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ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION WITH LOCAL GOVERNMENTS Sorin Dan Şandor, “Babeş-Bolyai” University, Romania Abstract The new ICT are offering the possibility to establish a two-way communication between governments and citizens. By means of electronic mail, online discussion forums and other such technologies many authors claim the possibility of increased public participation. This paper tries to analyze the way in which Romanian local governments are using these new possibilities. The assessment was based on the analysis of websites, online forums and interviews and e-interviews with persons in charge of the e-communication process. The findings are showing us that these new technologies have a low usage, both in terms of quantity and quality. There are few local governments which are offering more than e-mail services (not used at full potential). Discussion forums have a low number of users, few topics and short threads, and initiatives as www.domnuleprimar.ro are more like channels for the complaints of citizens. In order to improve participation through electronic communication we need to have an improved administrative culture, a deliberative culture and to reach a critical mass of participants. 1. Computer Mediated Communication Electronic communication falls within a category labeled as computer mediated communication (CMC). CMC is considered to be any form of individual or group interaction across networked computers. Electronic mail, listservs, newsgroups, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), blogs and online discussion forums are just a few examples of CMC tools. Synchronicity is the degree to which a medium enables real-time interaction (Hoffman & Novak, 1996). CMC may be either synchronous (like chat rooms) or asynchronous (e-mails, listservs). Online forums may be in a more hybrid status – by having elements from both technologies – enabling real-time interaction, but not as a compulsory rule. There is a significant body of literature stressing the limitations of CMC. The lack of vocal, paralinguistic and non-verbal features common to face-to-face communication are the main limitations quoted by many. These may lead to either a lack of social presence (de-individualization effects) or reduced number of social cues. As a result of those shortcomings CMC may be seen as “promoting task-oriented, depersonalized and anti-normative behavior” (Lamerichs&TeMolder, 2003:452).Factors as anonymity or challenging and flaming (emotionally charged messages, ranging up to hostile and insulting ones) may contribute to see CMC as depersonalized and leading to anti-normative behavior. Exploring virtual communities found two problems Etzioni (1999): identification (which may be overcome by some form of authentication) and accountability and two advantages: interactive broadcasting (dealing with multiple recipients at a time) and memory (retrieval of information). 2. Possible uses of e-communication The rapid development of new information and communications technologies (ICT), especially the Internet-based applications, was seen as a new democratic promise. A greater interactivity (which characterize CMC systems) gave hope of a rise of a more direct or participatory democracy. E-democracy, especially at local level, is based on a broader public debates space, in which the contact between citizens and decision-makers will be fostered by ICT technologies. New technologies, based on flat and open networks, enabling two-way communication, made possible to provide information to everyone, anywhere, anytime (Dutton, 1999). E-democracy promises were free access to public information and open discursive deliberation on the Net (Tsagarousianou 1999). While new technologies enabled governments to reach to its citizens by using new methods and channels, only the first promise (and only as a result of a push in national legislations) was addressed. E-government is seen mostly as form of e-business in administration and refers to the processes and structures needed to deliver electronic services to the public (citizens and businesses), collaborate with business partners and to conduct electronic transactions within an organizational entity. The United Nations (2005) has an e-participation approach towards e-government, focused on citizens’ ability to influence public policy. Three different stages were identified: e-information, ecommunication (discussion forums dedicated to policies) and e-decision-making (a not so clear notion, based mostly on government feed-back). In an attempt to unify e-democracy with e-government Coglianese (2004) identified three different avenues for electronic public participation. First, public participation can be viewed as a mechanism for expressing individual preferences that the regulatory agency then aggregates and uses as a basis for making its regulatory decisions. This can be thought of as participation as voting. Second, public participation can be viewed as a process by which individuals engage in a deliberative process that aims toward the achievement of a rational consensus over the regulatory decision. This might be thought of as participation as deliberation. Third, public participation can be viewed as intrinsically valuable for citizens themselves, for such participation fosters important personal virtues. This is participation as citizenship. Another possible use for the new ICTs is forming virtual communities. In the case of governments such communities may be aggregated either on a geographical level (as in a town) or around specific issues; they may be member-initiated or sponsored by public organizations. More than sharing a common interest, and a place (electronic), virtual communities should have also some sociopsychological traits as a sense of belonging and shared values, all developed through member interactions. Summarizing the possible uses of e-communication (seen as a two-way process) we got: Uses The citizens’ role 1. Information gathering Informers 2. Systematic user feedback Clients 3. Enhanced public participation: a. mechanism for expressing individual preferences Individuals b. engagement in a deliberative process Stakeholders c. e-voting in plebiscites, referendums, surveys and polls Citizens (political entities) 4. Building virtual communities Community Table 1: Uses of e-communication We can see that for each possible usage we have a different role for citizens. Electronic support may not be that important in shaping the use of the communication and the roles the citizens are playing. An electronic forum may be used for all purposes and citizens can have all the possible roles. Still, there are clear limitations: e-mails can be used only for purposes 1, 2 and 3a and, in general, for purposes 3b and 4 we need to have a higher degree of interactivity. 3. Electronic communication with local governments We took the case of 41 town halls from Romania: the county capitals and the Capital of Romania. In a country where one of the main dimensions of digital divide is based on the size of the city1, the better prospect for finding communication with the government is in selecting the most important cities. By consulting the web-pages of these town-halls an inventory of the two-way communication possibilities with local governments was made. 3.1 E-mail communication E-mail, a one-to-one type of communication, is the most used possibility. Still there are three different ways to use it in the local government: 1. Institution address (one address for the entire institution): communication with citizens is more centralized, usually a PR department (or person) handles all the requests, sending the messages (often in printed form) to the proper departments, receiving the answers and sending replies to citizens; 2. Department address: each department has only one e-mail address – requests from citizens are usually answered by one designated person in each department, with the assistance of other public servants from this department; it is not always easy to find which is the department which is in charge to solve your problems; 3. Individual address: each public servant has one address, making the communication process more personal; it is difficult to know which public servant from one department is the right person to contact; no control or evidence for the answers sent. The situation for these city halls is the following: As we can see 71% of city halls prefer to have only one official address. This centralized approach is considered to offer more control over the communication with citizens. The model is an electronic replica of the way in which regular mail is handled in present. 1 See Sorin Dan Şandor, Romania’s Digital Divide and the Failures of E-Government, Revista Transilvană de Ştiinţe Administrative nr. 1(16E)/2006, p. 154-162 We should notice that even if required by the law 52/2003, in three cases the e-mail address 7% 12% Institutional 10% Department Individual No address 71% Figure 1 City Hall e-mail addresses was not posted on the website (or very well hidden). We do not have exact figures about the volume of e-mail sent or received. Only regular mail is considered official and has archival procedures that make possible to find the amount of mail correspondence. For institutional mail some of the persons in charge which were willing to answer had vague answers ranging from dozens to several hundreds. For departmental or individual e-mail there are no figures available. The figures mentioned are indicating a very low usage of e-mail as a form of communication. Some of the reasons for this situation are: 1. Delayed answers: e-mail is typically a faster type of communication – answers are expected to come in 1-3 days, but public institutions are working much slower (especially in the case of institutional e-mail); 2. E-mails are not considered official correspondence – so some institutions may choose not to answer to them (which is actually happening quite often) and citizens can not be sure that their mails will be treated as serious as other forms of communication; 3. The culture of citizen-administration interaction existing now is based on face-toface meetings. Very few citizens are trying to use the phone, mail or e-mail; 4. Digital divide: Internet applications are used mostly by young people (under 40), while household problems are solved by heads of families usually older. 3.2 Bulletin boards or Forums Forums or Bulletin boards (while Bulletin Board Systems existed before the Internet, now the term is covering also online forums; some people are trying to make a distinction based on their purpose – a bulletin board is used to leave public messages while forums are meant to discuss issues) offer the possibility to have a one-to-many or many-to-many communication, in which interactivity can have a more important place. We can have linear (in which posts are arranged in order of their arrival – making them more difficult to retrieve a specific one) or threaded boardes (in which individual posts are threaded by topic). Linear forums are better for small-groups, on one topic or on a narrow set of topics (not the case for public administration, in which we have usually a big number of topics and we wish for a large audience). Threaded boards are very good for question and answers; but, unless well managed they may become very fragmented and difficult for community building. For the 41 city hall analyzed we found that only 9 of them are trying (not in a big extent, though) to keep some form of interactive form of communication. 15% 10% No forums Linear Threaded 75% Figure 2 Forums or BBS Of the 4 city halls having linear bulletin boards 2 have their own (but with a low usage, the number of messages being 12 and 15 in total, with no replies from the city hall or from other citizens) and other two are offering a link to another one, www.domnuleprimar.ro (presented in the next section). Threaded forums were presented as a possibility to hear citizens’ needs and to give them a voice, boosting public participation. In reality we do not have significant results. There is almost no activity on these forums, in many cases the city halls are not answering the posts of citizens and there is a small number of people reading the messages. City Hall Posts Topics Users Maximum Since number of users online Bucureşti ~500 unknown unknown unknown 2005 Galaţi 644 197 101 28 2006 Iaşi 176 92 unknown unknown 2006 2096 168 233 41 2007 Ploieşti Reşiţa 814 137 unknown unknown 2006 Târgovişte 222 151 92 78 2006 8 7 22 20 2007 Tulcea Table 2 Activity on forums The figures are disappointing. We can see that we have a very small number of users for each forum and with a small number of posts. The ratio posts/topic is very small (maximum 12.5), posts in the same topic are not related one to another, showing a very small potential for discussions. Interactivity is very low, the time lag between posts is seeveral days, many questions posted are not answered. The involvement of the city hall in moderating these forums is (in the best of cases) moderate. In two cases, Cluj-Napoca and Timişoara, the forums were closed in 2005 and 2007. The main reason for doing this was that were too many posts attacking the mayors on political grounds. When those posts were erased the users (and afterwards the local press) accused the city halls of censorship. Against such accusations the answer was the closure of the forums. A small number of topics do succeed in having some audience. In the case of Bucharest (a forum very poor administered) only the issue of cab licenses (due to a new regulation) succeeded to bring in April 2008 more than 100 posts, trying to mobilize the cab drivers to fight the new legislation. Even then some of the posts were not related to the topic or were commercial ones (like offerings to sell cab licenses). In the very few cases where the discussion is longer than the question & answer format and other citizens are involved, the communication is difficult, with a lot of misunderstandings, radical but unsubstantiated posts, with no contribution to the community-building process. An example of strenuous communication on a forum is shown below2: Citizen 1: [...] I am continuously perturbed by the daily activity of this church, where loudspeakers are used to broadcast the sermons for the entire neighborhood. Where can I make an official complaint in order to assure that my rights to privacy will be respected by the church? [...] Citizen 2: [...] You cannot expect that the mayor to start a quarrel with the bishop [...] Citizen 1: The Community Police is subordinated to the Town Hall. The may act in such cases [...] Moderator1: I have two questions: 1. Did you tried to speak with the priest from that church? 2. Don’t you think that maybe more than half of the citizens from the neighborhood may agree with this type of noise ? It will be a good idea to try to collect signatures on a petition and go with it to the town hall. [...] Citizen 1: Why should I try to solve the problem by myself?[...] The law is clear about forbidding too much noise. Such acts are misdemeanors that are sanctioned by the mayor or persons designated by him, or by the Police [...] Applying the law should not be subject of a referendum [...]. Citizen 3: Did you complain, in written form, to the police? Moderator1: [...] You should try to contact the Police [...].The church is not subordinated to the City Hall [...] Citizen 1: How about the law? The mayor or persons designated by him may sanction such facts [...] Moderator1: [...] Well, what do you want? The mayor to go there and to give a fine for 2 Discussion was translated from Romanian and abridged by the author Thu Dec 13 2007 Fri Dec 21, 2007 Sun Dec 23, 2007 Fri Dec 28, 2007 Fri Jan 04, 2008 Sun Jan 06, 2008 Mon Jan 07, 2008 Tue Jan 08, 2008 Tue Jan disturbing the public peace? [...] Citizen 1: So the Orthodox Church is a state within the state? [...] Moderator1: You do not want to solve your problems but only to complain [...] Citizen 4: In this country we the orthodox people are in majority. [...] You can stay with the devil, I prefer to go with God. Moderator 2: We informed the Bishop’s office about the situation [...] 08, 2008 Tue Jan 08, 2008 Wed Jan 09, 2008 Wed Jan 16, 2008 Wed Jan 16, 2008 We can see that the entire discussion lasted for more than a month. The position of citizen 1 was not understood by moderator 1 (and also by citizen 3), was supported (even if skeptically) by citizen 2 and violently challenged by citizen 4. In the end, the City Hall sent a formal complaint to the Bishop’s office. There is no indication that the problem was solved. The job done by the first moderator is at least very poor. Such a discussion, while with a longer thread than usual, is not unlikely to be seen on other Romanian PA forums. Few of the participants in such discussions are willing to do more than express their personal problems or their opinions on a specific issue. There is no purpose to reach an agreement. In order to do that several steps have to be taken: identifying areas of disagreement, asking and answering (with arguments based on facts and logic, not on feelings and beliefs) more questions in order to clarify the issue in hand, negotiation (if several alternatives do exist) towards a common ground, applying the new result. 3.3. Case study: www.domnuleprimar.ro The site www.domnuleprimar.ro (in translation www.Mistermayor.ro) was established in 2005 in order to help citizens to communicate their personal or community problems to City Halls. A feature added later was to allow other people to express their opinions regarding the posted messages. Until the 4th of May 2008 153 city or village halls have joined the site (but only 69 answered to at least one question). In this time 19.566 requests were made, 14.784 being answered (75.6%). Also 1.981 opinions were expressed. The numbers are not impressive. The average number of requests/town hall is only 42 – a small number. The following analysis is focused on one city hall, Cluj-Napoca, the champion of this approach. Cluj-Napoca accounts for ¼ of the total messages, having the best response rate (88%). Average duration of the answering time in 2008 was 27.8 days, the average number of opinions/message being 1.73. The first analysis made was regarding the topics of messages. There is no surprise here. Since 2004 Cluj Napoca is developing at a high rate, in a country which has a significant economic growth since 2000, and is confronted with the issue of having a strong increase in the number of cars but with the same infrastructure since before 1989. Also the construction sector is in a boom, but with a negative impact on urbanism issues and cleanliness. Not related 10% Other 6% Streets 34% Public order 6% Urbanism 8% Cleanliness 11% Traffic 25% Figure 3 Message topics A more important issue was about the type of messages and answers. Most messages are punctual complaints regarding a specific problem (like “my street is in a very poor shape”), there are some specific proposals, mostly very specific, and not many opinions on public issues (regarding more general targets, or even policies). Answers are mainly formal (“we noticed your problems” or “your street is scheduled for repairs in the next semester”), but we can see some actions, especially when the complaints can be solved by sending a control team which will give some fines. There is also a significant amount of information, when the messages are related to policies and programs of the City Hall. Messages Answers complaints 78.2% formal 49.5% proposals 8.5% action 29.6% opinions 5.7% information 15.6% other 10.8 other 5.3% Table 3 Types of messages and answers The opinions posted for each messages are not taken into consideration by the City Hall. Many of them are signalling similar problems, but they are not answered. Other messages are either strong critiques or sceptical comments about the City Hall’s activity. Regarding some proposals or opinions we can find some discussions, but the messages are usually not starting but trying to end a debate, each participant trying to impose his own opinions, in many cases using strong words. The average answering time and the low number of opinions posted demonstrate a low degree of interactivity. The pattern consists of a complaint about a personal problem followed by a formal answer (or, in the best case, a control action). The use of this type of communication is not even information gathering - the service is seen as public relations. The person in charge is the City Hall spokesperson who is sending the requests to the departments and sends back, in the name of the mayor, the answers received. 4. Conclusions: why we do not have public participation As seen above the level of e-participation is very low. There are some explanatory factors for this situation. Romania has a traditional administrative culture in which policy debates are not among the main characteristics. Debates are seldom held when adopting new policy measures. Even in Parliament or Local Councils problems are not discussed in terms of policies but of laws and regulations and are often passed without a serious discussion. Citizens’ opinions are requested only at a formal level (for each law a public debate should be held, but there is no evidence of government taking into consideration ordinary citizens’ input). It is hard to believe that electronic communication can have a greater impact unless a change in the administrative culture occurs. Even if this happens, there is still the problem of low usage of e-communication services: there is no critical mass that can keep forums alive. Digital divide hinders a lot of citizens that may be willing to participate and among the others we can see a lack of interest. Another problem is related to low interactivity: there are huge delays in communication (weeks being a too long period in the electronic world), threads are too short to be considered the start of a real debate. Local governments have a minimal participation in this process. Many local governments are not answering messages and there are few cases in which they are trying to start a debate; while the administrative culture asks for centralised (and often anonymous) participation the specific of the medium asks for a more personalised and de-centralised participation, but encouraging the public servants to participate in debates as individuals is inconceivable. We can see that citizens have a clear preference for expressing individual preferences instead of being involved in a deliberative process – while we may find people willing to solve their problems it is more difficult to find people eager to engage in finding solutions to solve public problems. One possible reason is that there are no “rewards” for participation in debates – meaning that is hard to see the utility of participating in a discussion at the end of which nothing happens or the results are not clear. Another reason is the lack of deliberative culture, many debates being characterised by assertive opinions, low reflexivity, politicized views, sceptical citizens challenging and flaming. E-communication should not be seen as a magical solution. While new technologies are quite spectacular, they can not accomplish anything more than offering faster, more interactive and cheaper ways to communicate. Even public participation is not more than a mean to reach the goal of a better society. While governments should try to improve public participation (including e-participation), citizens should use participation in order to help governments to perform better. References 1. Coglianese, Cary. 2004. The Internet and Citizen Participation in Rulemaking. Harvard University, John F Kennedy School of Government, Faculty Research Working Papers Series. RWP04-044, November 2. Dutton, William, 1999. Society of the Line: Information Politics in the Digital Age. Oxford University Press 3. Etzioni, A., O. Etzioni. 1999. Face-to-face and computer-mediated communities. A comparative analysis. Information Society, 15:241. 4. Hoffman, D., T. Novak. 1996. Marketing in hypermedia computer-mediated environments: Conceptual foundations. Journal of Marketing, 60(3):50-68. 5. Katz, J. 1997 Birth of a digital nation. Wired, 5(4):184-191. 6. Lamerichs, J, H. Te Molder. 2003. Computer-mediated communication: from a cognitive to a discursive model, New Media & Society, Vol5(4):451–473 7. Naidu, S., S. Järvelä. 2006. Analyzing CMC content for what? Computers & Education, 46:96-103. 8. Porter, Constance Elise. 2004. A Typology of Virtual Communities: A Multi-Disciplinary Foundation for Future Research. Journal of Computer Mediated Communication 10 (1), Article 3 9. Şandor, Sorin Dan. 2006. Romania’s Digital Divide and the Failures of E-Government. Revista Transilvană de Ştiinţe Administrative nr. 1(16E):154-162 10. Thurlow, C., L. Lengel, and A. Tomic. 2004. Computer mediated communication: Social interaction and the internet. London: Sage 11. Tsagarousianou, Roza. 1999. Electronic democracy: Rhetoric and Reality. Communications 24:189-208 12. UN. 2005. UN Global e-Government Readiness Report 2005, United Nations, New York