MEDIA
All the World's a Page
Media Ownership and Democracy in the Digital Information Age
INTERNET
US Agencies Surf for Translators
E-GOVERMENT FOR ALL CONFERENCE, DAY 4
Connecting Research with Policy and Practice
Federal E-Government Initiatives in the U.S.
International Perspectives on Achieving E-Government for All
"Open Space" Discussion Forums
Note: During the two weeks of the E-Government for All conference (November
3-14), the Headlines team will include highlights from the ongoing
conference sessions, along with our usual headlines. We hope you find the
additional summaries useful. For more information on the conference, please
visit http://www.egov4all.org.
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MEDIA
ALL THE WORLD'S A PAGE
The Greater Toronto Area boasts a vibrant ethnic media identity, including
anywhere from 250 to 300 ethnic newspapers and magazines. Not all of them
make money, but they all have the same mission. "Their job one is to cover
news of interest to that community," says John Miller, professor of
journalism at Ryerson University. Almost without exception, Toronto's
potpourri of immigrant cultures has at least two things in common. They each
have a sense of identity somewhat split between Canada and somewhere else,
and they each have a lively interest in news that reflects themselves and
their lives in a way that big media is rarely able to do. Petro Lopata,
general manager of The New Pathway, a Ukrainian weekly published in Toronto,
says there are too many papers. "I try to say, `Let's consolidate.
Otherwise, we'll all go down.'" The New Pathway now publishes one in five
pages in English rather than Ukrainian, as new readers generally have
English as their mother tongue. At the same time, the publication pays less
and less attention to news of Ukraine itself, instead covering events and
issues in Canada. Other immigrant communities are going through a similar
transformation.
SOURCE: Toronto Star; AUTHOR: Oakland Ross
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/A...
le_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1067900653450
MEDIA OWNERSHIP AND DEMOCRACY IN THE DIGITAL INFORMATION AGE
Dr. Mark Cooper, Director of Research at the Consumer Federation of America,
has published a new book entitled: "Media Ownership and Democracy in the
Digital Information Age: Promoting Diversity with First Amendment Principles
and Market Structure Analysis." Cooper analyzes the growing threat to media
democracy, combining a detailed review of First Amendment jurisprudence with
rigorous economic analysis to demonstrate the continuing need for structural
limits on media ownership to promote democratic discourse in America. "I am
particularly pleased that CIS [the Center for Internet and Society] helped
publish this book," said Professor Larry Lessig, CIS Founder, "because it
supports one of our essential missions -- to improve both technology and
law, encouraging decision makers to design both as a means to foster
democratic values."
SOURCE: The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/
The free, downloadable version is located at:
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blogs/cooper/archives/mediabooke.pdf
INTERNET
US AGENCIES SURF FOR TRANSLATORS
The CIA and FBI hope the Dec. 1 launch of the National Virtual Translation
Center will solve the government shortage of linguists in Arabic and other
languages. Officials say this shortage has become a crisis in the fight
against terrorism. The online translation center will create a virtual
network of bilingual university students, professors, and other language
experts. "Historically we brought linguists to the material, but now we'll
get the material to the linguists," Everette Jordan, the new center's
director, said in a recent interview. "It means we can move a lot faster."
Critics say that it might be risky to hire individual language speakers
around the nation who haven't worked in government to translate documents
and audiotapes sent to their homes or offices by email. But supporters argue
that most translators will get cursory background checks and will not
receive full security clearances, meaning they will not be given secret
materials to translate. These types of translators will do "humdrum" work
like translating Chinese biotechnology conferences. "The new program is
'truly revolutionary' and 'perhaps the most important innovation to address
this great national security priority'," according to Kevin Hendzel, a
spokesman for the American Translators Association (ATA).
SOURCE: Washington Post; AUTHOR: John Mintz
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6029-2003Nov5.html
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Over 1000 participants from 73 countries
Information and registration: http://www.egov4all.org/
CONFERENCE SUMMARY, DAY 4
Connecting Research with Policy and Practice
Stephen Coleman, Cisco Professor of e-Democracy at the Oxford Internet
Institute, continued the discussion on multilingual e-government websites.
"Americans should observe that a) most of the world's internet users do not
speak English; and b) many of the world's countries do very well by having
more than one officially recognized language," Coleman said. The United
States should use big entities like Canada or small entities like Wales as a
model because multilingual websites are a necessity there, he said.
Nina Dillmann, one of the webmasters for Tarrant County, Texas, delved into
the problem of budget limitations when trying to maintain multilingual
sites. She said there are many Spanish speakers in Texas, but administrators
chose not to post information in Spanish. Keeping content up-to-date was
one of the reasons, she said. "This is the same issue with providing Text
Only equivalents. Now you have two or maybe three web sites to maintain."
With the downsizing of IT departments and general lack of budget, there is
even less incentive to maintain multilingual content, she continued. She
asked if there was a way to pull content into a translator the way it is
pulled from databases into style sheets; if this is possible, it might be
the direction to head toward, Dillmann concluded.
"The dismal budget situation in many cities, states, and countries is
worrisome if cutbacks are focused on features designed to boost
accessibility," added Darrell West. He said in the long run budget cuts will
not be beneficial for e-government. The focus should be on boosting usage
levels. "The problem with keeping files in a text-only database and drawing
on different style sheets is this probably will make information far less
accessible to visitors,."
Karen Roberts of the Children's Partnership commented on Darrell West's
research on e-government accessibility. She then posed to him, "Are there
any examples of guidelines or criteria used by producers of e-government
content to guide their sites' development, specifically to ensure quality
and accessibility to all audiences? Do they use the criteria you have
developed as a guide?"
"Most federal agencies have their own Web style guides, but not all of them
take accessibility (in the broad sense) into account," said Kathy
Goldschmidt, Director of Technology Service for the Congressional Management
Foundation (http://www.cmfweb.org). "The National Cancer Institute
recently released an extensive set of usability and accessibility standards
in a guide called 'Research-Based Web Design and Usability Guidelines'
(http://usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html)," she continued. Goldschmidt
said she realizes that access for the disabled is only one facet of
accessibility, but the government seems to be taking hold of the challenge
to provide access for the disabled.
Kenan Jarboe of Athena Alliance said his greatest fear is that e-government
will create the veneer of intense participation, when it might be actually
limiting it. Added Rosmary Gunn of Information Renaissance: "The veneer is a
real possibility with any kind of 'participation,' not just e-gov. Much of
what is being called 'e-government' is really about service delivery." Gunn
thinks that citizens need to force government to think carefully about who
needs the services and then consider to what extent is e-government actually
appropriate. She said if services are provided online, it needs to be
evaluated whether the services will increase or decrease exclusion. Gunn
wrapped up the discussion by offering other participation/access issues to
discuss further, including the issue of hard to reach groups, both online
and offline; the required resources to effectively produce inclusive
outreach; and the availability of information participants.
Federal E-Government Initiatives in the U.S.
Shani Smothers, graduate student and Benton Foundation intern, began the day
by asking, "Is there any particular reason that e-government initiatives,
only think of accessibility in terms of disability access? Why are low-level
readability and foreign language access not priorities as well and included
in the amendments and compliance standards?" Smothers also asked how exactly
the federal government goes about defining accessibility.
Rosemary Gunn of the organizationInformation Renaissance reiterated the
importance of defining accessibility. "There are clearly many kinds of
'accessibility' and they all need to be addressed," Gunn said. She says
website testing is important, especially testing to see if citizens who do
not suffer from language or disability barriers are able to easily use the
website.
The US government is not monolithic, noted Gunn. "The [federal] e-government
initiatives are a good but very limited beginning." She continued,
"Interesting things are happening but often on an agency by agency basis -
the E-gov act of 2002 suggests future possibilities, but so far as I know
(apart from the legal basis offered by Section 508) at present there is no
central coordinating point, much less guidance." Gunn suggested
Usability.gov (http://www.usability.gov) as a resource to provide
additional information on usability issues.
"Do you also find technical challenges the greatest barrier to making your
website more accessible and readable?" asked Nina Dillman. "Or have other
issues (leadership, bureaucratic inertia, etc) been more of an obstacle?"
She then asked about how to solve technical, bureaucratic, or other
challenges to accessibility and readability. "I keep hearing from the
"higher ups" that Section 508 does not apply to County Government so we
don't have to worry about it."
International Perspectives on Achieving E-Government for All
Carol Barraclough in Durban, South Africa, shared her experience with an
experimental local authority e-government project working through public
libraries. Eighteen libraries were provided with the service, and 80
libraries are now the focus of a project to bring Mellon Foundation funded
Internet access to their communities. During project implementation, Carol
became aware of the difficulties beyond pure access, such as "staff capacity
within the libraries to provide mediation and help to the library users; the
need to be literate in a second language as well as technologically
literate; the difficulty of 'decoding' screen-based information and Internet
conventions; the level of trust in the information being provided;
understanding of how to interact with the system."
"It led me to believe that in the early stages of e-government, particularly
with older members of the population, a friendly and trusted intermediary is
critical to the process," she continued. Carol then asked participants to
share models of bridging the digital divide that address areas beyond pure
access to technology.
Next, Andy Carvin posted a summary of a new UN report on the progress of
e-government around the world. "Only a very few governments have opted to
use e-government applications for transactional services or networking, and
even fewer use it to support genuine participation of citizens in politics,"
the report states. Most nations have their own official websites, but only
20 percent of people with Internet access ever use them, according to the
report. In 2003, 173 of the UN's 191 member states had websites, while 18
countries, many in Africa, do not, the report added. The report also says
women and the poor have less access to the Internet, while security and
privacy issues discourage use. "Some governments use Internet services to
cut red tape, but we see the Internet as advancing and consolidating
transparency and democracy," said Jose Antonio Ocampo, the UN
undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, in the AP story
regarding the report.
Sharon R. Swain commented on the article by adding her own idea about why
most people don't use their governments' websites. "I am currently taking a
Government Documents class for my Master's in Library and Information
Science," she explained. "Many of the government sites we have to use are
NOT user friendly. They have no plan for archiving information, materials
disappear or are taken down because of 'security' reasons, or the
information is too difficult for the average Internet user to locate (our
census information for example). I am being taught how to maneuver through
these sites so I can help those who might come to the library needing this
type of information, but there are many who are not able to take advantage
of our services for various reasons." She concludes, "If we know that people
look for fast, easy sources of information, then tailoring the web design to
facilitate its use will help advance the concept of e-government."
Rik Panganiban checked in to give some examples of interesting e-government
projects in his country of residence, Switzerland. "Notably, the federal
government has established a 'virtual guichet' to help citizens know where
to direct a particular inquiry, complaint or suggestion (http://www.ch.ch),"
said Rik. "This is quite important because the federal system of Switzerland
is quite complicated, and knowing if your particular issue belongs to the
local, municipal, cantonal or federal level, and then which particular
office should receive it, is quite difficult for even the most well-informed
Swiss person," he added. Rik also wrote about successful e-voting
initiatives. "Given the many, many referendums and elections that Swiss
people have to vote in, e-voting is key to increasing participation,
particularly for those in remote areas, disabled people, and the elderly,"
he said.
OPEN SPACE
Rik Panganiban opened the topic of "e-government for international
organizations" asking participants to contribute examples of
e-government-type applications for inter-governmental organizations, such as
the World Bank, the UN and the European Union. He said he was particularly
interested in "how technology can bring closer citizens around the world and
these often obtuse and little-understood international organizations." These
organizations often guide policies that affect the lives of people around
the world, such as World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations and new
infrastructure projects financed by the World Bank. "Beyond information, how
do these organizations create forums online where the voices of people most
affected by their decisions can be heard?" Rik asked.
Taran Rampersad replied that his experience with governmental forums has
been negative outside the United States. "Even Caribbean organizations such
as CXC (Caribbean Examination Council) do not respond to questions or
comments in forums. Forget email as well," Taran wrote. "The problem is not
the technology. It's the mindset of people." Gail Watt of Sweden felt that
Taran was being too pessimistic. "Clearly CXC has not been approached in the
'right way' to get the idea sold that ICT can in fact make them a more
responsible and accepted organization," he said. "But I agree, technology is
seldom the problem. So lets transform some 'technicians' into 'mission sales
people.'... If the top echelon people at WTO, World Bank, etc. are not
committed to these e-forums and give them, say, 30 minutes per week with
their own participation, you'll have a tough time getting the voices into
the forum you want. People seldom wish to talk with a 'blank wall' in a
forum that is meant to be influential on decision-making."
In response, Taran said he does not think pessimism is the issue. He used
the CXC website as an example. The problem is "finding it and posting a
question and waiting months for a response -- as many instructors and
students do." Taran explained that through the use of subversive tactics,
users have had a little more success with CXC. "The point is that (1) Why
have a forum if you do not intend to support it, and (2) Why should people
have to become subversive to deal with a public educational body which
administrates the entire CARICOM region?" Gail then redefined "subversive
tactics" to mean "creative alliances."
"There must be some insiders at CXC you can get over to your side," he said.
"But believe me, I appreciate your problem. I have the same at my present
place of employment (after a management regime change)."
Krishnan followed up with the comment, "E-Governance is more 'ego
governance' than electronic governance.... Technology is only 20 percent.
Psychology is 80 percent. Pareto's principle is true even here!!" Taran
agreed that the term 'ego governance' is quite accurate and is symptomatic
of a lot of the resistance he has seen at many different levels. "The ego is
based on traditional knowledge which leads to resistance of new knowledge in
many regards," he explained. "It's like when Einstein broke all of Newton's
laws. Classical physicists were quite unhappy ... but it was right, so it
survived."
Rik concurred with Gail's point about the commitment of top leadership in
international organizations. "Getting busy director-level people to pay
attention to online consultations is perhaps one of the toughest
challenges," he said. "It simply does not fit into the traditional
management system. I've talked to WTO staff who run their discussion boards
who also feel frustrated trying to get their own colleagues to log-on to the
boards and interact with the public."
The discussion on 21st Century Skills continued with Rosemary Gunn's
comment, "[I]n everything we are discussing, process is probably a bigger
question than technology." Gloria Bobbie responded "the problem lies in the
fact that what we know should be done and the ability to do what should be
done are very different things." She said that funding has been focused on
providing hardware, assuming that the users would figure it out. But
technology as a continually evolving phenomenon demands continuous upgrades
of both equipment and user knowledge. "Perhaps its time to say 'stop the
tech world ... the citizens want to get on' and take a more gradual approach
that allows time to think through how technology can match citizen abilities
and needs," commented Gloria. "I don't think it's a matter of developing new
software or programs, etc. It's a matter of learning to use what we already
have in the right way so that all can participate."
Tony Wilhelm weighed in on Taran's point regarding the relationship between
"basic" and "advanced" services. "The Benton Foundation is clearly very
interested in the topic of '21st Century Skills,' driven by our belief that
people must be active participants, producers and shapers of their
environment, particularly the media environment, in order to achieve some
modicum of human dignity, including sharing in the collective fruits of
human industry and 'progress,'" he explained. "Since so much of how we frame
social problems is mediated through increasingly concentrated and
self-interested media outlets (e.g., the push for profits leading to
diluting of news for entertainment values and quick fixes to complex
problems), it seems important that ordinary people, particularly the poor,
have some role in how they are portrayed (e.g., media obsession with young
people as derelict rather than future assets to be cultivated) lest
political solutions to social problems be developed in the interest of the
few rather than the many."
On the topic of "e-governance implementation problems," Piyush Gupta said
that one of the core issues is the lack of commitment from the political
leaders. "There seems to be some commitment from few of the administrators
heading the government departments, but in India the commitment gets nowhere
because of frequent transfers of these administrators from one department to
another," he said. Rumel Mahmood offered the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh
as a counter-example. Additionally, some other South Indian states "seem to
be achieving a lot in terms of ICT implementation," he said. In response,
Tim Erickson said he had the opportunity to visit Andhra Pradesh almost two
years ago, visiting the state assembly and meeting with government
officials. "But, I saw very few computers in those government offices and
their primary e-tool appeared to be cell phones," he said. "I had a sense
that putting the technology in place is only the first step, but that a far
more important cultural transition will need to accompany it before it has a
real effect. Maybe this is the 'commitment' that Piyush Gupta talked about?"
Piyush agreed with Tim that getting the technology is only part of the
picture. Piyush is concerned with the sustainability of the application.
"What happens when the concerned government administrator or head of
department is transferred to another department?" he asked. "How many
political leaders are motivated for ICT?" Piyush then asked participants to
share their experiences regarding motivation at the political and
bureaucratic levels of government. "What measures are being taken in other
places for the sustainability of the e-governance applications?" he queried.
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