Navigating Trust in the Smart City: Insights from Hong Kong Focus Groups
Prof. Alistair Cole
Co-authors: Mr. Calvin Ming Tsun Lai & Dr. Dionysios Stivas
Understanding trust in the smart city through
navigating four focus groups in Hong Kong
Introduction
•
The
article is conceived as a methodological journey through a complex, transdisciplinary research
field centred on the ambivalent concepts of trust and the Smart City.
•
How do we define a Smart City?
The term ‘Smart City’ has been used in different contexts since
the 1990s, when it was first employed in the United States to describe the use of ICT (information
and communication technologies) applications in modern urban infrastructures (Gibson, 1992).
•
Smart City lies somewhere between a material fact (use of technology in urban management) and
an urban narrative (vision of the good life) (Albino et al. 2015; Sharifi 2019; Caragliu et al. 2011;
Cole, Healy and Morel-Journel, 2022).
•
Smart City remains an essentially contested concept, open to contrasting interpretations,
epistemological underpinnings and methodologies.
Trust and the
Smart City
•
Recent developments of smart cities around the world have heightened both
scholarly and public attention to the issues of trust as a fundamental prism for
understanding public policy acceptability (Julsrud and Krogstad 2020; Schmidt
and Manley 2020; Galdon-Clavell, 2013; Li 2021).
•
Citizens’ trust in government, experts, institutions and markets is critical in the
digital transition context because many decisions on public service choices must be
made on the basis of incomplete information and technological risks (Loorbach &
Verbong, 2012).
•
Why might the Smart city
not
be trusted?
•
Could this be explained by distinct characteristic-based trust profiles? Is it linked
to processes of data trust (or processes of datafication of society) that follow from
the application of smart technologies and Apps?
•
Or is data trust quite simply an epiphenomenon: in this interpretation, the forces of
trust and mistrust articulated in relation to the Smart City are fundamentally
expressing other dimensions of social and political life.
•
This effort of interpretation is important, as it has the capacity to define the object
in distinct manners, namely: trust or mistrust in
technology per se
(does it work?);
trust in providers (are they
trustworthy
?); trust/mistrust in technology as
process
(does it endanger or guarantee liberties)?
Trust and the
Smart City
•
Recent developments of smart cities around the world have heightened both
scholarly and public attention to the issues of trust as a fundamental prism for
understanding public policy acceptability (Julsrud and Krogstad 2020; Schmidt
and Manley 2020; Galdon-Clavell, 2013; Li 2021).
•
Citizens’ trust in government, experts, institutions and markets is critical in the
digital transition context because many decisions on public service choices must be
made on the basis of incomplete information and technological risks (Loorbach &
Verbong, 2012).
•
Why might the Smart city
not
be trusted?
•
Could this be explained by distinct characteristic-based trust profiles? Is it linked
to processes of data trust (or processes of datafication of society) that follow from
the application of smart technologies and Apps?
•
Or is data trust quite simply an epiphenomenon: in this interpretation, the forces of
trust and mistrust articulated in relation to the Smart City are fundamentally
expressing other dimensions of social and political life.
•
This effort of interpretation is important, as it has the capacity to define the object
in distinct manners, namely: trust or mistrust in
technology per se
(does it work?);
trust in providers (are they
trustworthy
?); trust/mistrust in technology as
process
(does it endanger or guarantee liberties)?
Focus groups as mixed methods
•
The
article is conceived as a methodological journey through a complex, transdisciplinary research
field centred on the ambivalent concepts of trust and the Smart City.
•
As understood here,
Smart city dynamics involved a
mixed-method approach.
•
Mobilising distinct ways of knowing can assist in methodological triangulation and enhanced
understanding (Moses and Knutsen, 2011).
•
S
tatistical relationships have produced interesting findings about explanatory variables
determining support for the Smart City (Cole and Tran, 2023) or identifying the foundations of
pride in Hong Kong’s Smart City (Lai and Cole, 2024).
•
More interpretative accounts have retraced Smart City as an urban narrative over decades in Hong
Kong (Cole, et al, 2023).
•
This article continues to explore how to understand and interpret the complex relationship between
trust and the Smart City by introducing an interactive and deliberative dimension.
•
The focus groups were one instrument in a broader project that involved quantitative (the HKPORI
2021 survey with a representative sample of the Hong Kong population) and qualitative (2020-21
face to face interviews with, and written responses from official agencies)
modes of inquiry.
Three dimensions of focus groups
•
T
he first proposition is that
focus groups add value in terms of being an instrument for sectional or cross-
sectional analysis.
•
A second proposition is that the focus group encourages a deliberative dynamic. Focus group has been
reintroduced as a research method aiming to understand the meanings, beliefs and cultures of social issues
that influence the feelings, attitudes, perceptions and behaviours of individuals
•
The third proposition is that the focus group provides a mixed method tool that can assist in validation. Due to
their flexibility, focus groups are suitable for gathering different kinds of information that require different
type of research designs.
Prof. Alistair Cole and co-authors explore the relationship between trust and the Smart City concept through navigating four focus groups in Hong Kong. The article delves into defining the Smart City, understanding trust dynamics, and employing mixed-method approaches for comprehensive insights.
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Presentation Transcript
Understanding trust in the smart city through navigating four focus groups in Hong Kong Prof. Alistair Cole Co-authors: Mr. Calvin Ming Tsun Lai & Dr. DionysiosStivas
Introduction The article is conceived as a methodological journey through a complex, transdisciplinary research field centred on the ambivalent concepts of trust and the Smart City. How do we define a Smart City? The term Smart City has been used in different contexts since the 1990s, when it was first employed in the United States to describe the use of ICT (information and communication technologies) applications in modern urban infrastructures (Gibson, 1992). Smart City lies somewhere between a material fact (use of technology in urban management) and an urban narrative (vision of the good life) (Albino et al. 2015; Sharifi 2019; Caragliu et al. 2011; Cole, Healy and Morel-Journel, 2022). Smart City remains an essentially contested concept, open to contrasting interpretations, epistemological underpinnings and methodologies.
Trust and the Smart City
Trust and the Smart City
Focus groups as mixed methods The article is conceived as a methodological journey through a complex, transdisciplinary research field centred on the ambivalent concepts of trust and the Smart City. As understood here, Smart city dynamics involved a mixed-method approach. Mobilising distinct ways of knowing can assist in methodological triangulation and enhanced understanding (Moses and Knutsen, 2011). Statistical relationships have produced interesting findings about explanatory variables determining support for the Smart City (Cole and Tran, 2023) or identifying the foundations of pride in Hong Kong s Smart City (Lai and Cole, 2024). More interpretative accounts have retraced Smart City as an urban narrative over decades in Hong Kong (Cole, et al, 2023). This article continues to explore how to understand and interpret the complex relationship between trust and the Smart City by introducing an interactive and deliberative dimension. The focus groups were one instrument in a broader project that involved quantitative (the HKPORI 2021 survey with a representative sample of the Hong Kong population) and qualitative (2020-21 face to face interviews with, and written responses from official agencies) modes of inquiry.
Three dimensions of focus groups The first proposition is that focus groups add value in terms of being an instrument for sectional or cross- sectional analysis. A second proposition is that the focus group encourages a deliberative dynamic. Focus group has been reintroduced as a research method aiming to understand the meanings, beliefs and cultures of social issues that influence the feelings, attitudes, perceptions and behaviours of individuals The third proposition is that the focus group provides a mixed method tool that can assist in validation. Due to their flexibility, focus groups are suitable for gathering different kinds of information that require different type of research designs.
