Information Polity

Luna-Reyes, Luis F. ; Mellouli, Sehl ; Bertot, John C.

2013 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-130307

Robertson, Scott P. ; Douglas, Sara ; Maruyama, Misa ; Semaan, Bryan

2013 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-130303

The news feeds of two U.S. politicians' Facebook sites were examined across 22 months leading up to an election in order to explore changes in social-network-mediated public political discourse over time. Changes over time were observed in who was being addressed and in the affective valence of comments. A complex flow of attention between in-group and out-group concerns was observed, with in-group comments dominant both in early and late phases. Also, positive comments decreased and negative comments increased over time. These phenomena, dubbed "reflection-to-selection" and "converging sentiment", were refined to explain the observed nonlinearities. The flow of rational versus affective comments in politicians' Facebook data across time was also explored. Comments reflecting cognition were more prevalent at all times than comments reflecting affect, but their distribution also varied in complex ways over time. Finally, the concept of "potential public sphere" in contrast to "realized public sphere" in virtual spaces is introduced.

Bertot, John Carlo ; Jaeger, Paul T. ; Gorham, Ursula ; Taylor, Natalie Greene ; Lincoln, Ruth

2013 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-130304

Due to an increasing reliance on public libraries to deliver government services online, coupled with decreasing funding for public services, many public libraries have begun to collaborate with local government agencies and community organizations to provide vital services to their communities. Drawing upon findings made through an extensive literature review, site visits at a number of public libraries across the country, and interviews with state library staff, government officials, and community organization leaders, this paper highlights the e-government service roles of public libraries, the innovative partnerships between community groups, government agencies, and public libraries in the realm of e-government, and the impacts of these services and partnerships on communities.

Sawyer, Steve ; Schrier, Robert ; Fedorowicz, Jane ; Dias, Martin ; Williams, Christine ; Tyworth, Mike

2013 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-130305

Through this paper we advance insights regarding common patterns among information and communication technology (ICT) architectures (ICTA) found in United States' public safety networks (PSNs). A PSN is an inter-organizational collaboration enabled by ICT to support information sharing and interoperability needs of police and associated public safety organizations. Substantial evidence makes clear the information systems designed and used by PSNs are typically expensive and complex, support multiple public agencies from different organs of government and span different political and geographic boundaries. Better understanding of PSN ICTA patterns could lead to improved designs and possibly improved performance of these (and perhaps other forms of) multi-agency technology-enabled collaborations. Empirical data from 61 operational PSNs provides the basis for this work. These data were analyzed using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), an approach ideally suited for detailed analyses across smaller data sets that allows us to assess inter-dependence among variables. Results show that (1) functionally similar configuration patterns of ICTA exist among PSNs and (2) several common architectural patterns are associated with higher levels of PSN performance, but these include a large number of unique successful arrangements.

Daou, Alain ; Karuranga, Égide ; Thiam, Fatou ; Mellouli, Sehl ; Poulin, Diane

2013 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-130301

Governments are providing their citizens with more and more electronic services. However, little is known about how e-government services are appropriated in outlying regions. In this paper, we analyze the needs and barriers to e-government through the lenses of managers in these regions. To this end, an exploratory research is undertaken in four outlying regions of Quebec, Canada. The focus is on the adoption of e-government services through a "bottom-up" approach. We describe how these services are perceived by public and parapublic organizations in order to offer solutions designed for outlying regions. In general, when designing online services, a range of social, economic, and demographic factors need to be taken into account. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Luna, Dolores E. ; Gil-Garcia, J. Ramon ; Luna-Reyes, Luis F. ; Sandoval-Almazan, Rodrigo ; Duarte-Valle, Abel

2013 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-130302

Researchers around the world propose different ways to assess the performance of electronic government portals in order to understand the factors that influence the quality of the information and services they provide to citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders. Most of these evaluation models only consider the results or outputs in terms of information, services, or other portal functionalities, ignoring the inputs of capabilities and resources that governments have and make available for these efforts. This paper argues that a more comprehensive approach is necessary, and using data envelopment analysis (DEA) could help to better understand how efficient governments are in their use of certain "inputs" to produce high quality e-government portals. DEA calculates an efficiency score based on some portal characteristics (outputs), such as information, interaction, transaction, integration, and participation, and some organizational, institutional, and contextual factors (inputs), such as government capacity, potential demand, and operation costs. The empirical analysis focuses on the state government portals in Mexico. Our results indicate that while there are some states that are never in first place in terms of portal quality or functionality, they also have very few resources and capabilities, which means they are highly efficient. Therefore, DEA could also improve the fairness and equality of portal assessment methods, particularly for governments with few initial resources and capabilities and/or adversarial environmental conditions.

2013 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-130300

2013 Information Polity

doi: 10.3233/IP-130306