In localities with established community computer networks, interested citizens have been using a variety of online tools to interact with government. Citizens download local government information and use the Internet to stay informed on local issues. Town and county government officials and staff regularly update their web sites, post meeting agendas, budgets and minutes, background documentation, and exchange email on a one-to-one basis with residents. A new pattern of Internet use is emerging in which small groups of interested citizens - typically from established local formal and informal associations - distribute information on issues of interest among themselves and use online tools to deliberate on public policy. Increased citizen-to-citizen discussion and deliberation is an important outcome of digital government initiatives. It is occurring predominantly through discussion lists, multiple recipient email exchanges, listserv forwarding, and most recently, even blogs. But citizen deliberation across the community has a limited linkage back to government decision-making. What strategies and tools might help local government better integrate this citizen deliberation into the local governing process? By examining government and citizen interactions and the deployment of innovative tools in a stable, mature community network research can extend beyond primary effects (government posting information online and answering email) to secondary effects, specifically, the impact of online government on deliberative democracy.
The research team will use a mature community computer network environment, the Blacksburg Electronic Village in Blacksburg, Virginia, as a comprehensive test bed and case study. Of particular interest are the differences between activists and underrepresented citizen on factors such as motivation for online use, role of weak social ties across diverse groups, collective efficacy and civic participation. Primary research objectives are:
- To model community use of network technology for deliberation with special focus on use by local organizations and by people with lower socioeconomic or ethnic minority status. - To model local government use of network technology and the integration of citizen feedback into decision-making processes. - To deploy and evaluate a suite of modified innovative tools for incorporating citizen deliberation into local government decision-making. . The intellectual merit of this project is based on re-focusing the digital government discussion around elements that make for an effective democracy rather than for effective government and in the participatory design and testing of innovative tools for lay citizens. The broader impacts are both conceptual and practical as well as policy related. A model of democratic deliberation that includes concrete tools could substantially modify future efforts to deploy this technology effectively by local government, particularly in small towns and rural areas where technical expertise is scarce and infrastructure is sub-optimal.
