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To access links, see Steven Clift's blog: http://dowire.org/notes/?p=317 Post: Conference - e-Participation Forum 2007 - Seoul, S. Korea - 7-8 Feb 2007, Four stages of digital democracy by Chan-Gon Kim If you plan to attend this conference in Korea (see below) or if you doubt you can make it, but want to engage in value-added exchanges with others focused on local e-democracy, register for the international Local E-Democracy Exchange: http://groups.dowire.org/groups/local Below Chan-Gon Kim provides a laundry list of e-democracy components - what a wide array of activities we have. He also authored a case study on the use of online forums by Seoul's metropolitian government last year. Definitely worth a read - Seoul actually closes the loop and reports back to the forum participants on the actions taken related to forum discussions. I know of no other government-hosted online forum that does this (please add others via the blog comment system.) Steven Clift E-Democracy.Org DoWire.Org P.S. As requested, I sent ICELE a proposal on how they might leverage DoWire.Org's existing infrastructure for an online community of practice in this area combined with regular teleconference/Skypecast seminars/guest speakers. Perhaps other groups might want to lend their support so we can bring on a part-time forum manager and execute the required outreach to bring in at least 500 participants from around the world. While I'd love to visit South Korea again and encourage you to attend this conference, I remain deeply committed to the idea that we must do a better job with online tools to connect those on the front lines of building e-democracy who don't have a travel budget. Submitted to DoWire by Chan-Gon Kim - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Seoul, South Korea: Hello, I am Vice Mayor of Guro District in Seoul, South Korea. Last year (2005), I received Ph.D.on a topic of e-democracy from Rutgers University-Newark, Newark, New Jersey, U.S.A. Now, I am actively promoting e-democracy at a local government. We host an international conference: e-participation forum from Feb.7-8, 2007 in Seoul. You can find our program and brochure at: http://www.eforum-guro.com/ Many experts on e-democracy and mayors come to Seoul. I hope some of you can come to see advanced IT and its application to public administration in Korea. I would like to introduce some excerption from my dissertation about the stages of e-democracy and actual practices at each stage. I think this is useful for explaining e-democracy in government. [FOUR STAGES OF DIGITAL DEMOCRACY] Source: Chan-Gon Kim (2005). Public Administrators' Acceptance of The Practices of Digital Democracy: A Model Explaining The Utilization of Online Policy Forums In South Korea. Ph.D. Dissertation, Rutgers University-Newark. Incorporating all of previous approaches, this study proposes four stages of digital democracy: (1) information disclosure, (2) listening/feedback, (3) online deliberation, (4) online decision-making. It is theorized that digital democracy develops from the lower-level stage of "information disclosure" to the higher-level stage of "online decision-making." These stages are ordered according to the extent of citizen participation in government by means of the Internet. In the "information disclosure" stage, public agencies provide useful information about policy matters on the Internet so that citizens can understand policy issues and form opinions. In the "listening/feedback" stage, public agencies receive feedback or opinions about policy issues from citizens through government Web sites. In the "online deliberation" stage, citizens and public officials discuss policy issues via online forums. In the final stage, "online decision-making,"citizens directly participate in decision-making online and the extent of their participation in policy-making is the highest. As time goes on, the development of digital democracy is cumulative. The stages of digital democracy are shown in Figure 1 with two axes, the extent of participation and time. (1) INFORMATION DISCLOSURE: * Documents related to policy issues (White papers, annual reports, other publications) * Detailed budget execution by divisions and projects * Performance by divisions and projects * Notice of proposed policies, projects, laws, and rules * Minutes of public meetings * Archived video of public events * Synchronous video of public events, Webcast * E-mail Newsletters, E-mail alerts * Easy search functions (2) LISTENING/FEEDBACK: * E-mail messages to elected or public officials * Online messages to the minister or the mayor * Online questions and answers (Q & A) * Online public comments on proposed policies, projects, laws, and rules * Online policy proposals * Online evaluations * Online opinion polls/surveys * Online citizen panels (cyber monitors) * E-rulemaking * Requests for information online (based on Freedom of Information Act) * Electronic Town Meetings (3) ONLINE DELIBERATION: * Online bulletin boards * E-mail discussions * Online policy forums * Scheduled e-meetings (real-time discussions) * Online conferences * Live chat * Online public hearings * Online focus groups * Electronic citizen juries * Electronic Town Meetings (4) ONLINE DECISION-MAKING: * E-petitions * Electronic citizen juries * E-referenda * Internet voting (e-voting) in elections *** Democracies Online Newswire - http://DoWire.Org *** To comment/for links: http://dowire.org/notes/?p=317 To network: http://groups.dowire.org Submit posts: http://dowire.org/submit Member profile for Steven: http://groups.dowire.org/main/contacts/stevenclift ----------------------------------------- Group home for Newswire - Steven Clift's blog posts by e-mail: http://groups.dowire.org/main/groups/newswire Replies go to members of Newswire - Steven Clift's blog posts by e-mail with all posts on this topic here: http://groups.dowire.org/topic/100160 For digest version or to leave Newswire - Steven Clift's blog posts by e-mail, email [email protected] with "digest on" or "unsubscribe" in the *subject*. 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