Social media in the process of building civil society in Lublin
Abstract: Implementation of the policy of participatory management of the city includes the active involvement of citizens in the processes of co-decision. The involvement of the residents in the policy of urban space development gains more and more recognition among the local authority regulating the rules of cooperation with the citizens in the local and national law. Implementation of new communication tools is a response to social needs, as results of social needs and made them used by the residents. Natural stage communication process has to incorporate social media into a dialogue with the residents.
Below I present an analysis of social media and the role they play a in the process of building civil society Lublin. In this article I will present the media used by the City of Lublin in communicating with residents, the role of social media in this process and the level of social involvement in the communication process with the use of Facebook.
Looking at the city as a place for the realisation of the residents’ needs, one cannot overlook the instruments for their implementation. Every city builds its own code of activity. The success of the residents in the realisation of their projects equals the success of the authorities in the implementation of the participatory city management policy.

Even though participatory budgets have rather short history in Poland criticism of its unwanted side effects have pushed some municipal authorities towards quick reforms of their initial visions. Most of them have decided just for small adjustments, but some have tried to be innovative and have reformed the whole mechanism. In this article, author attempts to take a closer look at consequences that accompany changes aimed at more quality of the whole procedure. The article aims to examine how more deliberation affects legitimization of participatory budgets. It is also an attempt to find out whether it brings expected outcomes within quality and profile of selected projects. Finally, we may learn here how people deal with more advance procedures. The analysis should serve anyone who is willing to search for new solutions among direct democracy tools in Poland.

The reverted demographic pyramid makes youth a decreasing percentage of our increasingly ageing population, leaving youth groups with less power and chances to influence the future of public policies and services through established participation channels. There is a potential risk of losing the interests of broader, including less heard, youth groups in democratic decision-making and implementation. Research evidence shows that we need to broaden knowledge and accountability towards these groups by including them more in co-creation to secure their trust and meaningful policy impact. One major way to improve trust in the public sector is by enhancing the abilities of professionals, managers, politicians and NGOs to co-create public and individual values with youth groups for better services and solutions instead of acting and making decisions on their behalf. Also, cross-sector collaboration among institutional units or stakeholders from different sectors on a local scale is often required to enhance the value of services or local community decisions. This paper explores from a comparative perspective the local government’s readiness for enhanced democratic participation and co-creation of public services and public value with youth. Based on document studies, interviews and cross-sectoral learning dialogues between engaged researchers, public sector and NGO representatives conducted in three countries – Sweden, Finland, and Estonia – the paper illustrates the current perceptions of public professionals and managers regarding their approach to co-creation with youth and the public sector roles, readiness and perceived gaps. The paper distinguishes between the municipal ambitions of enhanced youth participation and co-creation.

Citizen assembly in the perspective of participants and attendees

The citizens’ assembly is a relatively new form of democracy, consisting of developing a thoughtful set of recommendations preceded by a detailed analysis of a given issue. The suggestions formulated are agreed upon by a representative group of residents and this process is preceded by an education phase that aims to provide participants with reliable knowledge regarding the subject of the panel. These characteristics make this co-decision mechanism increasingly popular, including in Poland. Citizens’ assemblies have been implemented in most major Polish cities. However, there is no doubt that for organizers, as well as for participants and urban communities, this is something new. Therefore, it seems important to conduct in-depth research on the implementation of panels in Polish conditions. In this context, the aim of the article is to present the results of a study on the II Łódź Citizens’ Assembly. The obtained results show that the citizens’ assembly is positively evaluated by those participating in it. Participants of the Łódź panel particularly emphasized its educational and social merits, while somewhat less so the political aspect, that is the opportunity to influence the city, which is the primary function of the panel.