Micro-participation: Community Engagement in Transportation Planning with Social Medi1a

摘要

Transportation planning processes have an opportunity to improve plans with community engagementusing social media technologies. Micro-participation constitutes the engagement of the public with socialmedia methods for the purpose of maximizing input in a planning process while minimizing time andcosts to the public. Twitter, Facebook and other techniques have been used for planning, but have notbeen extensively evaluated for this purpose. This study examines more than 49,000 posts on Twitter andother social networking sites, tracked by Social Networking and Planning Project (SNAPP) to determinepublic engagement in the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan (ASMP). Using a mixed methods approach,relevant posts were examined to determine sentiment, extent of engagement, and impact on the decision10making process. This study found that there are methods that can be used to analyze micro-participationand that micro-participation can be effective in generating participation, but it faces substantial technical,analytical, and communication barriers to influence decision-making.