Is e-governance a function of government or media? Some directions for future research and development of electronically mediated citizen participation

Citizen participation, enabled by electronic means, grows, in parallel with government's apparent failure to promote it. Organisations such as Getup and Moveon flourish; the BBC announced in 2003 that 'Internet-based political activism is happening...The BBC wants to help a wider audience...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Balnaves, Mark, Allen, Matthew
Other Authors: Susanna Paasonen
Format: Conference Paper
Published: Association of Internet Researchers 2009
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/13669
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author Balnaves, Mark
Allen, Matthew
author2 Susanna Paasonen
author_facet Susanna Paasonen
Balnaves, Mark
Allen, Matthew
author_sort Balnaves, Mark
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Citizen participation, enabled by electronic means, grows, in parallel with government's apparent failure to promote it. Organisations such as Getup and Moveon flourish; the BBC announced in 2003 that 'Internet-based political activism is happening...The BBC wants to help a wider audience find their voice by tackling obstacles to greater participation' (<a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net).">http://www.opendemocracy.net).</a> (Kevill, 2003). Such actions echo, perhaps, the enthusiastic adoption of the Internet by activist media groups, particularly Indymedia. This paper presents a response to this situation. It provides a richer account of the contradictory rise of e-government without e-governance, and examines the potential for media-based participatory engagement to complement e-government. It presents two models of the future of electronically mediated citizen engagement: the first involving agonistic relations between government and citizenry, with civic participation occurring outside of government-approved forums; the second involving the intimate linking of governmental transactions to participation by those citizens engaged in them. Finally it will outline mechanisms for researching the capacity of either or both models to sustain effective participation.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-136692017-10-02T02:27:29Z Is e-governance a function of government or media? Some directions for future research and development of electronically mediated citizen participation Balnaves, Mark Allen, Matthew Susanna Paasonen e-government online society participatory democracy Internet Citizen participation, enabled by electronic means, grows, in parallel with government's apparent failure to promote it. Organisations such as Getup and Moveon flourish; the BBC announced in 2003 that 'Internet-based political activism is happening...The BBC wants to help a wider audience find their voice by tackling obstacles to greater participation' (<a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net).">http://www.opendemocracy.net).</a> (Kevill, 2003). Such actions echo, perhaps, the enthusiastic adoption of the Internet by activist media groups, particularly Indymedia. This paper presents a response to this situation. It provides a richer account of the contradictory rise of e-government without e-governance, and examines the potential for media-based participatory engagement to complement e-government. It presents two models of the future of electronically mediated citizen engagement: the first involving agonistic relations between government and citizenry, with civic participation occurring outside of government-approved forums; the second involving the intimate linking of governmental transactions to participation by those citizens engaged in them. Finally it will outline mechanisms for researching the capacity of either or both models to sustain effective participation. 2009 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/13669 Association of Internet Researchers fulltext
spellingShingle e-government
online society
participatory democracy
Internet
Balnaves, Mark
Allen, Matthew
Is e-governance a function of government or media? Some directions for future research and development of electronically mediated citizen participation
title Is e-governance a function of government or media? Some directions for future research and development of electronically mediated citizen participation
title_full Is e-governance a function of government or media? Some directions for future research and development of electronically mediated citizen participation
title_fullStr Is e-governance a function of government or media? Some directions for future research and development of electronically mediated citizen participation
title_full_unstemmed Is e-governance a function of government or media? Some directions for future research and development of electronically mediated citizen participation
title_short Is e-governance a function of government or media? Some directions for future research and development of electronically mediated citizen participation
title_sort is e-governance a function of government or media? some directions for future research and development of electronically mediated citizen participation
topic e-government
online society
participatory democracy
Internet
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/13669