Transportation planning processes may be enhanced and plans improved by engaging the community through social media technologies. “Microparticipation” means the engagement of the public with social media methods for the purpose of maximizing the information going into a planning process while minimizing the plan's development time and the cost to the public. Twitter, Facebook, and other microparticipation media have been used for planning but have not been extensively evaluated for that purpose. This study examined more than 49,000 posts on Twitter and other social networking sites tracked by the Social Networking and Planning Project to determine public engagement in the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan. With the use of a mixed methods approach, relevant posts were examined to determine sentiment, extent of engagement, and impact on the decision-making process. The study found methods that could be used to analyze microparticipation. The report concluded that microparticipation could be effective in generating participation but faced substantial technical, analytical, and communication barriers to influencing decision making.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
TownsendA., MaguireR., LiebholdM., and CrawfordM.. A Planet of Civic Laboratories: The Future of Cities, Information, and Inclusion. Technical report. Institute for the Future, Palo Alto, Calif., 2010.
2.
Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, Group Solutions RJW, and Estilo Communications. People, Planning, and Preparing for the Future: Round 2 Public Involvement. Technical report. Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, Austin, Tex., 2009.
3.
City of Austin. Making Austin: Public Participation in a New Comprehensive Plan.Technical report.City of Austin, Tex., 2009.
4.
Evans-CowleyJ.S.Planning in the Age of Facebook: The Use of Social Networking in Planning Processes. Geojournal, Vol. 75, No. 3, 2010, pp. 407–420.
American Planning Association. Planning and Urban Design Standards. Wiley Graphic Standards. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, N.J. 2006.
7.
BullardR.D., JohnsonG. S., and TorresA. O.Highway Robbery: Transportation Racism and New Routes to Equity. South End Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2004.
8.
ChavesE., GarciaE., and GilmoreS.Consensus Building in Transportation Planning: Practice Case Evaluation of Process and Outcomes. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1981, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2006, pp. 76–83.
9.
AhernJ., JenningsL., FenstermacherB., WarrenP., CharneyN., JacksonS.D., MullinJ. R., KotvalZ., BrenaS. F., CivjanS.A., and CarrE.Issues and Methods for Transdisciplinary Planning of Combined Wildlife and Pedestrian Highway Crossings. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2123, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2009, pp. 129–136.
10.
ComeauP.S., and RodriguezD.A.Picking Publics Properly: An Artful Science. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1706, TRB, National Research Council, Washington, D.C., 2000, pp. 92–99.
11.
LowryM.B., NyergesT. L., and RutherfordG. S.Internet Portal for Participation of Large Groups in Transportation Programming Decisions. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2077, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2008, pp. 156–165.
12.
GrossardtT., BaileyK., and BrummJ.Structured Public Involvement: Problems and Prospects for Improvement, InTransportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1858, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2003, pp. 95–102.
BoydD., GolderS., and LotanG.Tweet, Tweet, Retweet: Conversational Aspects of Retweeting on Twitter. Proc., HICSS 2010, 2010, pp. 1–10.
16.
JavaA., SongX., FininT., and TsengB.. Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities. Proc., WebKDD/SNA-KDD, 2007, pp. 56–65.
17.
KwakH., LeeC., ParkH., and MoonS.. What is Twitter, a Social Network or a News Media? Proc., 19th International Conference on World Wide Web, 2010. Accessed Dec. 18, 2010: http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1772690.1772751.
WrightA.Mining the Web for Feelings, Not Facts. New York Times, Aug. 8, 2009.
20.
ZhaoD., and RossonM.B.How and Why People Twitter: The Role That Micro-blogging Plays in Informal Communication at Work. Proc., GROUP'09, 2009, pp. 243–252.
AlterR., LewieckiM., Renz-WhitmoreM., and AlbrightD.P.. Accountable Public Involvement: Partnership Approach to Proposed Transportation Project. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 2077, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2008, pp. 46–53.
23.
Evans-CowleyJ. S., and HollanderJ.. The New Generation of Public Participation: Internet-Based Participation Tools. Planning Research and Practice, Vol. 25, No. 3, 2010, pp. 397–408.
24.
LewisK., KaufmanJ., GonzalezM., WimmerA., and ChristakisN.Tastes, Ties, and Time: A New Social Network Dataset Using Facebook. com. Social Networks, Vol. 30, No. 4, 2008, pp. 330–342.
HarsA., and OuS.Working for Free? Motivations for Participating in Open Source Projects. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2002, pp. 25–39.
29.
HertelG., NiednerS., and HermannS.Motivation of Software Developers in the Open Source Projects: An Internet-Based Survey of Contributors to the Linux Kernel. Research Policy, Vol. 32, No. 7, 2003, pp. 1159–77.
30.
GranellJ., and GrachenD.Strategies for Streamlined Participation by Native American Governments in Federal Transportation Projects. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1931, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2005, pp. 63–67.
HoneycuttC., and HerringS.C.Beyond Microblogging: Conversation and Collaboration via Twitter. Proc., 42nd Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science, 2009.HICSS. Bloomington, Ind., Jan. 5–8, 2009, pp. 1–10.
SuhB., HongL., PirolliP., and ChiE.H.Want to be Retweeted? Large Scale Analytics on Factors Impacting Retweet in Twitter Network. Proc., 2nd International Conference on Social Computing, Minneapolis, Minn., 2010, pp. 177–184.
JansenB., ZhangM., SobelK., and ChowduryA.. Twitter Power: Tweets as Electronic Word of Mouth. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 60, 2009, pp. 2169–2188.
39.
TumasjanA., SprengerT. O., SandnerP.G., and WelpeI.M.. Election Forecasts with Twitter: How 140 Characters Reflect the Political Landscape. Social Science Computer Review, December 2010, pp. 1–17.
40.
NoveckB. S.Wiki Government: How Technology Can Make Government Better, Democracy Stronger, and Citizens More Powerful. Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 2009.
41.
PrevostD. L.Geography of Public Participation: Using Geographic Information Systems to Evaluate Public Outreach Program of Transportation Planning Studies. In Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1981, Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C., 2006, pp. 84–91.
42.
TausczikY.R., and PennebakerJ.W.The Psychological Meaning of Words: LIWC and Computerized Text Analysis Methods. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Vol. 29, 2009, pp. 24–54.
43.
YuB., KaufmannS., and DiermeierD.Exploring the Characteristics of Opinion Expressions for Political Opinion Classification. Proc., 2008 International Conference on Digital Government Research, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 2008, pp. 82–91.
44.
LIWC, Inc. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Computer software, LIWC, Inc., 2007. http://www.liwc.net/.
45.
SuenamiA., and YutakaM.Voter Behavior Analysis and Election Campaign Strategies Using Information on the Web (in Japanese). Proc., JSAI SIG-KBS, Tokyo, No. 87, 2010, pp. 1–6.
NaamanM., BoaseJ., and LaiC.-H.. Is it Really About Me? Message Content in Social Awareness Streams. Proc., CSCW 2010 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 2010, pp. 189–192.
49.
JansenH.J., and KoopR.Pundits, Ideologues, and Ranters: The British Columbia Election Online. Canadian Journal of Communication, Vol. 30, 2005, pp. 613–632.
