Government: How AV Technology Revitalizes Communities

How to encourage civic engagement is a problem all governments face. In fact, according to the National Research, Inc. 2015 National Citizen Survey, 76 percent of citizens haven’t attended a local public meeting in the last year. We see indications of this problem everywhere, even in voter turnout, which, according to the Knight Foundation, was lower in 2014 than it has been in decades.

We all know that getting the citizenry involved in the work of government is known to revitalize communities—engaged citizens do more than just improve legitimacy, efficiency, and accountability of local governments—they are also more apt to make use of civic services, more likely to buy-in when it comes to government projects, and they’re simply more supportive and more ingrained as a community.

There are a number of movements underway across the country to encourage people to participate in public life, and many of these projects share an understanding that smart uses of technology can help benefit local governments and communities alike. Audiovisual technology in particular is seeing big growth; in fact, forecasters suggest the market for advanced AV systems will increase from $91 billion in 2014 to $114 billion in 2016.

Westland Revitalizes Citizen Involvement

Take the example of Westland, Michigan. For years, its city hall was a 1960s era concrete building that did nothing to promote civic engagement. As StateTech Magazine reported this summer, the old city hall had “a hodgepodge of analog, consumer-grade audiovisual devices (that) hampered citizen engagement. In the council chambers, an oddly placed projector displayed skewed images on an ancient pull-down screen. Council meetings were videotaped, and the tapes were then transported to another building for editing and broadcasting.”

This was hardly the way to instill the public’s trust in the efficiency and effectiveness of local government.

Then, Westland upgraded. According to Westland’s Chief Innovation Officer Daniel J. Bourdeau, the city renovated a former big box retail building into a connected city hall, outfitted with dynamic digital media that now engages visitors and makes them aware of city processes so they can better take advantage of programs.

The new system includes four, 50-inch lobby displays that broadcast city information. Additionally, an interactive system has been developed that allows users to control the AV system via a number of devices, including PCs, iPads, and touchpads stationed in various rooms throughout city hall. The system even routes council chambers’ TV signals as well as audio to adjustable devices that can be used by visitors with hearing impairments.

Councilors themselves use a touchscreen panel and buttons on their microphones to control who speaks when. Council members have their own 7-inch displays for media, and four, 70-inch displays within chambers make it easy for all who attend meetings to follow what’s being discussed. “The entire legislative process has been transformed, thanks to this digital overhaul,” Bourdeau told StateTech. “Meetings are more efficient, with much quicker results.”

Long gone are the days of an awkwardly placed projector with a pull-down screen, and time lags while videotaped meetings were distributed and edited. Today, interaction is high-tech, and in real-time.

Bridging History with Modern AV Technology

Cambridge, Mass., didn’t need to move to a new building to take advantage of top-notch interactive audiovisual technology. Instead, in 2014, they revamped their historic building, turning the 125-year-old city hall into a high-tech facility. The new setup includes modern, and much more effective microphones, as well as HD cameras for TV broadcast, closed-caption listening devices, a large projection screen with a new projector, and touch screen management of all of these systems.

Cambridge’s system also allows for easy citizen engagement, with hard-wired, portable microphones, and displays mounted in the balconies and in the lobbies to rebroadcast chamber events. The Cambridge system also includes a simple way for citizens to plug in anything from handhelds to computers to flash drives, in order to share photos, videos, or presentations when they present to the council.

“Now anyone can clearly see, hear and participate in presentations, including persons with disabilities and those at home,” Lee Gianetti, director of communications for Cambridge, told StateTech. “It has generated much more meaningful dialogue and citizen engagement.”

Cities like Cambridge and Westland aren’t just using AV technology to show off. Instead, technology is a tool that leads to increased citizen engagement—and its popularity is hardly surprising. What these improvements represent is a revitalization of the ways government and citizens communicate, collaborate, and ultimately work together, in an inclusive manner, for the betterment of their communities.
photo credit: 09_2013_44 via photopin (license)