Reconfiguring government-public engagements: enhancing the communicative power of citizens

This paper brings together proceedings of a workshop on ’Engaging with the Google generation’. It explores how latest internet, web and related digital information and communication techologies (ICTs) could help to produce better government to meet the diverse democratic and public service needs of all citizens. It also seeks to identify the degree to which web 2.0 innovations characterised around the broad concept of the Google generation can help government to support and benefit from citizens’ self-generated communicative power enhancements enabled by the Internet.

The paper lists the followingkey themes that emerged in the workshop as broad advice as how to make most of web 2.0 capabilities

• government should seek to harness the already unleashed e-energy of the Google generation to support better government. Substantive changes in the status quo in government–citizen relations are taking place because government no longer has a monopoly on creating systems for citizen participation
• in order to avoid exacerbating barriers to effective engagements with its citizens, government needs to be open to learning from—and building on—the flow of social and technological innovation and risk-taking tied to the continuing waves of digital innovations
• government should use new media like the Internet to reach out to where citizens are already active, including their preferred cyberspaces, rather than only waiting for citizens to come to government, as has previously been done through mass media
• the creativity of Web innovators and users should be tapped to develop e-services that are appealing enough to make people want to use them, enjoy using them, and from which they receive tangible benefits
• there is not a single ‘digital divide’ relating to access to the Internet, but a range of different needs requiring diverse online and offline channels from which citizens can choose. Trusted intermediaries can assist those unable to go online or those choosing not to do so, who are often the most in need of access to government assistance
• governments should not present a monolithic centralized online government face to citizens. Instead, encourage creativity and visibility through cross-boundary cooperation among a federation of distinct entities (central, regional and local government, schools, hospitals, etc.), each engaged in its own connections with citizens.