Slowly but surely, local governments are catching up with the private sector and harnessing the power of the smartphone to connect with citizens. Apps are popping up that make city living easier, better. But ‘civic app’ can mean so many different things.
Forest Gregg has a nice breakdown at DataMade:
…we can begin to identify four major intentions of civic apps: to inform, to persuade, to provide access, or to change the way our democracy works. These correspond to four genres of apps: news, propaganda, access, and system plumbing.
Civic apps either promote communication or action. Additionally, civic apps are either “ends” or “means” apps. For “ends” apps, people using the app is the point. In “means” apps, people using the app is good if it helps achieve some other end.
Read the full version of this report at Keystone Crossroads' website. Keystone Crossroads is a new statewide public media initiative reporting on the challenges facing Pennsylvania's cities. WPSU is a participating station.
