This document summarizes a study that aimed to (1) identify the key stakeholders in municipal eParticipation, (2) understand their communication needs and media preferences, and (3) develop a framework to help practitioners choose appropriate media based on stakeholder needs. The study identified several stakeholder groups and used a Delphi study and survey to understand their communication needs across categories like information, consultation, and debate. Municipal websites and email were the most preferred media, while social media scored higher for dialogue. The proposed framework matches communication genres to available media based on an analysis of each. The findings provide guidance but require further testing and validation in other government contexts.

1. Choosing the right medium for
municipal eParticipation based
on stakeholder expectations
Marius Rohde Johannessen, Leif S. Flak & Øystein Sæbø
Department of Information Systems
University of Agder, Norway

2. Outline
• Whoare the stakeholders in eParticipation at the
municipal level?
• What are their communication needs and media
preferences?
• How can practitioners choose media for various
types of communication?
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3. Method
• Stakeholder analysis
• Delphi study of the various stakeholder groups
• survey to stakeholders not in Delphi
• Applied findings to prev. conceptual research to
outline a media choice framework
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4. Context: Case description
• Mid-sized Norwegian municipality
• 8000 inhabitants, 390 sq. km
• Threelarge fjords have led to a scattered
population, with about half living in the centre, and
the rest spread out across the municipality.
• Highly interested in technology and research
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5. Who are the stakeholders?
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6. What are their communication needs?
• Brainstorming phase of Delphi provided 31 items
• Consolidationphase reduced these to ten items,
grouped in three categories
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7. What are their communication needs?
Communication needs by stakeholder group
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8. What are their communication needs?
Ranking of comunication needs, all stakeholder groups
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9. Media preferences
• Municipal web site and E-mail most wanted media
• F2F meetings more popular than social media for debate
• But social media scores fairly high on dialogue categories
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10. Towards a framework for media choice
• Combining
genre analysis and analysis of available
communication media
• Three steps:
• Analyse communication genres
• Analyse available media
• Compare needs of genres with capabilities of medium
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11. Towards a framework for media choice
• Genre analysis
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12. Towards a framework for media choice
• Analysis of medium
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13. Limitations & future research
• Whilebased on Delphi, our findings are qualitative and
interpretive, and within the contextual limitations of a
small Norwegian municipality
• Our framework is based on theory and needs testing:
• verify the framework through testing it in government.
• validation of a common list of communication needs +
appropriate technology to support each communication need
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14. Thank you for listening!
marius.johannessen@uia.no
leif.flak@uia.no
Oystein.sabo@uia.no
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