Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Based on Arnstein’s (1969) “Ladder of Citizen Participation”, the author Offenhuber (2015) reveals that there are different levels and modes of civic engagement across digital platforms – “The Ladder of Civic Technology”. Offenhuber (2015) with “The Ladder of Civic Technology” identifies five modes of participation: “Gamification” or “nudging”- participation is about following a certain number of rules without questioning them; “Participation as feedback” - refers to the use by citizens of applications for smartphones that allow them to report problems in their everyday environment; “Participation as monitoring” - through the use of applications such as “FixMyStreet”, citizens can put pressure on the public entities that manage the city; “Participation as co-production”- citizens are involved in the planning, implementation and management of public services; “Participation as self-organization” - this mode of participation refers to systems that are fully created and managed by their users, such as the Wikipedia project. For the present research, the “Participation as self-organization” mode is used. This way of participation allows for the creation of a digital platform developed in collaboration with a group of residents of the Herculano neighbourhood (in the Oporto City - Portugal) and enables identification of the possibility of local inhabitants use of appropriate multimedia resources to document and record collective memories place and to present possible proposals for improvement in their housing realities.