Comments on: Public Participation Requirements: Complete and Unbiased Information

By: Engaging Development » Blog Archive » Public Participation: Ten Simple Ideas for Better Online/Offline Integration

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 17:23:15 +0000

[...] Public Participation Requirements: Complete and Unbiased Information [...]

By: Information Sharing and Learning on Zilino

Information Sharing and Learning on Zilino — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:40:13 +0000

[...] sharing and learning on Zilino a lot more collaborative and a lot more social. Here’s what I wrote back in March of 2009: We often talk about the obvious shortcomings of e-participation as compared [...]

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 16:47:55 +0000

Just came across a set of “ten guiding principles for successful information, consultation and active participation in policy-making” set forth by the Working Group on Strengthening Government-Citizen Connections of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

They use similar language as Creighton and the EPA:

“5. Objectivity: Information provided by government during policy-making should be objective, complete and accessible. All citizens should have equal treatment when exercising their rights of access to information and participation.”

By: links for 2009-03-17 « Spartakan

links for 2009-03-17 « Spartakan — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:00:35 +0000

[...] Public Participation Requirements: Complete and Unbiased Information | Intellitics Risks incurred by the Obama government of “pseudo-dialogue” and “pseudo-civic engagement” and the need for some sort of quality assurance guidelines for the public participation efforts that the new administration is bound to undertake. (tags: participation blog edemocracy usa 2009) [...]

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:37:56 +0000

I agree that the information material provided to the participants can never be perfect. However, there are common standards of information quality that the conveners must try to uphold.

For example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lists among their quality standards for the dissemination of information “objectivity, utility and integrity.”

If I understand Creighton correctly, his advice refers to both individual resources as well as the whole package of briefing materials. So while any one piece of information may (and often will) clearly come with bias, it is important for the overall package to show balance or at least make potential bias transparent to the participants.

By: Ron Lubensky

Ron Lubensky — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:33:45 +0000

“Complete and unbiased information” is an impossible ideal. It presumes a singular objective Truth, which is a nonsense for most issues that call for public deliberation! Information is always framed, selected and portrayed by somebody who represents a particular view of the world. Who is making the judgement about that “last word” on a subject? Who is discerning high quality? This is nonsensical because public engagement exercises are often convened precisely because expert prescriptions are not fully trusted.

So your final statement is right on the mark–the responsibility of conveners is to provide public deliberators with opportunities to access multiple perspectives and sources of information, not necessarily provide those resources directly. For example, a process could present a panel of contesting stakeholders, a tag cloud, or open access to various newspaper or journal archives.

All of those sources should to biased, making clear who benefits or is impacted by their claims. It is up to the public deliberators to make sense of it and discount items which are inconsistent with values agreed upon through deliberation.

Tailored online tools should not only make this access easier, but encourage people to step outside their usual media viewing habits.