Anni Dugdale

Accessing e-government: challenges for citizens and organizations

The Internet is becoming more integral to governments and their modes of doing business and delivering services. This is creating a new imperative to address the digital divide. In Australia, as shown in this article, citizens who are the biggest users of government services are the least likely to be connected to the internet. What can be done to connect the unconnected? The article explores what has been learned from some of the Australian initiatives for connecting the unconnected to online government services. It concludes that greater attention to community-based human capital development is needed. It gives examples of factors needed for success in building socially marginalized communities’ interest, enthusiasm and capacity to interact and communicate via online technologies, thereby contributing to how successful e-government can be in delivering gains in efficiency and improved services.

Who speaks, and in what voice? The challenge of engaging ‘the public’ in health policy decision-making

Abstract Despite widespread calls for greater public involvement in governance, especially in relation to health policy, significant challenges remain in identifying any such legitimate ‘public’ voice. This research investigates this problem through a case study. It examines how actors experienced and interpreted a government-commissioned citizen’s jury on health spending prioritization in relation to the work of the local health care consumers’ organization. The analysis highlights an unproductive tension around this encounter, and points to more complementary ways in which such top–down and bottom–up efforts might be coordinated. It, therefore, contributes significantly to efforts to strengthen the public voice in contemporary health governance.

New arenas for public life: Negotiating health on-line

This article examines the provision of on-line health information in the Australian polity, looking specifically at the question of whether e-health information can give rise to new forms of politics, citizenship and democracy. It has been argued that the Internet provides new ways for governments to conceive their nature and purpose while, at the same time, providing new forms of civil society and political mobilisation. Adopting a theoretical perspective that regards the technologies of government and not just their ideologies as critical determinants of power distribution within societies (Foucault 1984; Henman 2006), we examine these questions in the specific realm of e-health, using a range of qualitative data drawn from web sites and individual on-line health consumers.

Scenarios for embracing errorful automatic speech recognition

Errorful speech recognition can be embraced in the design of automatic speech recognition (ASR) support for the Magistrates Court. In this paper we describe processes and scenarios that led to a design by examining work practices and considering a more realistic understanding of ASR technology than is promoted in ASR literature.This paper also uses scenarios in a novel way to package and communicate field work data in a way that is accessible to a wide range of stakeholders.

L'accès à l'e-gouvernement : les obstacles pour les citoyens et les organisations

L’Internet fait desormais partie des administrations et de leur mode d’offrir des services. Cela implique de s’interroger sur le fosse numerique. En Australie, comme il est demontre dans cet article, les citoyens qui sont les plus grands utilisateurs des services publics sont ceux qui sont les moins susceptibles d’etre connectes a Internet. Qu’est-ce qui peut etre fait pour connecter ceux qui ne le sont pas? L’article explore les differentes initiatives que des administrations australiennes ont developpe visant a ameliorer l’acces a l’Internet par les membres de la collectivite. Il conclut qu’une plus grande attention au developpement du capital humain des communautes de base est necessaire et qu’en encourageant la participation des communautes mal desservies a la conception et au developpement de l’e-gouvernement et au contenu des sites et des evenements en ligne, l’e-gouvernement aura plus de chances d’ameliorer l’inclusion sociale et economique. Sans quoi, l’on risque de creuser les fractures sociales et economiques, et les services gouvernementaux risquent de renoncer a ameliorer leur efficacite et leur efficience.