Climate News 25:26
One challenge for local governments seeking to engage their communities as part of a collaborative response to climate change, is the primarily one-way nature of communications.
This was highlighted in a recent paper from the Australian Resilience Democracy Network, which argues for stronger digital participation and effective feedback loops on the part of governments. The paper notes that private digital technologies are structured to drive people apart, relying on algorithms that create and highlight conflict, and that alternatives that bring people together are required. The paper also notes that this is as much a cultural as a technological problem. However, it works from an assumption that governments will want stronger community involvement in decision making (beyond the occasional subject specific consultation). The alternative explanation is that the one-way relationship suits governments at all levels just fine. Communities can be messy, noisy, annoying and tiring as much as they can be inspiring, motivational and powerful. It’s much easier to tell communities what you’re doing, highlight examples that support your agenda and run structured consultations. This isn’t true of all local government activities. Some, such as youth engagement and community development are used to the mess, but it’s trickier for officers engaging their communities on climate change. It’s still a politically contentious issue at the local level as disinformation comes roaring back and communications teams can be reluctant to support the sort of community engagement that’s required for a collaborative response. Engagement that sits at the information provision end of the IAP2 scale still has value but true collaboration for a government means giving up some degree of control. Communications staff may never be comfortable with that. Sustainability staff may need to think about whether comms is their only channel of engagement or whether they need to learn more from their youth and community teams and get messy.
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