Private*Hybrid*Cloud
Engaging Media
Private*Hybrid*Cloud
Private*Hybrid*Cloud
Private*Hybrid*Cloud
Attendance in public meetings is low and highly selective Although citizens express their intention to participate in public engagement activities, in real world, they are less likely to show up. Low turnout rate in public meetings can lead serious sampling biases when attendees and non-attendees significantly differ in their interests. For example, attendees can be more interested in politics and involved in more personal discourses than non-attendees. In this case, their opinions can be slanted to one side.
Group dynamics and personality traits of participants Depending the makeup of participants, group dynamics and personality characteristics of participants can considerably affect the outcomes of discussions. A small number of outspoken participants can make more than half of the comments during the discussions while least outspoken members make a very small portion of the comments.
Moderated/controlled settings of public meetings In order to minimize the potential effects of participants demographic and cognitive characteristics on conversations, public meetings or consensus conferences tend to be carefully moderated and guided by facilitators. In such artificial setting, participants may behave in different ways that may differ from what is likely to occur in real-world discussions
Spillovers from public meetings to real-world discussion The social implication effect of follow-up media coverage of public meetings or other engaging events may help transfer issues from these small group discussions to the broader community. However, in the case of the U.S., a spillover effect from public meetings into media discourse are minimal at best.
Knowledge gap issues Public meetings and consensus conferences may create knowledge gaps between participants. The demographic, and cognitive differences between two groups in public meeting may lead to differing outcomes of public engagement. For example, highly educated participants may learn more from discussions and dominate the conversation while less educated members listen to their arguments. Furthermore, only small proportions of the population who may be already informed attend public meetings while the majority of the population who may need information the most do not. In such case, any public engagement effort may widen existing gaps further.
Groups that already had influence were often the only ones consulted
People who did not have the resources to find out would usually not be able to be part of a consultation, even if the decision it was meant to influence might have a major impact on them.
There were no agreed safeguards against consultations being used cynically by decision-makers to make it look like they had sought to canvass other opinions, while in fact having set a new policy in place even before it asked the question
- City Council
- Parks and Recreation
- Water District
- Planning Commission
- Fire Department
- Police Department
- Outreach Programs
- Training Programs
- Town Hall Meetings
- Voting Modules
- Speaker Timing
- Obscenity Delays
- Multiple User Groups
- AV Conferencing
- Digital Signage
- Asset Management
- Live Services
- Play / Record / Archive
Social media has altered the model of single repository for information, becoming a major force in engaging the public and changing' opinions. More than ever, municipalities need to find cost effective avenues for capturing, managing, and distributing information and engaging constituents. aCiras has the systems and applications to succeed in this modern challenge.
Whether it is the automated control of a live public forum, streamed live, captured for internet access, cable distribution channel or as an internally developed training class, aCiras has the tools for you.
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