricacy of the public space may entail.
In this endeavor, it is necessary to obtain the maximum performance of the factors that alter the relationship scenario, such as new technologies, social networks and the digitization of content, their dissemination and generalization, as they constitute elements of governance that cannot be forgotten.
