Enabling User Participation in Civic Engagement Web Sites

Despite high hopes and large investments, existing efforts at designing and implementing Internet Web pages and systems for civic engagement have met only marginal success, suggesting a need for careful thought and application of research on how to get people to interact using technology. This paper develops and presents a theory for designing effective online civic engagement systems. The theory draws from several decades of work in the group support systems literature as well as the historical context of civic engagement in the United States to identify seven key dynamics (the kernel) to address and include when designing such systems. These seven dynamics include five focusing on promoting individual-level interaction: authentication, authorization, masking, interests, and expertise. Two focus on group-level interaction: local access and timeliness. The author analyzes existing systems in light of these seven dynamics and identifies two additional design accommodations that would specifically promote youth engagement. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-0966-2.ch006