Congress 2.0

With Congress approaching full adoption of the three major social media platforms – YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook – this study gauges the performance of members’ official channels in terms of building audiences. Despite the popularity of these platforms, a divide exists among a few high performing members and many low performers. Using an index to differentiate performance, the study finds social media success is driven by several factors, party affiliation and ideology being significant. Performance is also derivative of larger political and media forces, and the study shows that the issues confronting government can engage audiences that turn to social media for information, as demonstrated by the congressional debate over healthcare on YouTube. The chapter explores how the utilization of this technology could be an historical step as important as the advent of C-SPAN in connecting Congress to the American people.

Web 2.0 Technologies and Authentic Public Participation

In this chapter, the authors evaluate the use of Web 2.0 technology to engage citizens in the transportation decision making process. They evaluate the potential of Web 2.0 technology to create effective participatory environments to enable authentic participation; provide an inventory of the current tools and technologies utilized, identify barriers faced by administrators in the implementation of these tools, and summarize universal lessons for public administrators. Based on a review of 40 cases of collaborations, the authors find that Web 2.0 technology is predominantly used as a complement rather than a substitute for traditional approaches. Furthermore, the review suggests that the full potential of Web 2.0 remains untapped, and additional tools and technologies can be utilized to overcome barriers to implementation.

An Experiment in E-Rulemaking with Natural Language Processing and Democratic Deliberation

Public comment processes in federal and state agency rulemakings are among the most substantial potential arenas for public input into government. Unfortunately, these processes have not been much used for thoughtful public input. This research sought to shed light on whether online democratic deliberation, without facilitation, and natural language processing tools could empower participants to provide more informed input into an agency rulemaking. It also sought to determine whether such an approach had other positive effects such as enhancing citizenship and increasing confidence in the pertinent agency. Findings indicate improvements in participant knowledge of the network neutrality rulemaking topic, systematic attitude change, improvements to citizenship measures, and increased confidence in the Federal Communications Commission. Results suggest that public deliberation under conditions needed to involve substantial numbers of people—namely, online deliberation without facilitators—can improve public comments into federal and state agency rulemakings while strengthening the citizenship qualities of participants. They also indicate that many of the desired effects of face-to-face deliberation with trained facilitators can also be obtained online without facilitators.

i-Government

This research is intended to introduce a new concept of Interactive Government (i-Government), provide an overview of current practices, and offer recommendations for development and implementation. i-Government is the use of smartphone applications to: a) connect citizens with resources; b) engage citizens in collaboration; c) empower citizens as volunteers; and d) enable citizens to serve as watchdogs. Smartphone applications enable government agencies to provide citizens with information and resources anytime (24/7), from anywhere. This anytime, anywhere feature, combined with smartphone technology such as a camera, GPS/location detection service, and an Internet browser, allows citizens to interact with government by accessing information and providing real-time data. Citizens become a new type of volunteer force, who serve as sensors in the community, and who provide information on anything from potholes, to graffiti, to suspicious activity. Because smartphones are always on, government agencies can directly contact citizens who are also willing to serve their community.

Social Media and New Military Public Affairs Policies

This chapter explores the recent United States military policy changes regarding the use of social media by members of the services. It also discusses the use of these new policies for military public affairs. The chapter analyzes the policy changes in light of network theory in the studies of new media technologies and how users construct networks of influence by employing these new technologies. It is concluded that the military use of new media networking (NMN) is an effective way of both protecting the communication security of military information and optimizing the networking potential of the new media. It appears that the military can use its new social media policies to take advantage of NMN by generating news on their own sites, directing the public to more information, enhancing the morale of service members with families, and developing new methods of recruitment.

E-Democratic Administration and Bureaucratic Responsiveness

The Civil Service E-mail Box (CSEB) is one of the windows that facilitate communication between Taiwan’s government and its citizens. According to research, when a government has a user-friendly digital platform maintained by technologically literate public administrators, those public employees would support using such an electronic system to increase governmental responsiveness. This chapter investigates how the perception of e-democratic administration and information and communications technology’s (ICT) level of readiness influence public administrators’ perception of CSEB effectiveness in facilitating communication with citizens. It does this by examining bureaucratic survey data gathered from Taiwan’s Research, Development, and Evaluation Commission (RDEC). Findings show that an unfriendly digital platform, unskilled staff, low appreciation of e-democracy, and lack of readiness on the part of CSEB negatively affect public employees’ enthusiasm in regarding ICT as an effective tool in raising governmental responsiveness in Taiwan.

Records Management, Privacy, and Social Media

This chapter provides an overview of United States federal policies guiding citizen/government interaction on social media tools. Such an overview begins to fill the gap regarding how federal agencies make policies regarding records retention and privacy on these platforms. Records management, inherently linked with privacy concerns, also will be explored to further ground the argument and future recommendations based on a qualitative content analysis of social media policies from three U.S. government agencies. From analyzing these policies, along with bringing in relevant literature, a workable framework and recommendations emerge to guide future social media use within government.

Web 2.0 for eParticipation

Recent developments in social media allow people to communicate and share information instantly and have led to speculation about the potential for increased citizen participation in decision making. However, as with other developments in ICT, social media is not used by everyone, and there is a danger of certain groups being excluded. Further, if social media tools are to be used by government institutions, there needs to be new internal processes put in place to ensure that the participation is meaningful. This chapter will critically evaluate and analyse the role of Web 2.0 tools (such as social networking services) for facilitating democratic participation, investigate and evaluate the development of Web 2.0 tools for eParticipation, and determine how they can be used to facilitate meaningful political participation.

Reaching Citizen 2.0

Many forms of public communication are now mediated through technologies that challenge traditional models of civic engagement and the public’s “right to know,” including communication for disaster management. This chapter employs a comparative lens to look at how social media messages are pushed forward by different layers of government to reach their publics during times of calm and crisis. Specifically, the project studies how information is framed for public consumption, how it is made available, and how it is timely and relevant. Research methods include a triangulation approach, including interviews with officials from over 20 city, regional, state, and federal agencies to follow up on content and textual analyses of online content disseminated by over 40 public agencies. This chapter argues that public administrators must be engaged with citizens and prepared to use social media during emergencies as well as for routine news, and offers key goals for government departments to promote an agenda of increased citizen information and engagement.

3D Digital City Platforms as Collaborative and Decision-Making Tools for Small Municipalities and Rural Areas

This chapter explores how the development and implementation of a 3D digital city platform can be utilized in the context of solid waste management and sustainable planning in a small municipality or largely rural areas with limited resources. By leveraging 3D visualization and Web 2.0 functionality to allow stakeholders to collaborate on equal footing, digital city platforms can help with day-to-day management of solid waste assets and facilities, planning for solid waste and recycling facilities and drop-offs, mapping and planning efficient waste hauler routes, and identifying issues such as underserved populations and illegal dumping.