The Melbourne Doughnut
Explore how well Melbourne is tracking as a place that supports people and planet to thrive.
Access to Information
Being able to access, understand and act on trustworthy information empowers us and gives us agency to make decisions that support ourselves, our families and our communities to thrive. While accessing information is often seen as a technical domain, it is highly relational in practice and includes upward and downward flows between individuals and influential decision-makers.
Principles for Access to Information in a regenerative Melbourne
Access to information in a regenerative Melbourne must be:
- Driven by purposes and intentions based on meeting communities’ and individuals’ needs
- Culturally appropriate and designed to enable people from diverse backgrounds to make decisions
- Empowering, giving communities agency to meaningfully share and receive information
- Based on trust, acknowledging the relationship-based nature of information sharing
What we want
Access
Everyone can reliably acquire free, transparent and trustworthy information and communication channels
| What we're measuring | 2030 Target | Now |
|---|---|---|
Proportion of people living in local government areas with digital inclusion levels considered 'Excluded' or 'Highly excluded' | 0% | 0% |
Relevance
Everyone has empowering and culturally appropriate information and communication channels to make informed decisions about their lives
| What we're measuring | 2030 Target | Now |
|---|---|---|
Proportion of people living in local government areas that do not have websites with an easily accessible option to translate to langauges other than English Individual Greater Melbourne council websites, accessed October 2023 | 0% | 36.2% |
Reciprocity
Communication channels facilitate a meaningful flow of information between communities and influential decision-makers to inform decisions at all levels
| What we're measuring | 2030 Target | Now |
|---|---|---|
Proportion of people rating local government performance on decision-making in the interest of the community as 'Poor' or 'Very poor' | Under 10% | 15% |
Placing Access to Information in the system
Local to global connections
Information flows in Melbourne are directly tied to trends and influences at a global scale:
- Many sources of information and communications channels, such as social media platforms, operate on a global scale, allowing Melburnians to communicate with each other and with global networks.
- Messaging about key topics such as climate, social equality and economic prosperity are shaped by global leaders, including polarising political leaders.
- Misinformation and disinformation campaigns influencing public debate in Melbourne often have ties to global organisations.
- Our city’s population is culturally diverse and messaging we produce through various platforms is distributed globally, requiring broad understanding of global cultures.
Learn more
How was this dimension developed?
The Access to Information dimension of the Greater Melbourne City Portrait, including the conceptual framing and data selection, has been developed in collaboration with sector experts from academia, government and industry. A detailed description of the City Portrait methodology is outlined in the About section of the website.
Where can I access the data?
Data for Access to Information, along with the other Social Founation dimensions are available in the Social Foundations Dataset.
For Ecological Celing dimensions, see the Ecological Ceiling Dataset.
Where can I find more information on Access to Information in a regenerative Melbourne?
The City Portrait is informed by extensive research and resources on Doughnut Economics and related frameworks, as well as sector-specific research associated with each dimension. More detailed research that has informed the Access to Information dimension is available to explore via Altiorem's library.
How can I get involved?
To get involved with ongoing development of the City Portrait or learn more about Regen Melbourne, email alison@regen.melbourne