Arguments in Support of the Resolution
We do not argue that e-government has no value. Rather, we argue that e-government's value is limited.
Our main arguments are that there has been little interest by the public in e-government initiatives that have been launched, the amount of true deliberation and dialogue between citizens and government has been low, politicians have been reluctant to show true candor in formats such as blogs, users of e-government initiatives have been skeptical as to how much the government has valued their input, and there is evidence of government not valuing the citizen input they receive.
The Hansard Society: Digital Dialogues
The Hansard Society issued a report on e-government in Britain called "Digital Dialogues." [1] The report included six case studies of governmental use of information and communications technology (ICT). The six case studies were: online surveys conducted by the Department for Education and Skills, Minister of Parliament and Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs David Miliband's blog [2], the Department of Work and Pensions' online forum, Department for Communities and Local Government online forum, a webchat conducted by the Department for Communities and Local Government (only local leaders could participate, but anyone could view the chat), and the Food Standard Agency's online forum (forum was open to the public, but specifically was specifically targeted to caterers). The case studies provide strong evidence to the limited impact of e-government.
Limited Interest
The amount of people who actively participated in the government's ICT project was very small.
- In a two month period, only 18 registrants posted a total of 44 messages to The Department of Work and Pensions' online forum.
- Over a 14 week period, only 101 participants posted a total of 152 messages to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs forum.
- Over a two month period, only 32 registrants posted a total of 46 messages to the Food Standard Agency's online forum. Note that participation was this low despite being promoted in the trade press.
Such limited participation suggests that e-government is not producing significant amounts of dialogue between government and citizens and that people have limited interest in taking the time to actually participate in a dialogue with government (even if people indicate a theoretical desire to have a such a dialogue in a survey).
A Lack of Meaningful Dialogue
Complaints were common among participants in the "Digital Dialogues" case studies of a lack of meaningful dialogue between government agents and citizens.
- Users of David Miliband's blog complained that Mr. Miliband did not respond to comments posted by users. "Digital Dialogues" states: "The Minister rarely interacts with the comments made in response to his posts, and does not visit other blogs to comment."
- In the case of the Department for Work and Pensions forum, no members of the pertinent policy team actually participated. Instead a consultation coordinator participated. According to "Digital Dialogues," this consultation coordinator "did not have the necessary depth of policy knowledge required to respond directly to participants' questions and views." Additionally, the coordinator's participation was "irregular." In participant feedback surveys, the participants were disappointed by the low levels of involvement by actual policy experts.
- The Department for Work and Pensions forum was setup to receive input from Britons in preparation for a green paper (policy paper) on welfare reform. The green paper included no material from citizen posters to the forum.
- In the case of the Department for Communities and Local Government online forum, users stated that deliberation between users was more visible than deliberation between users and government officials.
- A notable American blog by a United States politician (and therefore, not part of "Digital Dialogues") is that of Senator Russ Feingold [3]. Feingold's blog is rarely updated and the senator's blog posts do not include comments from users (thus, no deliberation).
Politician Blogs: True Insight or Occasional Campaign Speech?
Two noteworthy blogs, Senator Russ Feingold's and MP David Miliband's, demonstrate how blogs written by politicians are not providing an outlet for truly insightful material. In the case of David Miliband's blog, bloggers reported to "Digital Dialogues" that Miliband's blog was too "on-message." We looked at both Miliband and Feingold's blogs and found little material that was truly insightful. There was little material that was anything more controversial than what would appear in a campaign speech; neither politician has taken the opportunity not afforded by mainstream media to make detailed arguments about an issue; and the arguments tended to be fairly superficial. Note such self congratulatory posts/sound bites as this one from David Miliband: "Around 40,000 farmers should now have received full payments for their 2006 Single Payment, and we are at an advanced stage in our preparations to start making partial payments to farmers with claims over 1000 Euros over the next two to three weeks. This is the RPA doing its job and there remains a lot more work to do, but management and employees have worked hard to deliver on the timetable I announced in my statement to the House of Commons, and I am grateful to them."
Russ Feingold's blog contains a lot of material about his opposition to the Iraq War. However, I do not believe that such a position is controversial anymore, and much of the material on the blog about Iraq looks like it could be derived from transcripts from Feingold arguing with Mary Matalin [4] on CNN.
http://www.davidmiliband.defra.gov.uk/images/blog/banner.jpg
David Miliband: Face of a mediocre blogger
More Access for Only the Few?
For some of the case studies that they conducted, The Hansard Society collected data on participants. This data suggests that the citizens who participate in e-government initiatives are disproportionately computer savvy. This shows the risk that large groups of the population will be shut out of any benefits of e-government, and may find themselves with less of a voice.
- 60% of participants of David Miliband's blog have their own blog or personal website. In the U.S., the Pew Research Center study indicated that 31% of Americans accessed political news prior to the 2006 election and 8% of this group posted to a blog (we assume that internet usage rates are similar in Britain). Thus, only 2.48% of Americans posted to a blog. However, 60% of the people who visited Mr. Miliband's blog ran their own blog or webpage; presumably the number of such people is significantly lower than the number of people who merely have posted to a blog. The people who visited Mr. Miliband's site were indeed part of an exclusive group of internet users.
- 98% of participants of David Miliband's blog are regular users of the internet; 66% of these users stated that they are "[a]lways on" the internet.
- Every single user of the Food Standards Agency forum described himself or herself as a "frequent" internet user.
- Some of the Food Standards Agency forum users thought that the low levels of participation might have been a result of many small catering businesses not having the necessary hardware to access the forum.
Skepticism that Government is Listening -- They May Be Right
A common theme expressed by participants of the various e-government initiatives was skepticism that their input actually made a difference. For example, in the case of the DCLG forum, Digital Dialogues reports that "a large segment [of users] voiced suspicion that their views would not reach ministers and not be addressed." This skepticism has at times been validated: as indicated above, The Department for Work and Pensions did not include any user input in their policy paper.
Open Congress
Open Congress[5] allows users to access the text of bills before Congress and read news coverage and commentary associated with the bill. On the surface, this sounds like a great way to increase the transparency of Congress and ensure a better informed citizenry. However, Open Congress has serious flaws.
Lack of Interest
Similar to the e-government examples in Britain from "Digital Dialogues," it is difficult to argue that Open Congress is making a big difference when there is such little interest in the site among the public. As of the writing of this wiki, the most hits received by any bill was 1,418. That was the only bill to receive over 1,000 hits. Additionally, the number of hits does not measure how many people actually viewed the text of the bill. It merely is the number of people who went to the bill's main page. It it doubtful that such low amounts of user interest is creating much of a difference. People have been able to ignore C-SPAN for years.
Poor Commentary
I clicked on the bill that generated the 1,418 hits: H.R. 861, a bill that would ease gun control laws.[6] There were only four blog posts about H.R. 861. Furthermore, of these four posts, only one of the four had anything remotely interesting to say about the bill.[7] However, this post was short and made merely one point in support of the law. The main commentary from Open Congress about the bill was this: "This is just what we need. The nationalization of Floridaâs 'Castle Law.' Yes, indeed, now you too may have the right to shoot to kill anyone you donât like the look of when you open your front door. A tip of the too-small Kevlar helmet to the amazing ChiDyke." This quote speaks for itself.