Use of social media in citizen-centric electronic government services: A literature analysis

yesThis article undertakes a literature review on such articles on social media and citizen-centric e-government services. This research uses 139 articles to perform the intended literature review. The keywords analysis of these articles indicates that Web 2.0, participation and open government/ open data were some of the frequently used keywords in addition to the two major themes of e-government and social media on which all the articles were searched for. The analysis of research methods indicated that majority of the studies were analytical, conceptual, descriptive, or theoretical in nature. The theoretical analysis however indicated that there is a lack of theory-based research in this area. The review of literature indicated that research themes such as electronic participation, engagement, transparency, communication/interaction, trust, security and collaboration are some of the most frequently used categories under this area of research. A research framework has also been proposed from the key themes emerging from the review

G2G interaction among local agencies in developing countries based on diffusion of innovations theory

Technological advancement has allowed governments to meet the demands of its citizens electronically. Electronic government (e-Government) facilitates accurate and fast transactions and delivery of services and information to businesses, citizens, and government agencies.Moreover, e-Government helps enhance democracy.Agencies interact with one another electronically through the e-Government, which enhances efficiency.e-Government utilizes information and communication technology to provide the public access to various services. Leaders and information technology executives in the public sector have recognized the importance of sharing inter-organizational information to improve the efficiency of government agencies. Therefore, this study takes the diffusion of innovations theory as context to identify the most important factor affecting the electronic interaction between local agencies in developing countries

A Bibliometric Study of Social Media as a e-Government Public Services

Social media is used as an essential tool of government communication to the public and a form of service from e-government. This paper aims to identify the scientific development of social media themes in public communication services. This paper used bibliometric technic to investigate the broad overview of media studies on government public services. The analysis includes a citation and co-citation analysis, bibliographical coupling, and co-occurrence analysis. The data is taken from the Scopus database for 2010- 2021 with the source of the journal article type. The analysis results show the dynamics of increasing and decreasing the number of government social media studies. The bibliometric analysis also shows the most contributing journal sources, the most productive authors, the most cited journal articles, co-citations between authors, and clusters of themes that develop from social media themes used by the government in communicating and serving the public

Web 2.0, ICT Infrastructure, and Training Provision for E-Government Readiness in Nigeria

This chapter presents a discussion on e-readiness, Web 2.0, social media, mobile/wireless technologies, and other Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) that can help to facilitate the attainment and sustenance of an e-ready environment necessary to enhance e-governance in Nigeria. The chapter aims to clearly articulate the necessary steps to be taken to provide all stakeholders with a blueprint of areas and factors on which to focus. An assessment of how e-ready the Nigerian government and its citizens currently are and the requirements necessary for further steps to be taken (such as policies, programmes, and processes to be put in place, infrastructures to be acquired, and training provisions to equip Nigerian citizens and government officials with the capacity to benefit from and sustain the use of acquired e-technologies) are also presented. Specific ways by which Nigeria can harness the various emerging technologies (social media, Web 2.0, and mobile/wireless technologies) are highlighted. If employed appropriately, these technologies can help to provide improved processes, increased efficiency, improved transparency, and citizen’s effective participation and involvement in governance to further improve the lives of Nigerian citizens

Making a Case for Social Innovation as a Structural Counterpart to Public Participation in Regional Planning

Multi-locational living – working, shopping, playing, learning and commuting across administrative and, sometimes even political boundaries is an essential aspect of metropolitan living. Although it is anticipated that everyday experiences of the physical, social and economic inter-connectedness between urban communities and peri-urban hinterlands would automatically engender a regional outlook in planning and governance, it is currently not the case. In the New York City region, a lived regional experience does not translate into support for a regional governance structure. While strong legislative support has ensured the public its rightful place within metropolitan regional planning, it has regrettably bred a procedural focus that has reduced public participation to an end in itself. Current approaches to public participation at the metropolitan scale limit the extent to which the public can meaningfully engage with issues of regional import, contribute their experiential knowledge towards envisioning solutions, and impact plan outcomes. This thesis presents a structural approach to public participation that redresses the current procedural focus by emphasizing the significance of the interlinkages between the governance structure, planning process and public participatory process in determining the quality and outcome of public participation in planning processes. Applying the structural approach to the case of metropolitan transportation planning (MTP) in the United States, this thesis provides a comparative analysis of the public participation exercises conducted by two Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) in the New York - New Jersey – Connecticut Tristate region, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council (NYMTC) and the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA). The NJTPA and NYMTC, despite being neighboring MPOs that share a common regional legacy, have responded differently to the region’s dynamics and evolved to be MPOs with very disparate organizational characteristics and regional impact. An in-depth study of newspaper articles, plan documents and government reports, and interviews of key office bearers demonstrate how this disparity impacts the design and implementation of the respective MPO’s public participation exercises. The structural approach demonstrates that lack of a direct relationship, such as a regional tax base or regional service provision, is an impediment to public perception of and active participation in regional governance. In the absence of opportunities for direct relationship with the regional public, engaged leadership and robust inter and intra-regional partnerships emerge as significant factors for fostering public participation in metropolitan planning processes. This thesis identifies best practices for successful engagement of the regional public –adapting to emerging (millennial) modes of engagement, appropriate messaging of complex, large-scale problems in personally relatable terms and convening the public on a regional scale - exemplified in NJTPA’s public outreach strategy. Six indicators of regional governance capacity from a public participatory perspective are proposed to raise awareness and address the lack of metrics for evaluating structural support for public participation in regional planning contexts. Finally, the structural approach demonstrates how the MPO governance structure and MTP planning process prioritize public participation as an accessory to decision making thereby undermining its potential for problem solving and social innovation. Addressing this lack, this thesis advocates for recognizing public-led social innovation as a structural counterpart to public participation for devising visionary solutions to regional scale issues. It concludes that public participation in regulatory planning tasks such as allocation of funds for transportation improvement programs is the right mechanism to implement solutions but not necessarily the right one for devising solutions

E-Governance: Strategy for Mitigating Non-Inclusion of Citizens in Policy Making in Nigeria

The Nigerian federation that currently has 36 states structure adopted the Weberian Public Administrative system before now as an ideal way of running government, which was characterized with the traditional way of doing things without recourse to the deployment of Information Communication Technology (ICT). Today e-governance is seen as a paradigm shift from the previous way of governance. Research has shown that, the adoption and implementation of e-governance is more likely to bring about effective service delivery, mitigate corruption and ultimately enhance citizens’ participation in governmental affairs. However, it has been argued that infrastructure such as regular electricity power and access to the Internet, in addition to a society with high rate of literacy level are required to effectively implement and realize the potentials of e-governance for improved delivery of services. Due to the difficulties currently experienced, developing nations need to adequately prepare for the implementation of e-governance on the platform of Information Communication Technology (ICT). Hence, this study seeks to examine whether the adoption and implementation of e-governance in the context of Nigeria would mitigate the hitherto non-inclusion of citizens in the formulation and implementation of government policies aimed at enhanced development. To achieve the objective of the study, data were sourced and analyzed majorly by examining government websites of 20 states in the Nigerian federation to ascertain if there are venues for citizens to interact with government in the area of policy making and feedback on government actions, as a way of promoting participatory governance. The study revealed that the adoption and implementation of e-governance in the country is yet to fully take place. This is due to lack of infrastructure, low level of literacy rate and government inability to provide the necessary infrastructure for e-governance to materialize. The paper therefore, recommends among others the need for the Federal Government to involve a sound and clear policy on how to go about the adoption and implementation of egovernance through deliberate effort at increasing budgetary allocation towards infrastructural development and mass education of citizens

The Impact of e-Democracy in Political Stability of Nigeria

The history of the Nigerian electoral process has been hitherto characterized by violence stemming from disputes in election outcomes. For instance, violence erupted across some states in Northern Nigeria when results indicated that a candidate who was popular in that part of the country was losing the election leading to avoidable loss of lives. Beside, this dispute in election outcome lingers for a long time in litigation at the electoral tribunals which distracts effective governance. However, the increasing penetrating use of ICTs in Nigeria is evident in the electoral processes with consequent shift in the behavior of actors in the democratic processes, thus changing the ways Nigerians react to election outcomes. This paper examines the trend in the use ICT in the Nigerian political system and its impact on the stability of the polity. It assesses the role of ICT in recent electoral processes and compares its impact on the outcome of the process in lieu of previous experiences in the Nigeria. Furthermore, the paper also examines the challenges and risks of implementing e-Democracy in Nigeria and its relationship to the economy in the light of the socio-economic situation of the country. The paper adopted qualitative approach in data gathering and analysis. From the findings, the paper observed that e-democracy is largely dependent on the level of ICT adoption, which is still at its lowest ebb in the country. It recognizes the challenges in the provision of ICT infrastructure and argues that appropriate low-cost infrastructure applicable to the Nigerian condition can be made available to implement e-democracy and thus arouse the interest of the populace in governance, increase the number of voters, and enhance transparency, probity and accountability, and participation in governance as well as help stabilize the nascent democrac

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse