Towards Effective E-Participation of Citizens in the European Union: The Development of AskThePublic
Fuente:
arXiv
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1866909819556855808 |
|---|---|
| author | Messerschmidt, Nils Sprenkamp, Kilian Sartipi, Amir Wu, Xiaohui Tchappi, Igor Zavolokina, Liudmila Fridgen, Gilbert |
| author_facet | Messerschmidt, Nils Sprenkamp, Kilian Sartipi, Amir Wu, Xiaohui Tchappi, Igor Zavolokina, Liudmila Fridgen, Gilbert |
| contents | E-participation platforms are an important asset for governments in increasing trust and fostering democratic societies. By engaging public and private institutions and individuals, policymakers can make informed and inclusive decisions. However, current approaches of primarily static nature struggle to integrate citizen feedback effectively. Drawing on the Media Richness Theory and applying the Design Science Research method, we explore how a chatbot can address these shortcomings to improve the decision-making abilities for primary stakeholders of e-participation platforms. Leveraging the "Have Your Say" platform, which solicits feedback on initiatives and regulations by the European Commission, a Large Language Model-based chatbot, called AskThePublic is created, providing policymakers, journalists, researchers, and interested citizens with a convenient channel to explore and engage with citizen input. Evaluating AskThePublic in 11 semi-structured interviews with public sector-affiliated experts, we find that the interviewees value the interactive and structured responses as well as enhanced language capabilities. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_03287 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Towards Effective E-Participation of Citizens in the European Union: The Development of AskThePublic Messerschmidt, Nils Sprenkamp, Kilian Sartipi, Amir Wu, Xiaohui Tchappi, Igor Zavolokina, Liudmila Fridgen, Gilbert Computers and Society Artificial Intelligence E-participation platforms are an important asset for governments in increasing trust and fostering democratic societies. By engaging public and private institutions and individuals, policymakers can make informed and inclusive decisions. However, current approaches of primarily static nature struggle to integrate citizen feedback effectively. Drawing on the Media Richness Theory and applying the Design Science Research method, we explore how a chatbot can address these shortcomings to improve the decision-making abilities for primary stakeholders of e-participation platforms. Leveraging the "Have Your Say" platform, which solicits feedback on initiatives and regulations by the European Commission, a Large Language Model-based chatbot, called AskThePublic is created, providing policymakers, journalists, researchers, and interested citizens with a convenient channel to explore and engage with citizen input. Evaluating AskThePublic in 11 semi-structured interviews with public sector-affiliated experts, we find that the interviewees value the interactive and structured responses as well as enhanced language capabilities. |
| title | Towards Effective E-Participation of Citizens in the European Union: The Development of AskThePublic |
| topic | Computers and Society Artificial Intelligence |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.03287 |