: E-GovernmentE-Government research focuses on:
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Current Projects |
Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society and ParticipationProfessor Mossberger is completing a co-authored manuscript with Caroline Tolbert and Ramona McNeal on Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society, and Participation. “Digital citizenship,” is the ability to participate in society online, and it facilitates opportunities for knowledge, skills, and participation in the economic and political spheres. This work builds on an earlier book, Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital Divide (Mossberger, Tolbert and Stansbury, Georgetown University Press, 2003), which examined patterns of inequality and the attitudes, needs, and experiences of those left behind. Digital Citizenship extends this previous research by showing the consequences that technology has for political and economic participation, and by connecting these issues to citizenship and equality of opportunity, beyond economic arguments about the positive externalities of technology.
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Diffusion and Impact of E-GovernmentIn a forthcoming article in Public Administration Review, Tolbert and Mossberger (2006) explore the effects of e-government use on citizen attitudes toward government more generally. Using two-stage models and Pew survey data, they find that there is a statistically significant relationship between trust in government and use of a local government website. In general, e-government users had positive assessments of all levels of government as being more transparent, responsive, or efficient. The findings are theoretically important for reconciling previous conflicting research on the effects of e-government, and for understanding variations by level of government.
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Virtual Inequality: Beyond the Digital DivideThat there is a "digital divide"—which falls between those who have and can afford the latest in technological tools and those who have neither in our society—is indisputable. Virtual Inequality redefines the issue as it explores the cascades of that divide, which involve access, skill, political participation, as well as the obvious economics. Computer and Internet access are insufficient without the skill to use the technology, and economic opportunity and political participation provide primary justification for realizing that this inequality is a public problem and not simply a matter of private misfortune. Find out more here. |
