ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the development and role of technology, but also to argue that many of the technologies used for participation mirror the non-digital participation methods that preceded them. It explores how technology has been understood in creating new methods of participation that go beyond currently available methods, discussing opportunities they provide in enhancing citizen participation in planning. Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), as a sub-discipline of computing studies or computing science, has increasingly focused on how technology exists within society, rather than on computer and the "user". HCI design-led studies more commonly engage with implications for the design of digital technologies for citizens (rather than decision-makers). In Bugs et al.'s principles of planning technology, they see technologies for transparency as those that "store, organize and display evolution" of contributions to planning process. Technology-mediated participation methods should go beyond people providing comments to local authorities and, instead, seek to understand how technologies can be used to facilitate or support civic engagement.
