Applying interactivity in e-government service delivery: The media’s experience as a reference point

This paper is based upon the STeM MUDIA report, Prognastic study of media content usage – The users role in online news, by Brian Trench and Gary Quinn, July 2002. The study aimed to establish, if in the context of more immediately interactive media technologies, a demand-driven, or more dialogic information practice can be, or is being developed, and how this sits with established professional standards. The findings of the report are used here to examine interactivity and provide a broad basis for its application in government online service provision. Paper submitted to Euricom Colloquium: Computer Networks and Democratic Engagement University of Nijmegen 9 to 12 October 2002 Applying interactivity in e-government service delivery The media’s experience as a reference point Gary Quinn – STeM at Dublin City University, Ireland Introduction The experience of European governments in the strengthening of democratic practice through the implementation of ICTs can at best be described as piecemeal. Although most governments can demonstrate a strong online presence and the volume of information on government policy, government representatives and their areas of administration is high, the ability of governments to redress social exclusion and increase active citizenship has changed little. Those who were excluded from the wider benefits of society before the concept of the information society evolved remain those most easily identified as being excluded from it today and from the information society itself. It can be argued that the test of a strong democracy can be gauged by evaluating the level of social exclusion experienced by citizens. If a government has attempted to implement strategies to eliminate inequalities and redress poverty, discrimination, access to education and other factors which affect a citizen’s opportunity to participate in society, the level of social exclusion which remains serves as a strong indicator of the strength of these policies and the resulting democratic framework which they create. In Ireland’s National Anti-Poverty Strategy social exclusion is defined as: “Cumulative marginalisation from production (employment), from consumption (income poverty), from social networks (community, family and neighbours), from decision-making and from an adequate quality of life.” In the 2000 report, The needs of the community and voluntary sector and individuals excluded from the Information Society, those groups most likely to experience poverty in some form were identified as: the unemployed; children; single adult households; lone parents and people with disabilities. The report confirmed that these groupings are broadly in line with those categories who have been identified as also being excluded from the information society. It went on to identify other excluded groups such as Travellers (an indigenous Irish gypsy community and ethnic minority), residents in local authority housing, and people relying on social welfare and other benefits and dependent on public services, including refugees and asylum seekers. Furthermore, there is a clear gender focus to exclusion that impedes the opportunity for women to participate in and access the benefits of democratic society at all levels. Each of these broad groupings could be subdivided further to illustrate the complex nature of exclusion and its stratification in wider society but establishing their existence in a broad sense at the outset serves an important purpose. That is, that the way in which governments seek to provide services to its citizens and to build a society on principles of equity is extremely complex and the relationship that each of the above groups has with government and its representatives is diverse. If that relationship is to be enhanced through the provision of online government services then the way in which those services are designed and implemented must reflect the diversity and needs of all the groupings of citizens they are designed for. Online service delivery, as it is understood from the examination of most European governments strategies, is limited to procedural mechanisms such as taxation, social security and registration services. Partly, it could be argued, this is because most governments have sought to provide a ‘first roll-out’ of online government services in a way which mirrors existing administrative provision and which is motivated by the possibility of reducing administrative costs and streamlining existing services rather than developing new ways of strengthening democracy and combating social exclusion. However, the potential for online service delivery is much wider than is and could be envisaged to include a much wider range of services including health and education services, legislative provision and advice, local community resourcing and focused policy development services.