Identity in a Technological Society

This chapter provides a framework for the Technoself that distinguishes six different processes by which emerging technologies may affect human identity. From a public policy perspective, one of these processes, the radical physical alteration of human bodies, is of prime interest. The authors discuss various technological approaches – the alterations of genes, brains, and bodies - in relation to human identity and argue for the need for a governance dialogue over their social implications. We situate these developments in the policy context and develop the governance case for communication, adaptive regulation, and societal preparedness as means to regain control of our Technoselves.

Behavioral Intention towards E-Government in Malaysia

This study examines an amplified unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) in the context of eGovernment to get a better understanding of users' behaviour towards eGovernment. Two hundred and six respondents (206) participated in the study and the data was analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The study revealed that Performance Expectancy, Risk Taking Propensity, Attitude towards Computer and Web Trust dimensions are essential precursor of behavioural intention of Malaysians towards eGovernment. The study further suggests that policy-makers can increase eGovernment usage by creating applications that meets expected demands and needs of the people with provision of trust facilitating environment and security conditioned systems.

User Acceptance of eGovernment Services

This chapter identifies user satisfaction levels of eGovernment services. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) deals with the prediction of the acceptability of an information system. TAM posits that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use determine an individual's adoption of a system with intention to use serving as a mediator of actual system usage. In this chapter, a modified version of the TAM is proposed to predict the acceptability of eGovernment services and to identify the modifications, which must be brought to the system in order to make it acceptable to users. In the chapter, one of the most used eGovernment projects, e-school, is investigated according to TAM. An Internet-based survey questionnaire was applied to identify factors that influence users' satisfaction from one of the eGovernment services in Turkey. The sample was 30 teachers, who are working in public and private schools. A factor analysis was conducted on the questionnaire items, and a regression analysis, dependent on the factor analysis, was performed to determine and evaluate the effects of the factors on user satisfaction. The authors found that five main factors have significant affect on the satisfaction of users related to the e-School system. These factors are utilitarian ease of use, system usefulness, system content, system usability, and ease of use. The authors contributed to existing literature by adding a new construct, which refers to utilitarian ease of use.

E-Government and Public Service Delivery

This chapter aims to better understand what citizens think regarding the currently available e-government public services in Egypt. This is done through an analysis of a public opinion survey of Egyptian citizens, examining citizens' use and associated issues with usage of e-government portals. This chapter is different from existing research in that most of the studies that examine e-government and citizens focus on developed countries. This study focuses on a developing country, Egypt, as an emerging democracy, which has very unique and important challenges in the delivery of public services to its citizens. The results revealed that only gender, daily use of the internet, and the desire to convert all of the services to electronic ones were important factors that affected the use of the Egyptian e-government portal. On the other hand, age, education, trust in information confidentiality on the internet, and believing in e-government did not play any role in using e-government.

Ensuring Continued Usage of an E-Government Service in Malaysia

This chapter highlights the importance of continuance usage intention of a technology. Continuance intention is defined as one's intention to continue using or long-term usage intention of a technology. Although initial acceptance is important in identifying the success of an information system, continued usage is even more significant in ensuring the long-term viability of technology innovations and in enhancing the financial and quality performance of an organization. Therefore, this chapter aims to examine the continuance usage intention of e-filing system by taxpayers in Malaysia. The data were collected from 153 taxpayers in the northern region of Malaysia using survey method. The result shows a significant relationship between perceived usefulness and continuance usage intention. Surprisingly, perceived usefulness was found to be insignificantly related to satisfaction and satisfaction towards continuance usage intention. Implication of these findings to the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia is also elaborated.

Factors Influencing Online Poll Participation

The purpose of this study is to examine the degree of participation in online polls and its relationship to the perception of online polls, information literacy, and the political efficacy of Internet users in mainland China. Data was gathered online from a sample of 419 Internet users. Results show that perceptions of both the usefulness and trustworthiness of online polls positively correlated to participation in online polls but not to information literacy or to political efficacy. Contrary to expected results, political efficacy did not relate to online poll participation. However, regression results suggested that Internet users who often participated in online polls were usually males who were literate in publishing and believed that online polls were an effective and trustworthy means to express opinions on public issues. Limitations and implications for future studies are discussed.

Online Election Campaigning

Studies of online campaigning tend to focus on the supply side: the way political parties communicate and campaign using the Internet. This chapter explores the online presences of the main candidates and their parties who stood in the 2012 French presidential election. The research focuses not only on the supply side but also explores demand, utilising data from the Mediapolis survey to ascertain what citizens search for online and in particular what citizens seeking help with their voter decisions seek online. The data shows that citizens are provided with a rich online experience during election campaigns. Information is presented in engaging ways and candidates attempt to mobilise their supporters and offer various opportunities to interact with the campaign and other Website visitors. Interaction is augmented in particular by the use of social networking sites. Citizens, however, appear to mostly go online to find detailed information on the policies and programmes of the candidates. There appears little call for engaging communication, interactive opportunities, or details on the personal lives or personalities of the candidates. The data may, therefore, suggest that information may need to be packaged for accessibility and presented in a way that allows voters to make up their own minds, rather than following the norms of corporate sales campaign Websites.

Evolving In Step or Poles Apart?

Comparative studies are rare in the study of online communication campaigning. The authors chose two cases, Poland and France, to describe the two campaigns for the Parliamentary elections. Content analysis allowed the authors to detect online communication strategies and parties' attempt to reach different audiences. Web-cartography illustrates the parties' network connections. The authors find strong cross-country and resource-based differences for the more interactive and engaging features (Web 2.0), which are not that powerful for explaining audience-targeting strategies. Overall a sales strategy and a focus on marketing dominated over e-representation (exhibiting the parties' political record). In both countries social media platforms are well incorporated into online strategies. Facebook dominates in Poland, Twitter in France. Web cartography gives a counterintuitive picture of the Polish parties' network being much more personalized but also of more ghettoing within the supporting environment.

Applying Gap Model for Bringing Effectiveness to e-Government Services

Taking the means-ends approach to e-governance service quality the authors adopt the Parasuraman's ‘Gap Model' to evaluate the antecedents of service performance in an Indian context of government-to-citizen (G2C) service deployment under the national e-governance plan (NeGP) of India. This e-governance initiative in India has been implemented at multiple tiers of the government that integrates administration and service processes at different levels that includes center, state, district, block, and further to the lowest level of governance unit (Panchayat). The authors acknowledge five levels of potential service discrepancies across the service delivery chain, from designing the service policy to achieving citizen satisfaction. These are service conceptualization, service design, service capacity, service offering, and service consumption. Corresponding to these discrepancies, the authors explain six types of potential gaps in e-governance G2C service context: Assessment Gap, Design Gap, Capacity Gap, External Communication Gap, Delivery Gap, and Service Gap. Preliminary strategies to close these gaps are also proposed.

Greek Politicians and the Use of Online Technologies for Citizen Engagement

This chapter examines how politicians utilise Internet technologies to create an online presence, the motivating and hindering factors for doing so, and the perceived significance such a presence can have. The authors present empirical data collected via in-depth interviews with Greek politicians taking part in the general elections of 2012. The findings suggest that although politicians are increasingly interested in engaging with citizens using online technologies, their efforts are not always focused on achieving measurable and tangible results. Consequently, they do not make full use of the potential online technologies offer. Instead, the authors conclude, online strategies need to be organised around predefined objectives and based on clear communication and engagement plans.