5. Social media applications
The newest e-government offerings and applications center on social media applications
such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Originally developed solely for individuals social
media sites now also cater to businesses, and more recently governments as a new means of
reaching out to customers and citizens respectively. Applications such as Twitter have played
key roles in alerting citizens to local emergencies. The pros are that millions of citizens
routinely visit and participate in such sites and may be more likely to do so than visit a
government website. Such sites encourage two way interactions. Most of the social media
sites operate mostly for free and therefore the hosting of the application is done by a third-
party. Cons include many governments are ill-equipped to handle social media sites in terms
of content, monitoring and being able to respond quickly to postings of any kind. Social
media sites are not always free from cyber-attacks and can always be as reliable as other
technology platforms.
Throughout the Meeting, the expert panelist’s presentations and discussions pointed
toward the need for continued research and work in the area of the evolving e-government
initiatives and now citizen engagement applications – not as a luxury but as a necessity in
trying to earn and restore public trust in government. Overall there are six general categories
that require further research and information sharing, they are:
1. Public administration capacity building and strategic planning.
2. Policies & procedures on social media sites usage, benchmarking, etc.
3. Policies and procedures for managing citizen expectations.
4. Best practices for citizen engagement applications.
5. Technology advancements reporting.
6. E-government and social media international law. (Digital signatures, security,
authentication, identity, content, payments, privacy, terms of service, etc.)
The expert panelists were in complete agreement that much more work is required. The
needs of citizens pertaining to e-government and citizen engagement have been well
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documented, however, the barriers toward innovation is entirely new and requires a new and
expanded focus. Perhaps the most alluring of all the citizen engagement platforms resides in
what devices the most number of citizens have and use. Following and engaging the citizen is
the new imperative and it is more likely to be successful when it is done on a preferred device
that a citizen carries and uses daily, thus making mobile government (m-government) the new
frontier.
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