This document summarizes a case study of a government blog in the Town of Blacksburg and proposes a model for government blogging. It found that while government officials want to provide information to citizens, they are reluctant to allow public feedback on government sites due to concerns about erroneous or inappropriate information. To address this tension between control and participation, the proposed model features: (1) government blogs that share information but do not allow public commenting, (2) links and trackbacks from citizen blogs to encourage discussion outside official sites, and (3) aggregators to syndicate discussion. This model supports both government control and public participation in deliberation.

1. 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

2. 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

3. 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)

4. 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

5. 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)

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

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

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

9. 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%

10. 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

11. Example 1

12. Example 2

13. 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.

14. 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%)

15. 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

16. 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?

17. 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?

18. 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

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

20. 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

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

22. 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

23. 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

24. Thanks...
Any questions?