Local Governments Online and the Role of the Resident

This article explores the ways municipalities use the Internet as a new medium to interact with residents. Many local governments develop new tools to serve citizens’ needs for information, services, and participation. The Internet is developing fast as a means to realize all this at once, in one “place.” In Flanders, Belgium, there is a trend in electronic services for the government to reduce the citizen to a customer. Such important civic roles as being a voter and being a contributor to policy making are reduced to a minimum. Consequently, local government web sites are primarily one-way streams to the citizen as customer. The interactive possibilities of municipal web sites are neglected. This holds the risk that in future, local authorities will (voluntarily) neglect the democratic possibilities the Internet offers. In this way, they are developing an electronic government shop rather than the electronic community that some have predicted.

[1]  B. Koros The ‘Third Wave’ , 2001 .

[2]  Steven G. Jones Cybersociety 2.0: revisiting computer-mediated communication and community , 1998 .

[3]  S. Leach,et al.  Enabling or Disabling Local Government: Choices for the Future , 1996 .

[4]  Kees Brants,et al.  The new canals of Amsterdam: an exercise in local electronic democracy , 1996 .

[5]  M. Ruffin On being digital. , 1995, Physician executive.

[6]  Neil Postman,et al.  Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology , 1993 .

[7]  S. Zouridis,et al.  Denken over dienstverlening : de klant is koning , 1998 .

[8]  Jerry P. Miller,et al.  The global information society , 1997 .

[9]  A G M Jan,et al.  Models of Democracy – Behind the Design and Use of New Media in Politics , 1996 .

[10]  F. Naschold New Frontiers in the Public Sector Management: Trends and Issues in State and Local Government in Europe , 1996 .

[11]  Anne Phillips Why does Local Democracy Matter , 1996 .

[12]  V. Bekkers,et al.  Digitale posities in het lokaal bestuur: verschuiving of consolidatie van macht? , 1996 .

[13]  P. W. Tops,et al.  Orwell or Athens? Informatization and the Future of Democracy , 1995 .

[14]  Theodore Roszak,et al.  The cult of information : a neo-luddite treatise on high tech,artificial intelligence, and the true art of thinking , 1995 .

[15]  P. Schuszler Boekbespreking: Orwell of Athene? Democratie en informatiesamenleving , 1994 .

[16]  F. D. Rynck,et al.  Gemeentelijk beleid in samenspraak: leidraad voor een democratische en doelmatige besluitvorming , 1989 .

[17]  F. Christopher Arterton,et al.  Teledemocracy: Can Technology Protect Democracy? F. Christopher Arterton. 1987. Sage, Newbury Park, CA. 222 pages. Index. ISBN: 0-8039-2872-6 , 1988 .

[18]  Kenneth C. Laudon,et al.  Communications technology and democratic participation , 1977 .

[19]  S. Rendón Understanding media : the extensions of man , 1967 .

[20]  M. Mcluhan Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man , 1964 .