This document discusses lessons for e-democracy from two case studies: WikiLeaks and the 2011 Queensland floods in Australia. It finds that both events saw rapid self-organization and participation on social media to share information. Communities developed ad hoc structures and innovated with new tools. Authorities were able to engage more effectively by meeting people on their platforms rather than imposing new ones. Overall, e-democracy initiatives should lower barriers to participation, distribute across multiple platforms, allow organic community development, and view ongoing events as opportunities for engagement.

1. Towards Distributed Citizen Participation: Lessons from WikiLeaks and the Queensland Floods Assoc. Prof. Axel Bruns Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia a.bruns@qut.edu.au – http://snurb.info/ –@snurb_dot_info

2. e-Democracy? Active participation of citizens in the public discussion and deliberation of matters of public concern and policy the organisation of communal activities and initiatives to address such matters through the use of online media Depends on the sustained presence of a substantial community of users

3. How Communities Work Communities are concentric – in values: Shared knowledge Key principles Core values and beliefs 3

4. How Communities Work Communities are concentric – in membership: Marginal members General members Community leaders 4

5. Strong e-Democracy Communities? What models? g2c c2c g4c2c? Civic Commons, Civic Commons 2.0? ‘Roll your own’ vs. pre-existing platforms and communities Coleman & Blumler (2009): a space of intersecting networks, pulled together through the agency of a democratically connecting institution

6. e-Democracy during Acute Events Online responses to acute events: Bypassing administrative hurdles Fasttracking community development and structuration Self-organisation around shared concerns Rapid prototyping, testing of tools and platforms e-Democracy? Can we learn from this? Can we tap into it? What principles of citizen participation can we observe?

7. The 2011 Queensland Floods Chronology: December 2010 to January 2011: unprecedented rainfall Emergency declared for more than 50% of Queensland Wivenhoe dam reaches 180% capacity December 2010: Flooding in northern Queensland January 2011: Floods in southeast Queensland 10 January 2011: flash flooding in Toowoomba 10 January 2011: ‘inland tsunami’ in the Lockyer Valley 11 January 2011: flooding begins in Ipswich 12-16 January 2011: major flooding in Brisbane

8. (Google Maps)

9. (Google Maps)

10. (ABC News)

11. (ABC News)

12. (news.com.au)

13. (ABC News)

14. (ABC News)

15. (ABC News)

17. #qldfloodsTweets 10 Jan 2011 11 Jan 2011 12 Jan 2011 13 Jan 2011 14 Jan 2011 15 Jan 2011

18. 10 Jan 2011 11 Jan 2011 12 Jan 2011 13 Jan 2011 14 Jan 2011 15 Jan 2011 #qldfloods from Toowoomba to Brisbane

19. #qldfloods @replies authorities mainstream media

20. #qldfloods Network Map – Most Active Accounts Only(Degree >= 15 / Node size: indegree / node colour: outdegree) (See http://mappingonlinepublics.net/)

21. The Queensland Floods Community Self-organisation: Rapid establishment of #qldfloodshashtag Ad hoc development of community structures Highlighting of leading accounts, vigilant against disruption Suspension of petty squabbles (e.g. state politics) Innovation and rapid prototyping: Adjunct hashtags (#Mythbuster, #bakedrelief) Sharing and gathering of online resources Additional tools (Google Maps, Ushahidi Maps) Emergency services rapidly adopting social media tools (despite lack of established strategies)  ‘Go where they are’ rather than ‘build it and they will come’

22. Image by Maproom Systems

23. WikiLeaks as Acute Event ‘Cablegate’: Leaked US diplomatic cables published from late 2010 Collaborations with The Guardian, The New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, El País Allegations against Julian Assange: Arrest and extradition hearings since 8 Dec. 2010 WikiLeaks controversy: Withdrawal of services by EasyDNS, Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, Amazon Web Services, ... DDoS attacks against perceived ‘enemies’ of WikiLeaks Involvement of ‘Anonymous’ hacker group  A continuing (orchestrated?) series of acute events

24. #wikileaks Tweets

25. A WikiLeaks Community? Various communal efforts: #wikileaks community on Twitter, Facebook groups Support and protest groups, loosely affiliated Political support – e.g. Pirate Parties Activist and hacker groups Celebrity supporters (Geoffrey Robertson, Michael Moore) Media organisations collaborating with WikiLeaks Developers of additional tools building on WikiLeaks data

26. (Drew Conway)

28. Lessons from WikiLeaks and the Floods Key observations for e-democracy initiatives: Low hurdles to participation Make it as easy as possible for people to participate meaningfully Distribute across multiple platforms Find people where they are, harness the specific strengths of different platforms Generate a sense of community Let people define for themselves what they are working towards (or against) Allow community development Follow and aid the structures developed by the community, don’t impose structures on them Earn social capital Be useful, and engage in good spirit – and the community will reward you Conceptualise community engagement as a series of acute events, to focus and encourage participation?

29. More Information Social Media Reports: 1 – State of the Art (http://snurb.info/socialmedia-vol1) 2 – User Engagement Strategies (http://snurb.info/socialmedia-vol2) Axel Bruns Associate Professor ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, Australia Email: a.bruns@qut.edu.au Twitter: @snurb_dot_info Blog: http://snurb.info/ Produsage: http://produsage.org/ LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/snurb Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond:From Production to Produsage(Peter Lang, 2008) 29