EVOLUTION OF LOCAL E-GOVERNMENT IN CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA: HISTORY OF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE COLLEGE BOROUGH GOVERNMENT WEBSITE

ABSTRACT

The emergence of the Web 2.0 has renewed interest among politicians, public administrators and academics in the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in government at the local level since municipalities are now facing unique challenges that have never before touched their daily operations. Much has been written and debated, with considerable attention being given to a number of frameworks that conceptualize complex patterns of e-government development. Yet, lack of empirical analysis of innovation in egovernment, in particular, related to evolutionary patterns of design and development of local government websites can be characterized as a gap in literature. Therefore, the objective of this research was to study a single case of e-government adoption and development over time in a fairly small community in Central Pennsylvania, the Borough of State College.

This study, framed by the synergistic combination of two theoretical tools, sociotechnical theory and the maturational model of e-government innovation, offers thorough qualitative analysis of data derived from 12 semi-structured interviews, municipal archives, web content and web log statistics. The key research question has been phrased with intent to help explore how the design, online content and functionality of one selected government website have been shaped in response to shifts in administrative policies, goals and priorities of local government as well as changes in political and socioeconomic environment at the state and federal level.

Examining the findings of this research potentially have important implications as it may help create better ways of understanding not only the sociotechnical nature of designing and developing e-government portals but also may cast additional light on a question of whether technology shapes social dynamics and social processes –in turn- determine the variety of uses to which it is put.

 

Chapter 1

Introduction

Problem Statement

In the 1970s and the 1980s, earlier information technologies (IT) were largely internal to public agencies at all levels of government. However, since the mid-1990s, government use of the Web combined with rapidly growing rates of the Internet penetration^[1] in American society lead to dramatic new possibilities for municipal governments to communicate with their citizens, local businesses and other public organizations. Many researchers were able to identify a new trend when a greater range of government tasks becomes more associated with the “front office” rather than the “back office”. Having said that, there are still two ways to evaluate effects of information technology on government performance: internal (i.e., organizational efficiency) and external (i.e., promoting e-governance and e-democracy). The latter seems particularly important in times when citizen trust in government is in decline and participation is low. The recent public opinion poll from the Pew Research Center indicates that 80% of Americans don’t trust government (The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, April 18, 2010). Such distrust is not limited to the federal government, “there is a similar pattern in opinions about the impact of local government – 51% now see the impact of their local government as positive, down from 64% in 1997”.  As reported in the Huffington Post, “what the country wants is a community solution to the problems but not necessarily a federal government solution” (Sidoti, 2010).

These facts illuminate the need for change, the need to break away from this pattern of growing political distrust. In theoretical tradition of political science (e.g., Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996), an optimal democracy would contain citizens who possess high levels of political knowledge, efficacy, and participation. In other words, citizens would have greater trust in government if they believe that by participating they can make a difference and increase government responsiveness to their demands. It is commonly accepted that access to government information on the Internet enhanced by sustained government support of civic engagement (e.g., Internet discussion forums) via official government portals has potential to significantly and positively affect citizens’ trust in government (Pardo, 2000).  Since 2001, International City/County Management Association (ICMA) has done a number of national citizen surveys, which demonstrate the most successful strategies now emerging from local civic experiments that put new emphasis on mobilizing citizens for dialogue, deliberation, and collaborative problem solving. This trend is now called democratic governance, or e-governance if these experiments are mediated by web-based technologies.

With this in mind, it would be worthwhile to look at a single local government website with intention to find out how that portal came into existence to begin with, in addition to learning whether and how such municipal e-government may execute emerging strategies of democratic governance that apparently lead to greater citizen participation and higher level of citizen trust.

Definitions and Terms

E-government as an inter-disciplinary study that attracts scholars of such diverse fields as information science, public administration, organization studies and political science, is now a front-burner topic of considerable academic, business and government interest. As Paul Henman mentioned in his new book, Governing Electronically, e-government can be characterized as involving e-democracy, e-service provision, e-management and e-governance, and thus confirming the breadth of activities encompassed by this term (2010).

For different people, the term electronic government, or e-government may conjure a variety of images, from submitting a form online to sending an email message to an elected government official (Seifert & Relyea, 2004). In scholarly literature, e-government is often defined as the public organization’s use of information and communication technologies for the production and delivery of information and services (Fountain, 2001; Holden et al., 2003). The first, and current, official federal definition of e-government has been provided by the EGovernment Act of 2002 (Section 2 of P.L. 107-347; 116 Stat. 2899):

The use by the Government of web-based Internet applications and other    information technologies, combined with processes that implement these             technologies, to (A) enhance the access to and delivery of Government    information and services to the public, other agencies, and other Government            entities; or (B) bring about improvements in Government operations that may       include effectiveness, efficiency, service quality, or transformation².

Much like businesses with e-commerce, public organizations gradually began to embrace e-government. The evolution of e-government has been going through the same cycle as most commercial websites went through a couple of years before that. While there are similarities, there are also differences between government and commercial firms in terms of the goals and objectives for their websites. Since the early 1990s, electronic government initiatives have been understood as an innovation mechanism aimed at reaching greater levels of effectiveness and interoperability in the public sector. As Moon (2002) points out, because e-government has a

potential to offer substantial performance gains, it is rightfully considered one of the core

                                                     

² 116 Stat. 2899, at 2902

elements of ‘reinventing government’ movement and administrative reforms at different government levels. It is widely known that the Internet-enabled “one-stop-shopping” portals and Web-based income tax collection practices have been very successful throughout the world.

However, as e-government evolves, it becomes capable of bringing about the benefit of e-governance that comprises the use of ICTs “to support public services, government administration, democratic processes, and relationships among citizens, civil society, the private sector, and the state” (Dawes, 2008). Thus, the most important question of the day is not only how information technology can help build a local government “that works better and costs less” as Al Gore once advocated for, but also how to use ICTs effectively so that they can empower the shift toward e-governance at all levels of government (Kamenski, 2001).

Most local governments have similar challenges to work on, including cultural, economic and social development, improving internal efficiency and effectiveness, collaboration, information sharing and integration, building a law-abiding state of affairs and promoting the atmosphere of good governance, such as citizen engagement and democratic participation. Among the priorities that the citizens normally assign to a local government, there’s a need for a more effective, modern and technological government that is less costly and capable of doing more. Since the early 1990s, information technology fully fits in with the concept of reinventing government, and cutting operational costs.

There is a philosophical saying about the need to think globally but act locally. With IT innovations and applications which continue to improve the quality and efficiency of service delivery to citizens, like Web pages, GIS applications, integrated justice solutions, improved customer service 24/7 and better data management, the traditional role of local government is being increasingly challenged. Today’s political and socioeconomic reality is multi-dimensional regardless of geographic locale, and it affects greatly the day-to-day life of local communities.  Local governments, through information and communication technologies are now exposed to forces, causes, connection and challenges that have never before touched their daily operations. Meeting new challenges require implementing new solutions, and these solutions in turn involve innovative use of advanced information and communication technologies.

Thesis Layout

The remainder of this thesis is organized into five parts. In Chapter 2, the researcher will discuss some essential multidisciplinary research on e-government encompassing a selection of extant literature on municipal website design and evaluation. As Chapter 2 addresses in greater detail, the phenomenon of ‘e-government’ is not particularly ‘new’, since computerized information technologies have been operating in government for decades and that the Internet and the Web-based technologies simply built on top of those earlier tools.

Chapter 3 explains why the combination of sociotechnical theory and maturational model of e-government innovation was chosen as a fitting theoretical foundation for conducting a historical case study research for this thesis. This synthesized theoretical framework allowed the author to better inform deductive coding as part of the final analysis of accumulated data. Chapter 4, in turn, presents an extended outline of qualitative research design and methodology, along with the detailed description of the data collection process that has been used for this research.

The following Chapter 5 provides a broad overview of the case, its key initiatives and activities carried out by various departments of the State College Borough government over the period from 1994 to 2011 that eventually led to, first, initial design and launch of the official municipal website in the late fall 1997, and then later to its sequential redesign projects. Much of

Chapter 6 is made up of the analysis of data and the study findings.

The last chapter will then discuss the implications of this research and propose some future research needed for the area of municipal e-government.

[1] In 2007, 69.26% of households in PA had access in the Internet based on Internetworldstats.com data

(http://www.internetworldstats.com/am/USA_Internet_Usage_2007.pdf)

EVOLUTION OF LOCAL E-GOVERNMENT IN CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA: HISTORY OF DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE STATE COLLEGE BOROUGH GOVERNMENT WEBSITE

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