Citizen Engagement in Practice - Informing Digital Futures: Strategies for Citizen Engagement - page 53

Meg Munn subsequently sent the following message to Netmums:
“ thank you for your report on your recent survey, 'the Great Work
Debate', which has fed into the DTI's Work and Families consultation on
Choice and Flexibility. This helps to give us an insight into the day to day
issues that parents are dealing with in their every day lives ”. A full report
from the survey was then published on the Netmums site (netmums.com
n.d.).
4.3.2 Macatawa Area Coordinating Council - USA
Emery and Purser (1996) describe how citizens participated in decision-
making in the community of Macatawa, an area of south-west Michigan in
the United States.
The Macatawa region experienced huge growth in population and indus-
try in the 1990s. The rapid expansion led to traffic congestion, lack of ser-
vices and a rise in juvenile crime. In response to concerns, the Macatawa
Area Coordinating Council (MACC) (a local community development
organisation) hosted a search conference to plan and create a common
vision for a more desirable future for the area. Those invited to participate
included mayors, the police, executives, local business owners, teachers,
parents, clergy, housewives, social service agency directors, environmen-
talists, students and transportation engineers. The search conference
approach encouraged a bottom-up planning process and the development
of a vision statement. The conference group then identified eight strategic
areas for action, and formulated action plans for community development
initiatives. A key outcome was that those participating made public commit-
ments to move the plans forward. The initiative led to positive benefits not
only in terms of the physical aspects of the community, but also in terms of
community cohesion. The former chairperson of the MACC stated: “we
walked into the conference as stakeholders, but we walked out as a unified
community ” (Emery and Purser 1996).
4.3.3 Citizen Involvement in Future Drug Research
and Development - Denmark
A project reported by Moldrup et al. (2000) was carried out in Denmark
with the aim of engaging citizens in decision-making about the direction of
future drug research and development, in order to help mitigate against
social, economic and ethically undesirable consequences. This participa-
tive study was one of the first attempts to fully utilise Internet technology