Hilde C. Stephansen

Hilde C. Stephansen is a Research Associate in the Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance and PoLIS at the Open University. Her research focuses on how communication practices can contribute to the formation of publics and to processes of knowledge production. Her role at the Open University is connected to the Creating Publics project and the Public Engagement with Research Catalyst project.

Creating a culture of participation

As part of our series of interviews with practitioners and activists, Participation Now researcher Hilde C. Stephansen spoke to Mikey Weinkove of The People Speak, an artists’ collective that creates ‘tools for the world to take over itself’. Their many projects include Talkaoke, a mobile talk sho

By Hilde C. Stephansen and Mikey Weinkove

/ 4 Apr 2014

Building relationships through participatory budgeting

As part of our series of interviews with practitioners involved in public participation initiatives, Participation Now researcher Hilde C. Stephansen spoke to Alison Lamb at Newcastle City Council about Udecide, a participatory budgeting scheme that has been running since 2006.

By Hilde C. Stephansen and Alison Lamb

/ 4 Apr 2014

Engaging EU citizens in policy making

As part of our series of interviews with practitioners involved in public participation initiatives, Participation Now researcher Hilde C. Stephansen spoke to Deirdre Lee at Insight-NUI Galway, about Puzzled by Policy, a European Commission funded project that aimed to engage citizens in the polic

By Hilde C. Stephansen and Deirdre Lee

/ 3 Apr 2014

Complaints Choir: what is it?

"This project stays dynamic when people take the Complaints Choir as a tool and make use of it in their own context and modify it. That’s the spirit of open source." Hilde C. Stephansen interviews the founders of the choir for Participation Now.

By Hilde C. Stephansen, Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen

/ 1 Apr 2014

Changing public opinion through direct action

“Starbucks felt so pressured by the public that they felt obliged to pay £20,000,000 to the HMRC.” Our series of interviews with activists and practitioners who organise public participation initiatives speaks next to Sarah Kwei from UK Uncut, the direct action group that works to raise awareness

By Hilde C. Stephansen and Sarah Kwei

/ 1 Apr 2014

Introducing ‘Participation Now: meet the practitioners’

Participation Now is a new Open University web platform that hosts an accessible and expanding collection of over 120 of the most creative examples of contemporary public participation and engagement initiatives. Meet 'the Practitioners'.

By Nick Mahony and Hilde C. Stephansen

/ 29 Mar 2014

Participation Now: patterns, possibilities, politics

At one end of this spectrum we have started to place initiatives that offer to rationalise public engagement and make the participatory self-organisation of publics more efficient. At the other end, initiatives seem more focused on enriching processes of engagement and participation.

By Nick Mahony and Hilde C. Stephansen

/ 23 Jan 2014

Volatile, stable and extractive participation

At a conference on the theme of ‘Participatory Cultural Citizenship’ in Aarhus, Denmark last November, Participation Now asked keynote speaker Chris Kelty about questions posed by his current research project: Who gets to decide what participation should be like? Who should be deciding? How might

By Nick Mahony, Hilde C. Stephansen and Chris Kelty

/ 6 Jan 2014

When is citizen participation transformative?

When is participation empowering and transformative? What is the relationship between ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ modes of participation? At a conference on the theme of ‘Participatory Cultural Citizenship’ in Aarhus, last November, keynote speaker Leah Lievrouw shared her thoughts on this with Par

By Nick Mahony, Hilde C. Stephansen and Leah A. Lievrouw

/ 6 Jan 2014

Participatory public engagement: reshaping what it means to be public?

In exactly what ways can participation and public engagement address the contemporary crises of democracy, expertise and legitimacy? Participation Now will provide a public platform for researchers, practitioners, students and citizens interested in finding out.

By Nick Mahony and Hilde C. Stephansen

/ 20 Nov 2013

Media activism in the World Social Forum

'Communicate to mobilise to communicate'. The WSF has been referred to as an emergent global public sphere; however, little systematic attention has been paid to how media and communication are implicated in making it ‘global’ and ‘public’.

By Hilde C. Stephansen

/ 3 Oct 2012