Emerging Trends in Local Governments Web Strategies

Citizen Web Empowerment Assessment in Italy

Elena Bellio and Luca Buccoliero

CERMES, Department of Marketing, Bocconi University, Via Roentgen 1, 20136 Milano, Italy

Keywords: Citizens, Empowerment, Participation, Public Administrations, Web 2.0, Web Portals.

Abstract: The “Internet revolution” has deeply impacted relations on every context of exchange of goods and services.

Nowadays, citizens are aware of this historic change that is taking place and they are the bearers of a new

demand in terms of: access to official, customized and “on demand” information and services, new

opportunities for direct and informal relationships with politicians and civil servants, acquiring a proactive

role within the network.

This paper assesses the web strategies of Italian municipalities to measure their “citizen empowerment”

effectiveness. The study was performed by adopting a revised version of the Citizens Web Empowerment

Index (CWEI) designed to benchmark administrations’ official web portals. The analysis was made on the

web portals of the 104 Italian cities with over 60,000 inhabitants in 2012 and 2013. Results show that there

is still a general lack of strategy to strengthen citizens’ level of empowerment and participation through

official web portals.

1 INTRODUCTION

How to assess and benchmark the web strategies of

municipalities in term of their “citizen

empowerment” effectiveness? How to measure the

improvement of the “empowerment effectiveness” in

Italian municipalities?

Citizen empowerment, markedly tied in with the

spread of the Internet and technological resources as

part of our daily lives (in which the Internet is now

‘embedded’), represents one of the major challenges

that public systems face today.

Our proposed definition of “citizen

empowerment” is the following: citizens are today

the bearers of new demands, which can be

summarized as follows:

a) access to official, customized and “on demand”

information and services;

b) new opportunities for direct and informal

relationships with politicians and civil servants;

c) willingness to be “active players” within the

network, also by sharing their own problems and

complaints with others and seeking information

on experiences of others with the same problems;

Web 2.0 logic (O'Reilly, 2005) has considerably

amplified this latter development. (Bellio and

Buccoliero, 2013)

As web sites and portals are the strategic tool needed

to meet this growing empowerment demand, their

design has moved from a technology-centric vision

to a content-centric one and, more recently, to a

citizen-centric approach (King and Cotterill, 2007).

The impact of ICT on urban environments

governance and planning is typically linked with

challenging problems. A successful city must

balance social, economic and environmental needs

but it should also put the needs of its citizens at the

forefront of all its planning activities. A "smartcity”

makes conscious efforts to adopt innovative ICT-

based solutions to improve conditions of living and

working and to support a more inclusive, and

sustainable urban environment. The strategy is built

on the principles to use technologies to improve the

City and to empower its citizens by making them

active players in the decision making process. In the

Web 2.0 age, Internet represents the key tool of this

strategy (Bellio and Buccoliero, 2013).

This paper describes a methodological

framework for the assessment of citizen

empowerment provided by municipalities’ web sites

and analyses the trend of citizen web empowerment

in a sample of Italian municipalities in the years

2012 and 2013. In section 2, a review of relevant

256

Bellio E. and Buccoliero L..

Emerging Trends in Local Governments Web Strategies - Citizen Web Empowerment Assessment in Italy.

DOI: 10.5220/0004528902560263

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Data Communication Networking, 10th International Conference on e-Business and 4th

International Conference on Optical Communication Systems (ICE-B-2013), pages 256-263

ISBN: 978-989-8565-72-3

 2013 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

literature is shown. In section 3, the research

framework and results are presented. In section 4,

some managerial implications of the study and

future research developments are discussed.

2 BACKGROUND AND RELATED

WORKS

According with Richards (Richards, 2010), Web

communication platforms, such as blogs, wikis, and

social networks have allowed average users to

change from passive receivers of information to

active producers of information (Budin, 2005).

These tools and the ways that they have empowered

individuals to take control of their Internet

experiences have been categorized as Web 2.0

technology (Pachler and Daly, 2009).

Tim O'Reilly has first attempted to provide a

clear definition of web 2.0: “Web 2.0 is the business

revolution in the computer industry caused by the

move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to

understand the rules for success on that new

platform. Chief among those rules is this: “Build

applications that harness network affects to get

better the more people use them” (O'Reilly, 2007).

The identified key points are:

1. User participation. The web should be the

medium that enables its users to participate and

share information. The services offered are

developed under the open-source paradigm,

where users’ interaction is a source of

development and growth for the site.

2. Transformation of data (‘remixability’).

‘Remixability’ stems from the desire of users and

developers to be able to use and share

information and then process and change it by

developing new concepts and ideas.

3. Design centered on the user’s needs

It is increasingly important to understand not only

how Web 2.0 tools work, but also how the sharing

and distribution of information through these tools

can promote civic engagement (Budin, 2005).

It has been a long time since public

administrations have begun to investigate the

potential of Web 2.0 to improve service delivery,

democratic responsiveness and citizen participation

(Fountain, 2001). According with European

Commission (Ala-Mutka et al., 2009): “public sector

institutions are beginning to recognise the need to

shift to services that are closer to people’s everyday

lives, to use innovative tools to reach citizens and to

better engage employees and to share information

and knowledge within and between organisations

(Berce et al., 2006). Also, public institutions are

increasingly making use of collective intelligence

and user-generated content to encourage real-time

interaction and facilitate participation (Dutton and

Peltu, 2007) Social Computing-enabled governance

mechanisms could enhance collaboration within

government agencies and interaction with

stakeholders, transforming processes into more

user-centric, cost-effective solutions and bringing

public value to end-users (DiMaio et al., 2005);

(Osimo, 2008).

A recent study (Assar and Boughzala, 2013)

emphasizes that the current objective is to provide

online services customized to match users' profiles

and requirements, and to personalize the

relationships users have with public institutions. The

emergence of Web 2.0 and rise of social networks

have revealed new perspectives that challenge public

institutions. These institutions are particularly

attentive to the possibilities of taking advantage of

these tools in the context of e-government.

Given these trends, business models and

governance modes must necessarily adapt and

sometimes be rethought. Public organizations are not

immune to these developments, and the e-

government 2.0 concept refers to specific

applications of social media in the sphere of public

services (Baumgarten and Chui, 2009).

The annual meeting of the Gov2.0 Summit has

brought together figures from the U.S.

administration and some researchers to discuss

experiments, problems and questions concerning e-

government 2.0 implementation since 2009. Few

recent academic publications tackle explicitly e-

government 2.0 and the problems it raises: in

Niehaves’ paper (Niehaves, 2009), specific

applications of the concept in the process

management field; in Nam’s study (Nam, 2011), the

adoption of e-government 2.0 by citizens; or in

Scholl’s paper (Scholl and Luna-Reyes, 2011)

factors that promote openness, collaboration and

citizen participation.

Several papers have been published on web site

quality evaluation methodology (Aladwani and

Palvia, 2002); (Cox and Dale, 2002); (Van Iwaarden

and Van derWiele, 2002); (Kim et al., 2003); (Van

Iwaarden et al., 2004); (Bilsel et al., 2006). Many of

these publications offer frameworks containing

groups of quality dimensions that are similar to the

SERVQUAL (Service Quality) model proposed by

Parasuraman (Parasuraman et al., 1988). Also some

publications have proposes evaluation

methodologies for specific web sites such as e-

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government web sites (Kaylor, Deshazo et al. 2001;

Smith 2001) hotel web sites (Chung and Law, 2003),

online library web sites (Chao, 2002) (Novljan and

Maja, 2004), and health care web sites (Bilsel et al.,

2006); (Buccoliero et al., 2010); (Bedell et al.,

2004). Recently, Kuo (Kuo, 2004) has presented a

new point of view by integrating quality function

deployment aspects into web site quality assessment

methodology.

In a number of publications, quantitative

methods for Web site quality evaluation are used.

Statistical methods are the most widely used

assessment tool (Cox and Dale, 2002); (Jeong et al.,

2003); (Kim et al., 2003); (Kim and Stoel, 2004).

3 THE RESEARCH

3.1 Citizen Web Empowerment Index

In this study, we combine both service and web site

quality assessment methodologies by adopting an

index named “Citizen Web Empowerment Index”

(CWEI) (Buccoliero and Bellio, 2010); (Bellio and

Buccoliero, 2013), whose components are listed in

Table 1

Table 1: CWEI components (adapted by Buccoliero,

Bellio, 2010) and (Bellio and Buccoliero, 2013).

Sub-indicator Assessed variables

CWEI

e-Information

Government structure;



Segmentation or life event;



Contact details;



Policies, procedures;



Budget;



Council minutes;



Newsletter and/or web

magazine.

Web tools

& strategies

Blog and Forum;

Chat;

Social networks;

Mobile services;

Web TV;

Open data strategy;

Web strategy evaluation

EGRI (UN, 2008).

e-Consultation

On-line polls, surveys;

On-line complaints;

Reputation systems;

Mayor’s direct on-line

relation with citizens.

e-Decision

making process



Evidence that the opinion

of citizens is considered;

Evidence of other

complaints.

Our study attempts to extend previous empirical

research to understand and to measure the degree of

citizen web empowerment in local Italian

governments’ portals by developing and index for

benchmarking citizens’ empowerment through web

portals (CWEI).

The baseline research hypothesis is that the

information and services provided by local

governments via the web are capable of enhancing

citizen empowerment regarding two key dimensions:

information held by citizens and control of the

information with respect to his/her needs.

The various typologies of web information which

allow evaluation of the level of e-participation were

used to develop an indicator by means of which

ratings could be given for the websites of all the

cities considered. This indicator, CWEI, is given by

the aggregation of four components, each of which

is calculated on the basis of the presence of certain

elements characterizing the structure of the website

considered (During the stage of quantitative

determination, the value 1 was ascribed to the

presence of the service or of the information

considered, value 0 to absence). The maximum

theoretical value is 100 while each sub-indicator has

a different theoretical value:

CWEI = e-information + web tools & strategies +

e-consultation + e-decision making process

During spring 2012 and spring 2013, the indicator

was used to assess the websites of local Italian

governments with populations over 60,000

inhabitants (104 cities assessed even if from 2012 to

2013 the number decreased to 102); the aim was to

arrive at certain assessments of the current state of

maturity of their web strategy in relation to potential

for an increase in citizens’ empowerment.

Analysis and rating of sites was based on two

fundamental criteria:

 the immediacy with which information or

services can be obtained while navigating the

site, without impediments and time-consuming

procedures coming into play when attempting to

access information or services;

 systematic (as opposed to sporadic) presence of

the information or services required from the

site.

CWEI, as pointed out in table 1, is a

multidimensional indicator because it is composed

of a series of sub-indicators the objective of which is

the measurement of various aspects of citizen

participation via the web.

The first sub-indicator has been termed e-

information. It relates to the presence on the

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website of some general information regarding the

city and its policies.

Assessment was conducted on a number of these

characteristics: the presence of a city politician list,

considering if there are only name and surnames or

a wider range of details in order to contact the

municipality officials. Clear presentation of the city

government organizational structure was also

assessed since it is considered as an important way

of orientation among the total number of services

provided. The on-line availability of policies,

procedures and legislation also helps. The last

element considered in this sub indicator is the on-

line presence of the budget and the way it is

addressed.

The second component of the indicator consists

of Web tools & strategies. It refers to the existence

of social networking applications made for a high

level of citizen participation - empowerment.

However not only was the presence of the main

instruments assessed (e.g. forums, blogs,

newsletters, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube),

also specific services provided through mobile were

included. The presence of “open data” and “GIS”

strategy was also considered as an interesting

element that makes a difference to citizens.

To construct sub-indicator E-consultation,

various elements relative to the way of exchanging

information with citizens were considered as

reputation systems, online polls or e-surveys, and

on-line complaints. Also the direct relation between

citizens and the mayor was evaluated by searching

for the presence of direct on-line involvement of

citizens.

The fourth component of the indicator is termed

E-decision making process. This sub-indicator

assesses evidence that the municipality considers the

opinion of citizens in decision making processes and

provides evidence as to what decisions have been

taken starting from the consultation process (e.g.

publication of on-line pools, e-surveys results and

subsequent actions taken). (Bellio and Buccoliero,

2013)

3.2 CWEI Assessment 2012-2013

The evaluation task was randomly assigned to two

coders (the authors). The intercoder reliability of

each CWEI sub-indicator was tested on a 20-site

subset using Krippendorff's alpha coefficient (Hayes

and Krippendorff, 2007).

Overall, use of the CWEI rating system was

found to be highly reliable in the two annual

evaluations (Table 2).

Table 2: Intercoder reliability (Krippendorf’s alpha values

for the sub-indicators, yearly subset n=20).

CWEI Sub-indicator

 

CWEI E-information 0.9714 0.9797

CWEI WEB Tools and strategies 0.9552 0.9765

CWEI E-consultation 0.9509 0.9412

CWEI E-decision making process 0.9009 0.9319

When looking at the CWEI values, we observe

that none of the surveyed websites has reached a

score close to the maximum theoretical value of 100;

in fact the average CWEI value was 37.30 in 2012

and 40.24 in 2013. A moderate increase was

registered during the last year but the value is still

low, this testifies that it is hard to find local

governments which have developed web-based

strategies oriented toward information and user

participation

Considering the average CWEI values per sub-

indicators (Table 3), a little increase among the two

years of analysis can be noticed, but the score order

remains unvaried. The higher value is E-

information; this does not surprize since it is the

only component of the index which stands in the

middle between a traditional website structure and a

participatory one. On the contrary, the lowest level

is registered by E-decision making process sub-

indicator. This demonstrates that the awareness of

local governments on the potentials of the web is

only partial; in fact the tools for citizen participation

in many cases exist (for example forms that allow

problems to be reported very easily on-line, polls to

evaluate initiatives, etc.), but what is missing is

something that makes citizens aware that they have

been taken into account, something that gives

evidence on how a citizen's opinion was used in the

decision making process, something that develops e-

participation to empower citizens.

Table 3: Average CWEI values by sub-indicators.

Average CWEI

sub-indicator values

2012 2013

CWEI E-information 64.42/100 68.21/100

CWEI WEB Tools and

strategies

29.29/100 32.53/100

CWEI E-consultation 22.12/100 23.08/100

CWEI E-decision making

process

7.21/100 8.89/100

Figure 1 shows the map of Italy and contains the

average CWEI values per geographic area (Nielsen

Areas).

The highest value has been registered in the

North-East of the Country (Area 2: 46.62/100 in

2012 and 50.00/100 in 2013), North-West and the

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Centre have a similar value both in 2012 and 2013

(Area 1: 37.25/100 in 2012 and 40.99/100 in 2013,

Area 3: 36.32/100 in 2012 and 39.20/100 in 2013),

while a lower value is obtained by the South of Italy

(Area 4: 32.84/100 in 2012 and 35.17/100 in 2013).

For all the four geographical areas an increase is

shown between the two years of analysis.

Figure 1: Average CWEI values per geographic area

(Nielsen areas).

When looking at the “top scores” per sub-

indicator, we find a number of interesting and

significant “best practices” even if just in very few

cases the maximum value per sub-indicator is

obtained as shown in Table 4. By comparing

numbers in 2012 and 2013 it can be seen that the

number of cities increased only for sub-indicator E-

information.

The fact that only this sub-indicator was fully

accomplished by new cities shows, once again, that

the web strategies perceived by administrations are

still oriented at providing the most traditional form

of information to citizens, those which guarantee

little interaction and participation.

Table 4: Number of cities that have obtained the

maximum value per sub-indicator.

Cities with maximum value

2012

% 2012

2013

% 2013

e-Information 8/104 7.69% 10/104 9.62

WEB tools and

strategies

0/104 0 0/104 0

e-Consultation 1/104 0.96% 1/104 0.96%

e-Decision making

process

3/104 2.88% 3/104 2.88%

With regard to e-information the component site

structure was examined. Ratings show that sites

enabling the life events model for navigation (i.e.

navigation starting out from events which may

characterize the life of citizens, such as “studying”,

“giving birth” “using public transport” or “life as a

senior citizen”), or which provide clear segmentation

of citizens by cluster (the elderly, women, children,

foreigners, etc.) have increased between 2012 and

2013 probably because it has been understood that

menus constructed according to these approaches aid

consultation by citizens who can now receive

immediate answers targeted for their specific needs.

The research reveals that in 2013 about the 35%

of the sample has information provision based on

visitor-type clusters and 41% has chosen the life

event logic. Both approaches are adopted only in 22

cases over the 104 cities of the sample.

The highest score in WEB Tools and Strategies

sub-indicator was obtained both in 2012 and 2013

by the city of Turin where not only mobile services

are offered, but there is an intense use of blogs and

forums, social networks, videos and Web TV

channels, plus there are some public GIS

applications which not only allow interactive

consultation of different cartographies but also help

to personalize and share maps of the city.

The research also shows that there is an increase

in the presence of some specific information as for

example the list of politicians and their personal

pages or on-line details about the budget. This trend

is due to the Italian legislation’s recent requirements.

Analysis of Web tools and strategies reveal that

the use of social networks by local governments has

increased between 2012 and 2013 (29.81% in 2012

and 41,35% in 2013 among the sample). The most

used social networks are Facebook, YouTube and

Twitter as shown in Table 5, but also my Space,

Flickr, G+ and Skype were considered.

Table 5: Number of cities using each social network (SN)

and percentage among the sample.

Cities using each SN

2012

2013

Facebook 26/104 25.00 38/104 36.54

You Tube 21/104 20.19 29/104 27.88

Twitter 16/104 15.38 29/104 27.88

G+ 5/104 4.81 7/104 6.73

Flickr 5/104 4.81 5/104 4.81

My Space 4/104 3.85 4/104 3.85

Skype 1/104 0.96 1/104 0.96

In 2013 only 11 local governments out of 104

offer mobile services. As in 2012, the most

significant examples are given by services for

tourists which are often combined with QR codes

which allow cultural and historical information to be

read.

The use of open data was also explored, numbers

confirm that only a few cities are considering this

strategy but findings show that there was a

significant increase in 2013 compared to the

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260

previous year: a set of 10 cities has now introduced

open data as for example Florence, Palermo, Rome,

Venice, while others are starting to consider it.

Turning to e-consultation, the involvement of

the mayor in on-line relations with citizens was

assessed but it was hard to find tools for a true

interaction.

Only in few cases special forms are used or the

mayor’s presence on Facebook or Twitter is shown.

A wider presence of internet polls, surveys,

complaint platforms and reputation systems is

registered, even if in many cases they are still just

electronic forms to fill in which do not allow a

complete participatory behaviour.

The only city which has obtained the maximum

score in this sub-indicator was in 2012 and still is in

2013 Rimini. Its website offers reputation systems

not only to evaluate the general agreement on the

website but also on specific areas, as for example

police services. In addition there are direct online

ways to put citizens in contact with the

administration and also ways to report the needs of a

specific area, such as maintenance, repairs and

removal of litter in certain districts and public parks.

In terms of e-decision making process there is

still much work to do across the country.

It’s possible to see that except for a few cases

there is no evidence on how decisions are taken.

Often there are tools which allow a participatory

atmosphere but rarely results are shown. On the

whole sample only in 3 cases both evidence that

citizens’ opinion has been considered and evidences

about other’s compliant are shown. When

considering some best practices, we can think at

Venice or Udine, two cities which websites offers a

range of services built to allow citizens to “speak”

by reporting something, interacting with others and

seeing what the administration does or says.

With this regard it can be said that not much has

changed between year 2012 and year 2013 in the

Italian context.

In addition, correlation analyses (Pearson

correlation coefficient) between elements were

evaluated using the statistical package SPSS to

determine if there is a link between the city

population and the scores of each sub-indicator

(Table 6). Results show that in 2012 there was not

significant correlation between the number of

inhabitants and the level of the CWEI nor between

the number of inhabitants and the sub-indicators.

Instead in 2013 some significant correlations (two

tailed) are found between the population and the

CWEI score and also between the number of

inhabitants and CWEI 2 - Web Tools and Strategies

and CWEI 3 - e-Consultation.

These results show that in 2012 on-line

investments in citizen empowerment didn’t depend

on the dimension of the city while in 2013 the

opposite trend was found. Probably the 2013 result

could be explained by some elements of CWEI 2

and CWEI 3 which were observed in an increased

number of cities and which require some big

financial and organizational investment. For

example the development and adoption of online

complaint platforms or the adoption of open data

strategies which have increased during the last year.

Table 6: Correlation between population and CWEI.

POPULATION

2012 2013

CWEI_TOT

Pearson's

correlation

,086 ,212

Sig.

(2-code)

,388 ,031

104 104

CWEI_1

Pearson's

correlation

-,016 ,093

Sig.

(2-code)

,873 ,350

104 104

CWEI_2

Pearson's

correlation

,100 ,217

Sig.

(2-code)

,310 ,027

104 104

CWEI_3

Pearson's

correlation

,162 ,223

Sig.

(2-code)

,100 ,023

104 104

CWEI_4

Pearson's

correlation

-,009 ,013

Sig.

(2-code)

,931 ,899

104 104

4 CONCLUSIONS

A number of preliminary conclusions may be

reached on the basis of the analysis of the CWEI.

The very low CWEI scores obtained by the

Cities of the sample (average CWEI value is 37.30

over 100 in 2012, 40.24 over 100 in 2013) testifies

there is still a substantial immaturity of web

strategies, which appear modulated on structures and

organizational responsibilities rather than on the

needs and on the demand of citizens’ empowerment;

no substantial improvement has been detected in the

two-years period considered.

There is still a low but increasing penetration of

Web 2.0 tools and strategies (average sub-indicator

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“Web tools and strategies” value is 29.29 over 100

in 2012, 32.53 over 100 in 2013). This moves an

emphasis from the individual for whom information

equates to power to a more collaborative, collective

“group cooperation culture” that is hard to be

understood and accepted by most public employees.

Surprisingly, also a limited diffusion of mobile

applications was registered. This finding moves in

the same direction of Web 2.0 tools adoption since

also mobiles, especially smartphones, if properly

used, can turn citizens into active players in the

relationship with the Administration, involving them

in service co-creation, evaluation and use.

Although there is theoretical and practical

recognition that citizens must be more involved in

public decisions, many administrators are, at best,

ambivalent about public involvement or, at worst,

they find it problematic. Administrators need help in

addressing problems but find that the help they seek

from citizens often creates new sets of problems. As

a result, although many public administrators view

close relationships with citizens as both necessary

and desirable, most of them do not actively seek

public involvement. If they do seek it, they do not

use public input in making administrative decisions.

Overcoming the highly significant limits shown

above may turn out to be a prerequisite for concrete

development of the provision of services for

empowered citizens.

The CWEI index (if further evaluated) could be

used also at international level to benchmark and

monitor the web strategies of smartcities across

countries. Furthermore the CWEI index could

support a citizen-centered web design of information

and services. This could help a faster development

of official web solutions aimed to citizen

empowerment, developing trust and partnership

relationships, which are essential to deliver quality

and value for money.

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