Social media in Egyptian government websites: Presence,usage, and effectiveness

This paper examines the presence, usage, and effectiveness of Egyptian government social media websites. The adoption of social media technology provides an illustration of the application of New Public Service (NPS) theory to public administration. The first phase of this study examined the presence of social media applications on these government websites. The second phase analyzed the use of Facebook by governmental entities in Egypt. The use of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were the top social media applications in Egyptian government websites, which is consistent with other government surveys of social media found in developed countries. In terms of effectiveness of these social media websites, they were used mainly to post information, with very little two-way interaction between citizens and government. The analysis in this paper shows that social media in Egypt is not much in line with the NPS theory.     

A framework for Internet of Things-enabled smart government: A case of IoT cybersecurity policies and use cases in U.S. federal government

Internet of Things (IoT) is ubiquitous in society. IoT-enabled dynamic capabilities in real-time sensing and responding can spur digital transformation in unlocking the potential of digital government into data-driven smart government capable of delivering policies and services of public interest and public value. However, the literature indicates challenges in IoT cybersecurity and systemic use across the government. There is the urgent need for IoT research on policy and use. This paper developed a framework for IoT-enabled smart government performance. We applied this framework to conduct case study analyses of digital technology policy, IoT cybersecurity policy, and IoT use in major application domains at the U.S. federal government level. The results show that some agencies were strategic and forward-thinking in funding and partnering with sub-national governments in promoting the IoT use. However, there remains a critical need for national IoT policies to promote systemic IoT use across the application domains.     

History, Myth, and the Politics of Educational Reform

This paper analyzes the politics of education in the United States by considering the ideas and lives of Emma Willard and Catharine Beecher, nineteenth century educational reformers. It argues that understanding these women as American Antigones, as working through the contradictions between their public writing and their private lives, provides a perspective on the history of educational reform that combines myth and history. This perspective refuses idealized accounts of "lost" moments or possibilities in the past, grounding educational reform in the project of reimagining gender relations within families and schools in the present.