Determinants of public engagement on municipal Facebook pages

Abstract

This article analyzes the determinants of public engagement on the Facebook pages of municipalities. The sample consists of 170 Italian and Spanish municipalities that used Facebook in 2014. The findings show that posting a lot of information on municipal Facebook pages does not increase the engagement of citizens. Also, frequent posting of information per se does not engage public engagement. However, if the posts are published when public can pay attention to them (e.g., off days), the likelihood of public engagement increases. Furthermore, the citizens’ engagement on municipal Facebook page depends on the level of citizens’ income – there is a negative relationship between citizens’ income and the level of participation.     

2015年国际电子政务研究的主题与趋势——基于社会科学引文索引(SSCI)数据库分析

随着信息技术日新月异,电子政务发展也与时俱进。因此为及时把握电子政务最新研究方向,选取2015年SSCI数据库与电子政务主题相关文献为样本展开分析,总结了电子政务领域研究最新主题与趋势：一是公民参与的公共服务系统建设研究;二是电子政务评估与电子政务可持续发展研究;三是基层电子政务与参与型电子社区发展研究;四是移动电子政务发展研究,以期对我国电子政务发展有所助益。     

电子公共服务公众参与度的实证分析

按照公众参与公共服务的模型及公众参与电子公共服务的机制及过程,从政府网站和公众两个方面作了调查研究,分析目前政府网站的建设现状、公众对政府网站的参与程度及对政府网站所提供的服务的满意度,总结了存在的问题,并给出了提高公众参与程度的建议.     

电子政务公众参与影响因素的实证研究

针对电子政务公众参与行为的特点,结合技术接受模型和理性行为模型以及信任理论构造出电子政务公众参与模型。对概念模型中的潜在变量进行操作化定义,构建其观察变量,并设计相应的调查问卷进行数据收集,对调查数据进行模型验证分析,最后根据实证研究结果提出了提高电子政务公众参与度的建议。     

政府治理与电子参与关联度的实证分析*--基于中美比较的视角

借助灰色关联分析方法对政府治理和电子参与的关联度进行定量描述和中美比较。研究结果表明,无论是在中国还是美国,政府治理的六个指标即话语权和问责、政治稳定、政府效能、监管质量、法治、腐败控制和电子参与的关联度不尽相同;中国治理水平与电子参与的关联程度大于美国的关联程度;话语权和问责制、政府效能与电子参与的关联度排序存在显著的中美差异。     

Context clues for the stall of the Citizens’ Initiative: lessons for opening up e-participation development practice

The European Union recently launched an innovative participatory mechanism allowing its citizens across Europe get together and set the agenda for policy-making in Brussels. The tool – the European Citizens’ Initiative – was labelled as “most direct and digital” ever in the history of European democratic experimentation as it made it possible to collect signatures (of which it is required not less than 1 million) in favour of an initiative via the internet (e-collection). Launched on 1 April 2012 the ECI was met with major enthusiasm in Brussels, but soon stumbled over serious difficulties as the organisers on the ground were unable to set up their online collection systems. The present paper looks into this ICT-related crisis from the point of reference of e-democracy theory based on the findings of a qualitative case-study. As a deliverable, it offers an understanding of factors and stakeholder rationales which shaped the design and implementation of the digital dimension of the ECI (iECI).     

Designing Deliberation Systems

In a liberal democracy, the evolution of political agendas and formation of policy involves deliberation: serious consideration of political issues. Modern-day political participation is dependent on widespread deliberation supported by information and communication technologies, which also offer the potential to revitalize and transform citizen engagement in democracy. Although the majority of Web 2.0 systems enable these discourses to some extent, government institutions commission and manage specialized deliberation systems (information systems designed to support participative discourse) intended to promote citizen engagement. The most common examples of these are political discussion forums. Although usually considered trivial adaptations of well-known technologies, these types of deliberative systems are often unsuccessful, and present a distinct set of design and management challenges. In this article, the authors analyze the issues involved in establishing political deliberation systems under four headings: stakeholder engagement, Web platform design, service management, political process reshaping, and evaluation and improvement. We review the existing literature and present a longitudinal case study: the Norwegian Demokratitorget (Democracy Square). We define key issues in each of the four areas, which need to be understood to design and manage a successful net-based deliberation forum.     

Determinants of electronic participation and electronic government maturity: Insights from cross-country data

Utilizing the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) theory and the literature on citizen engagement, we formulated a multiple-mediation model examining (1) the TOE contextual factors affecting government’s willingness to implement electronic participation (e-participation) in form of e-information sharing, e-consultation, and e-decision-making in a country and its electronic government (e-government) maturity; and (2) the mediating role of government’s willingness to implement e-participation in a country on the relationships between its TOE contextual factors and e-government maturity. Specifically, we hypothesized that information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure (representing the Technology context), governance (representing the Organization context), and human capital (representing the Environment context) has both direct and indirect relationships with e-government maturity through the mediating roles of government’s willingness to implement e-participation. Based on archival data from 183 countries, results showed that while ICT infrastructure and human capital were positively associated with government’s willingness to implement e-participation and e-government maturity, governance was not significantly associated with them. Also, government’s willingness to implement e-participation had significant associations with its e-government maturity. Specifically, of three dimensions of e-participation, government’s willingness to implement e-information sharing and e-decision-making were positively associated with e-government maturity, and its willingness to implement e-consultation was negatively associated. Further, government’s willingness to implement e-information sharing, e-consultation, and e-decision-making partially mediated the influences of ICT infrastructure and human capital on e-government maturity. Results also indicated that the relationship of governance with e-government maturity was not mediated by government’s willingness to implement e-participation. Findings contribute to the theoretical discourse on e-government by highlighting the roles of the TOE contextual factors on government’s willingness to implement e-participation and e-government maturity, and provide indications for practice in managing e-government maturity by (1) enhancing government’s willingness to implement appropriate e-participation dimensions; and (2) leveraging the effects of the TOE contextual factors on government’s willingness to implement e-participation and e-government maturity.     

An empirical analysis of e-participation. The role of social networks and e-government over citizens' online engagement

The aim of this paper is to further explore the drivers behind the decision of citizens to engage in social and political participation on the internet, since mixed empirical evidence has been found in the literature. Using data from the 2011 survey on the use of information and communications technologies by households and individuals in Spain, the following two types of e-participation are analyzed: reading/giving opinions about social/political issues and signing/taking part in online petitions/public consultations. Relying on an updated version of the resources approach, we investigate as to what extent e-participation is explained not only by traditional participation-related resources (i.e., socio-economic characteristics) but also by digital skills, social networks and the online development of public administrations. Results show that, while online participation is mainly associated with internet-related skills, there is a significant gender gap. Interestingly, the unemployed tend to engage socially and politically online more than the rest of the population.