Can government be collaborative?
Dean’s questions about the role of social media in government intrigued me. I couldn’t think of any examples, so I took a look around the Internet to see what I could find. I discovered that the U.S. government at all levels is making a considerable effort to become more engaged in social media. My city government, for example, is tweeting and Face-booking and on Utube – this page conveniently shows what departments are on what social media sites.
At the federal level, I found even more significant engagement. The White House has strongly embraced the idea of direct citizen participation. On their web site devoted to open government, a quote from President Obama proclaims “we will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.” And the site seems to live up to this pledge: there are many opportunities for citizen participation, as anyone can submit ideas, add data, and participate in forums and wikis. On the Open National Science and Technology Page, for example, anyone can submit new ideas for technology initiatives, and the community then discusses and votes on those ideas.
The federal government is also embracing collaboration internally – wikis, it turns out, are everywhere in Washington, D.C. The Department of Defense has an internal wiki dubbed Techipedia for collaboration and information sharing in the area of technology and research, the State Department’s internal wiki is called Diplopedia, the Intelligence community uses Intellipedia, and even the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), has an internal wiki called Bureaupedia.
After my investigations, I began to ponder how all this collaborative social media might change our experience of government. It seems to me that this kind of openess and participation can only result in a government that is more truly “of the people and by the people,” not just for the people. The possibilities of direct democracy seem to be endless. I can’t help wondering if, someday, we will live in a world where everyone participates directly in their own government, causing representative government to become extinct. Or is that a really bad idea? Are we capable of governing ourselves?
Lastly, I wondered about the role of libraries in this new environment of open, participatory government. Becasue public libraries are government buildings that have always provided public spaces where communities can come together, I decided that public libraries should also provide virtual spaces for that purpose. It is not enough, any more, to just have a physical meeting room. Libraries should encourage their community members to engage online: to debate, submit ideas, and collaboratively plan ways to improve their community. Libraries have always been more than a place to get free resources: we are a vital part of a modern democracy, and as such, must give democracy room in our virtual spaces.
July 27th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Super, you are doing what I had hoped someone in the class would do: see the connection between modern democracy and participation through social media and social networking.
The key is linking back to the library, which you did in your last paragraph. You can take these ideas about creative participatory spaces into your career whether you end up in a public library or an academic one.
July 28th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Great post, Emily. I was interested to read about your findings at different levels of government, and I appreciated that you drew a distinction between internal collaboration and collaboration between the government and the wider community. While both are important, they certainly serve different functions. I wonder if this increasingly collaborative culture will have an effect on access to government documents?