Models of Government Blogging:
Design Tradeoffs in Civic
Engagement
Andrea Kavanaugh
Hyung Nam Kim
Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones*
Philip Isenhour
Center for Human-Computer Interaction
Virginia Tech
*presenter

Blog Use in
Government
• Case study of the of a blog in the
Town of Blacksburg
• Situate its use within the context of
blog use in local Government in the US
• We present the design tradeoffs
encountered, and propose model of use
that addresses concerns

Blogging trade-off:
control vs sociability
• Social communities require social
interaction and cooperation
• In blogs, this occurs through comments
(sociability)
• To avoid spam/flames, login is required
(control)

Trade-offs faced by
Government Officials
• Goverment goal: provide more
information. What if erroneous information
is posted in a government hosted site?
• Government limits direct public feedback
in blogs (by turning off comments)
• Citizenship goal: engage in discussion,
provide feedback to government,
participate in deliberation

Gov. Communication
• Government uses communication mediums
to inform the population & seek feedback
• New mechanisms present new
opportunities: RSS feeds, Podcasts,Video
Blogs, etc.
• ...but most are still one way
(broadcasting)

Blog Communication
Support
• Broadcasting of information (blog entries,
rss, aggregators),
• Feedback from readers (blog comments,
trackbacks),
• Community interaction (trackbacks,
commenting, blogroll)

Government Blogging
• Google US Government search, several
blog search engines (e.g. Google,
Technorati)
• July - October 2006
• Found 52 blogs from 25 different states

States w/Blogs
UT, NC, MN, IL had more than
5 blogs among states with Gov
blogs; 13 had only 1

Gov. Blog Authors
US Senators
19%
10% Council Member
Others
8%
US House of Representative
Commisioner
Governor
6%
Governor Mayor
4% US Senators
6%
Council Member
Commisioner
47%

More details
• •
Only 11 blogs (21%) did Most website and blogs
not provide RSS feeds were not clearly
connected via links
• California’s Governor
•
provides video feeds URLs to blogs were
answering questions often buried in the
government website
• Representative in Texas
•
kept campaign 52% of blogs did not
commercials in YouTube have links to official
government websites

Example 1

Example 2

Public Participation
• Many blogs did not allow citizens to post
comments.
• One of them enabled citizens to
comment but only to selected entries.
• Most entries were closed to comments.

Categorization
• Open system - allow • Semi-open system - allow
citizens to post author to read comments
comments without any before they are made
restriction public
• 50% anonymous, • 13% anonymous,
5% require login 2% require login
• Closed system - does not
allow citizens to post
comments (28%)

Categorization
Open Login
3
Closed
Open Login
15
Open Anonymous
Open Anonymous
Semi-open Anonymous
26
Semi-open Login
Closed
1
Semi-open Anonymous
7

Town of Blacksburg
• Spring 06 - taskforce for revising the Town
Comprehensive Plan
• Public process - committee meetings,
minutes and video of meetings are part of
public record
• To Blog or not to Blog?

Town Concerns
• What if citizens write things in the comments
section that are inappropriate?
• We might have to “censor” the comments!?
• Are we liable for stuff written by citizens on
blogs hosted in our machines?

Installed blog in BEV
• Only members of task force (9) allowed to
comment
• However
• Blog RSS added to SW Virginia News
aggregator
• Discussion can occur outside of Town
website

Task Force Blog
https://secure.bev.net/townplan

How the blog was used
• Used for internal communication,
with public disclosure
• Comments posted by taskforce
members
• Links to revisions of documents
• Used as reminders of topics to be
discussed later in face-to-face
meetings
• Good use of tags

Tags as organization tools
• Tags in blog allowed taskforce
members to organize postings
• Served as public record/
documentation
• Help focus the discussion

Citizen Blogs
Our model
Links and trackbacks
• Addreses concerns of town
officials
Aggregator
• Supports control
• No posting on their site
• Supports public discussion
• Trackbacks
Government
Blog

Summary of Findings
• Some reluctance from government officials
to allow discussions in blogs
• Proposed model addresses tradeoff tension
(control - government & participation -
citizen)
• Usability of some advanced features still
difficult for some government officials

Thanks...
Any questions?