The digital public encounter

Abstract

The digitalization of the public sector impacts nearly all aspects of public service provision, including the interaction between citizens and public officials, also known as public encounter. This traditionally face-to-face interaction is being replaced by digital platforms, chat-bots, and self-services. Public encounters can be highly collaborative processes, e.g. in the provision of welfare services, that involve multiple stakeholders. The use of digital tools in these processes poses opportunities as well as challenges to the collaborative process and the public service provision in general. This workshop aims to bring together researchers and practitioners with a common interest in the collaborative aspects of digital public encounter, how public officials and citizens communicate and cooperate through digital tools, and the long-term impact of these technological transformations. Topics include but are not limited to communication and collaboration processes in the digital public encounter, analysis of digital tools in the public encounter and theories and case-studies on how public encounters happen. We invite researchers as well as practitioners to participate in the workshop.