Wk7 Extra Reading (eSociety)

Blakemore, M. and Dutton, R. "e-Government, e-Society and Jordan: Strategy, theory, practice, and assessment." Available online at: http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_11/blakemore/index.html.

Here is a PDF of this blogpost: http://kegill.typepad.com/com546/files/Josh_Lind_eSociety.pdf

This blog post is to summarize the reading for use in class discussion.
To 'get' this article just consider the meaning of this statement: "promoting universal service access rights to the e-Society." Maintain the mantra: "means, but not an end."

Document Outline

Introduced ideas ::
1. Localized strategy
2. Developed vs. developing
3. The debriefing process
4. East vs. West
5. Culture

Society ::
- Technology and change
- Post-industrial or knowledge society
- Information and e-Government
- Moving money, moving the economy, digitized

Technology ::
- Developing enabled, developed ahead.
- Classic gains
--- G > C
--- G > G
--- G > B
--- Digital utopia

Research ::
- Strategies, complex (non-linear) process
- Timelines
- Political newness
- Political crap
- Necessity and digital colonialism
- who is benfited question again

Re-org ::
- International agenda
- More from government, more from citizens?
- Individual habits

Democracy ::
- Local identity, centralization
- Online rights
- Global identity
- Knowledge access and reality

The Great Devide ::
- Western teleology
- Intellectual property, digital herdle
- Reinvention
- Global reputation
--- Local divides
- Literacy
- Literacy+Technology=Sucess?
- Cultural gender bias, and ability, translates to biases empowerment
--- Gendered needs
- Taboo content
--- (the one thing all cultures agree about the net: no child porn)

Disintermediation (article buzz word) ::
--- (ditigally eliminate the 'middle-man')
- No stores
- No civil servants
- Technology vs. process, ability vs. need
- Easy digital presence
--- Minority (& culturally slighted) empowerment
--- Watch dogs
--- Educational access
- Cultural bias in such easy existing content

Communuity ::
- Sociological implications
- Stability
- Community buzz
- Pre-existing communities and content
- Expectations

Information rights ::
- Access
- Quality analysis & measurement (too new)
- Transparency
- Obligation (gov)
- Security
- Trust of governemental technology
- Global trend analysis
- Metrics to politicians

Overall ::
- Complex sociology of tech in complex global theatre
- Effective utilization
- Local vs. national
- Ethnographic use

Most comprehensive quote: "... if e-democracy is to develop into an integral part of representative democracy, mechanisms for promoting public deliberation, embedding it within the constitutional process and demonstrating real links between public input and policy outcomes need to be devised. Public expectations need to be managed: e-democracy should not be seen as a recipe for direct democracy or technopopulism."