Digital Government Research Group

We are using a mature community computer network environment, the Blacksburg Electronic Village in Blacksburg, Virginia and surrounding Montgomery County, as a comprehensive test bed and case study to model local civic participation and deliberation. We employ a triangulation of quantitative and qualitative techniques, including random sample household surveys, focus group interviews, and data log analysis to test several inter-related hypotheses. We are especially interested in differences between activists and underrepresented citizens (specifically, lower SES or ethnic minorities) on factors such as motivation for communication and information technology use, the role of "weak social ties" across diverse groups, collective efficacy and civic participation.

Our primary research objectives are:

• To model community use of network technology for deliberation with special focus on use by local organizations and by people with lower socioeconomic or ethnic minority status. Is it only the usual political elite and the activist groups that become more engaged?
• To model local government use of network technology and the integration of citizen feedback into decision-making processes. How are elected officials and staff managing citizen input or tracking deliberation? How can technology promote linkages between community use and government use of online resources and strategies?
• To deploy and evaluate a suite of modified innovative tools for incorporating citizen deliberation into local government decision-making. This might include the capability to accommodate group discussion, annotate online content, to link topic-based blogs, accommodate users with low computer literacy, customize materials for localized use, or introduce and aggregate citizen feedback more directly into online resources.

Excerpt from [Project Summary]