Introduction Various nations, now more than ever, have adopted access-to- information laws and laws that increase government openness Open access to government information will: Increase citizen participation Increase trust in the government Prevent corruption E-government: Reduces the contact between corrupt officials and citizens Increases: Transparency Accountability Introduction Government agencies use social media in order to: Improve the quality of government services Increase citizen engagement
Social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, or Blogs, Wikis and Mashups: Are widely used Have influenced the way people interact with each other and with their governments Provide governments with an attractive and easy way to interact with their citizens Offer many-to-many interaction
We posit that social media can be used in order to increase transparency Social Media and Transparency With social media, both governments and citizens have a lot to gain:
Open communication Connecting the citizens with their government Citizens can: Share and access information easily Form communities Direct interaction with citizens The Ladder of Accountability to Assess Transparency Delivery Transparency is achieved when the e-government system offers a two way interaction with citizens and allows benchmarking of the public servants performance.
Step 0: - Publication: providing basic information Adapted from Heeks 2012 Indonesia - Governor of DKI Jakarta Transparency of Budget through YouTube October 2012: Jokowi-Ahok the governor of Jakarta started using YouTube to upload internal meeting (Ardiansyah 2012) PemprovDKI has more than: 148 videos 19 thousand subscribers 5 million views (Pemprov DKI YouTube Account 2012) Internal meetings are recorded and published almost without any editing (Mimin 2012) This initiative will: increase transparency assist citizens monitor the work of their leaders quicker and easier Visit on: http://www.youtube.com/user/pemprovdki Indonesia - Governor of DKI Jakarta Transparency of Budget through YouTube Citizens are able to: Monitor the performance of the public servants from meeting to meeting Compare it against pre set benchmarks Interact with the officials We classify this initiative at step: Two: Transparency
Lesson from this case: Facilitating public opinion Educating citizens on how government works Changing the way monitoring government
"I told Public Relation Department, if it is uploaded to YouTube, upload it in its entirety so people know what was discussed during the meeting, how their money was spent." (Ahok cited in AsiaViews 2012)
China - Micro blogging as The Gate for Transparency Chinese government: Has built a firewall to prevent the access to foreign social media Has strong relationship with the local social media such as Sina Weibo, Renren etc
Government agency started building their own microblogging accounts in order to: Disclose government information Enhance citizen participation Improve service delivery
There are more than 19 thousand certified accounts by government agencies and officials. Every two weeks the Sina Weibo will publish a case study called Example Analysis of gov.weibo.com, that will share the governments experiences on using microblogging.
We should ask the people what they need, hear the voice of them, and concern about the sufferings of the masses of them. Attention to the network of public opinion, especially microblogging. ----- (Government China 2012) the 2012 report on work of the government of Shandong province
China - Micro blogging as The Gate for Transparency Limitations: The government controls to a certain extent microblogging There are sensitive words that cannot be used either by citizens or officials Social media can facilitate change but cannot bring revolution
We classify this initiative at step: Zero: Publication
Lesson from this case changing the way in monitoring government social media is not a panacea for increasing transparency
20021 illegal content, please check Restrict comment Conclusion A number of nations use social media in various ways: Countries such as Indonesia use them to: Inform citizens about the governments activities Receive feedback In countries such as China: Transparency initiatives still lag behind even though individual agencies and officials use them, since the published content is controlled by the government
Social media provide governments the potential to achieve openness and accountability The citizens can monitor the governments activities and give feedback which governments can use in order to reduce corruption Even more roles for social media in government transparency will develop in the future
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