Digital Civics

Digital Civics

The transformation of the public sphere through computing requires new ways of thinking about both the public sphere and computing. The work we do in digital civics brings community and municipal partners together with researchers in order to better understand a wide range of civic encounters and to design human-centered computing systems. We use participatory design and action research approaches to support activists confronting social injustice, community groups building social and political capital, and municipal officials working to build relations between local government and their urban constituents.

Related Publications

  1. A. Alvarado Garcia, W. Wong-Villacres, M. Miceli, B. Hernández, and C. A. Le Dantec. 2023. Mobilizing Social Media Data: Reflections of a Researcher Mediating between Data and Organization. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’23), April 23–28, 2023, Hamburg, Germany. ACM.

  2. A. Boone, C. DiSalvo, and C. A. Le Dantec. (2023). Data Practice for a Politics of Care: Food Assistance as a Site of Careful Data Work. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’23). ACM.

  3. B. Bosley, S. M. Morris, C. N. Harrington, C. A. Le Dantec. 2022. Healing Justice: A Framework for Collective Healing and Well-Being from Systemic Traumas. In Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2022 (DIS ’22). ACM.

  4. E. Corbett and C. A. Le Dantec. 2021. Designing Civic Technology with Trust. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’21), May 08–13, 2021, Yokohama, Japan. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 17 pages.

  5. C.A. Le Dantec, A. Alvarado Garcia, C. Connelly, and A. Meng. Resisting Resolution: Enterprise Civic Systems Meet Community Organizing. Multimodal Technology and Interaction, 5(20), 2021.

  6. P. Aragon, A. Garcia, C. A. Le Dantec, C. Flores-Saviaga, & J. Saldivar, (2020). Civic Technologies: Research, Practice and Open Challenges arXiv.

  7. P. A. Eurecat, A. Alvarado Garcia, C. Flores-Saviaga, J. Saldiva, and C. A. Le Dantec. Civic Technologies: Research, Practice and Open Challenges. In Conference Companion Publication of the 2020 on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW ’20)

  8. A. Alvarado Garcia, M. Britton, D. Doshi, M. De Choudhury, and C. A. Le Dantec. 2020. Data Migrations: Exploring the Use of Social Media Data as Evidence for Human Rights Advocacy. Journal of the ACM, 4, Article 111 (August 2020), 25 pages.

  9. S. Ghoshal, A. Grimes Parker, C. A. Le Dantec, C. Disalvo, L. Irani, and A. Bruckman. 2019. Design and the Politics of Collaboration: A Grassroots Perspective. In Conference Companion Publication of the 2019 on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW ’19).

  10. N. L. Holten Møller, G. Fitzpatrick, & C. A. Le Dantec. 2019. Assembling the Case: Citizens’ Strategies for Exercising Authority and Personal Autonomy in Data-Driven Public Services. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction,Vol. 3, GROUP, Article 244 (December 2019)

  11. J. Dickinson, M. Dí­az, C. A. Le Dantec, and S. Erete. “The cavalry ain’t coming in to save us”: Supporting Capacities and Relationships through Civic Tech. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. Vol. 3, CSCW, ACM (2019).

  12. E. Corbett, & C. A. Le Dantec. ‘Removing Barriers’ and ‘Creating Distance’: Exploring the Logics of Efficiency and Trust in Civic Technology. Media and Communication. 7(3), 2019.

  13. M. Asad, C. A. Le Dantec. “This Is Shared Work:” Negotiating Boundaries in a Social Service Intermediary Organization. Media and Communication. 7(3), 2019.

  14. E. Corbett and C. A. Le Dantec. Towards a Design Framework for Trust in Digital Civics. Proceedings of the 2019 Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’19). ACM (2019).

  15. S. Kozubaev, F. Rochaix, C. DiSalvo, and C. A. Le Dantec. Spaces and Traces: Implications of Smart Technology in Public Housing. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19). ACM

  16. C.A. Le Dantec. Infrastructures of Digital Civics: Transportation, Advocacy, and Mobile Computing. In M. Korn, W. Reïmann, T. R. hl, & D. Sittler (Eds.), Infrastructuring Publics. Springer VS, 2019.

  17. K. Diedrick and C. A. Le Dantec. Atlanta’s Westside residents challenge the rules of sport mega-development, In Chawansky, L. Hayhurst, M. G. McDonald, C. van Ingen, editors. Innovations in ‘Sport for Development and Peace’ Research. CRC Press, 2018.

  18. A. Alvarado Garcia and C. A. Le Dantec. Quotidian Report: Grassroots Data Practices to Address Public Safety. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 2, CSCW. ACM (2018).

  19. E. Corbett and C. A. Le Dantec. Exploring Trust in Digital Civics. In Proceedings of the 2018 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2018 (DIS ’18). ACM (2018). 9-20.

  20. C.A. Le Dantec Introduction: Design Futures Special Issue. interactions 25(2), 33–35, 2018.

  21. E. Corbett and C. A. Le Dantec The Problem of Community Engagement: Disentangling the Practices of Municipal Government. Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM (2018).
    (Best Paper Honorable Mention)

  22. E. Corbett and C. A. Le Dantec Going the Distance: Trust Work for Citizen Participation Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM (2018).

  23. C. DiSalvo and C.A. Le Dantec Civic Design. interactions 24(6), 66–69, 2017.

  24. M. Asad, C. A. Le Dantec, B. Nielsen, and K. Diedrick. Creating a Sociotechnical API: Designing City-Scale Community Engagement. Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM (2017), 2295–2306.
    (Best Paper Honorable Mention)

  25. C.A. Le Dantec. Cover: Design Through Collective Action/Collective Action Through Design. interactions, 12(1), 24–30, 2017.

  26. V. Vlachokyriakos, C. Crivellaro, C. A. Le Dantec, E. Gordon, P. Wright, and P. Olivier. Digital Civics: Citizen Empowerment With and Through Technology. In CHI ’16: Proceedings of the 2016 ACM annual conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, New York, NY, USA, 2016. ACM.

  27. C. A. Le Dantec, C. Appleton, C., M. Asad, R. Rosenberger, & K. Watkins. Advocating Through Data: Community Visibilities in Crowdsourced Cycling Data. In A. Golub, M. L. Hoffmann, A. E. Lugo, G. F. Sandoval (Eds). Bicycle Justice and Urban Transformation: Biking For All? Routledge, 2016.

  28. V. Vlachokyriakos, R. Comber, C. Crivellar, N. Taylor, S. Kuznetsov, C.A. Le Dantec, J. Kim. Designing Alternative Systems for local Communities. CHI 2015: Proceedings of the 33rd international conference on Human factors in computing systems, Seoul, Korea. April 18–19, 2015.

  29. C. A. Le Dantec, S. Fox. Strangers at the Gate: Gaining Access, Building Rapport, and Co-Constructing Community-Based Research. In CSCW 2015: Proceedings of the ACM 2015 conference on Computer supported cooperative work, pages 1348–1358, New York, NY, USA, 2015. ACM.
    (Best Paper)

  30. C. A. Le Dantec, M. Asad, A. Misra, K. Watkins. Planning with Crowdsourced Data: Rhetoric and Representation in Transportation Planning. In CSCW 2015: Proceedings of the ACM 2015 conference on Computer supported cooperative work, pages 1717–1727, New York, NY, USA, 2015. ACM.

  31. M. Asad, & C. A. Le Dantec. Illegitimate Civic Participation: Supporting Community Activists on the Ground. In CSCW 2015: Proceedings of the ACM 2015 conference on Computer supported cooperative work, pages 1694–1703, New York, NY, USA, 2015. ACM.
    (Best Paper Honorable Mention)

  32. C. A. Le Dantec. Data-based Civic Participation. In HCOMP 2014/Citizen + X: Workshop on Volunteer-based Crowdsourcing in Science, Public Health and Government, Pittsburgh, PA. November 2, 2014.

  33. C. A. Le Dantec. The Right Way to Make Cities Smart. The Atlantic. May 20, 2014.

  34. S. Fox, & C. A. Le Dantec. Community Historians: Scaffolding Community Engagement through Culture and Heritage. In DIS ’14: Proceedings of the conference on Designing interactive systems, pages 785–794, New York, NY, USA, 2014. ACM.