Speeding up the transition to collective awareness

This positional paper gives an overview of some critical issues concerning collective awareness platforms. It shows how collective awareness could reconcile asymmetric and conflicting relationships to pursue the improvement of structures within society. It also shows the opportunity for public administrations and policy makers to create conditions for collective participation. Collective intelligence can be used as process to pursue the improvement of society based on the collective efforts of individuals. This could be assimilated to a process of social eudamonia, an improvement of the self and of society through awareness and understanding. However, things are not so simple and internal tensions could lead to divergent outcomes. While society is increasingly fragmented and polarised, the power over information seems to concentrate in the hands of few service providers, fiercely competing for market shares and user-generated data, thanks to laws and structures built for a competition driven society. By contrast, there is a growing demand for sharing data, access to information and for the empowerment of individuals and communities. Prosperity, sustainability, equality and collaboration are acquiring new meaning. In response to this demand, many Internet based platforms have been created, governments in Europe have started pursuing open access policies and companies are adopting mixed business models in order to acquire a larger share of data and users. Individuals, companies, governments pursue different objectives using a mix of communication and collaborative tools allowing users to play a pivotal role in the production and management of information, creating the foundation for new horizontal modes of communication and decision making. In order to exemplify pathways to collective awareness to build a society that fosters eudemonia, the paper proposes two examples: 1) social media learning and 2) the governance of health delivery services through social media. The paper concludes identifying five major challenges to help speeding the transition towards Collective Awareness.