Tinkering with the urban media environment: urban innovation, living labs and hackathons

Media are increasingly intertwined with the urban environment. The emergence of mobile devices and everywhere-anytime connectivity caused the digital and the physical to become strongly interconnected. This changes the way public space is experienced and interacted with. As such, digital technologies and data have become important drivers for urban development and innovation (cfr. Smart Cities). However, when it comes to design and production processes of such urban technologies, concepts and strategies of corporate innovation management cannot be simply implemented in an urban environment. Media environments are characterized by power, gatekeeping and control mechanisms, so its design and development process in an urban and democratic environment requires special attention. Therefore, these processes are increasingly participatory and grassroots by nature, allowing citizens to mold, experiment and play with new urban media technologies. In this context, local governments are experimenting with new interaction models that build upon civic engagement and participation. One such interaction model, driven by Open Government policies, is the organization of hackathons. However, hackathons are still poorly understood, especially in relation to the production of urban media innovations. This study explores the nature of this ICT driven interaction model on both a conceptual and empirical level by means of a multiple case study (n=4) and a complementary survey (n=167). Urban hackathons act as a community driven bottom-up think tank which inspires and influences local policy, and co-designs digital urban environments. While the tangible outcomes are mostly demonstrators of what might be possible, several long term effects must be taken into account. Most importantly, it fosters cultural change at the level of the local government organization and within a community of highly skilled developers and citizen entrepreneurs. This cultural change can be defined as more transparent, collaborative and interactive, enabling co-creation of the urban media environment and technology driven citizen engagement