Author Archives: Peter Cruickshank
Talking to imagined citizens: Why share information when no-one talks back?
This is a subject I’ve been thinking about for a long time: the old eparticipation problem of lurkers. I described the challenges of understanding posting to a non-responsive audience in blog posts here and here, back in 2017, when I … Continue reading
Community representatives, information channels and citizen democratic engagement
Here’s a link to something I co-authored with Hazel Hall and Bruce Ryan: a paper which explores how elected (yet unpaid) community councillors in Scotland exploit information channels for democratic engagement with the citizens that they represent. We demonstrate that … Continue reading
If you are interested in my current research in the areas of community, (hyper)local democracy, connections and knowledge, visit Community-KNect
Community representatives and online communication
In previous research, we have observed the poor record of online engagement of community councils in Scotland, though I doubt this is issue is restricted only to this context. With some notable exceptions, Community Council online presences are characterised by … Continue reading
Lurking and what leaders know about their invisible audience
Let’s talk about something obvious: Leaders (for instance community councillors) share information online but the paradox is, that they often don’t get a visible response. Why do they do it then? What are their expectations of how the information they … Continue reading
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