Franco Papandrea

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.

Willingness to pay for domestic television programming.

The article describes the application of contingent valuation to estimate the value of the benefits that the Australian community derives from the mandatory transmission of Australian programs by television stations. This application of contingent valuation to estimate cultural benefits offers an insight on the potential for a wider application of the methodology to evaluate cultural policy instruments. The study found that a majority of Australians support regulation of the domestic content of television programs and considers the value of the related benefits to be commensurate with the cost of supplying domestic programming.

Bundling in the Australian Telecommunications Industry

This article considers some of the implications for social welfare of bundling in the Australian telecommunications industry. The practice of bundling—offering two or more products for sale as a single package—is a strategy used in many industries. Although common, there are circumstances when the practice can be used anti-competitively. Yet bundling does not always harm consumers; at times, the practice benefits both consumers and producers, and it can even advantage consumers to the detriment of producers. The general literature on bundling suggests that its effect on social welfare depends on several factors such as market structure, the elasticity of demand for the products, the marginal cost of production, economies of distribution and the use of complex menus. We consider these factors when assessing the likely welfare effects of bundling in the Australian telecommunications industry, concluding that the potential effects of bundling on competition and the information costs imposed on consumers by complex menus of services seem the most significant considerations for social welfare. It is desirable that regulatory authorities monitor developments closely, although heavy-handed regulation of bundling seems undesirable.

Sustainability of Community Online Access Centres

Community Online Access Centres (or telecentres or E-community centres) have been established in many countries to provide rural and remote communities with access to a wide range of information and communications technologies (ICTs) including computers and the Internet. The centres are typically established with at least initial government financial support. In many cases, the centres have been established by development agencies on a pilot basis and often their sustainability cannot be assured after the initial project period.

Digital news report: Australia 2015

This report gives a clear picture of how the Australian news consumer compares to eleven other countries surveyed in 2015: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Spain, UK, USA and urban Brazil. The Digital News Report: Australia is part of a global survey by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. Further in-depth analysis of Australian digital news consumption has been conducted and published by the News & Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra.

Australia: State Aid to Newspapers—Not a Priority

State subsidies for the production of newspapers have not been a major issue in the development of the Australian newspaper industry even though the industry has benefited from a variety of direct and indirect forms of government assistance during its 200-year history. Some of the measures sought to assist industry development while others sought to support access to a diversity of news and opinion. While the potential effects of heavy concentration of media ownership on the diversity of news and opinion have been a major preoccupation of Australian policymakers in recent decades, subsidies to the newspaper industry have rarely been an issue of public debate. Nonetheless, a consideration of support to news activities was included in the terms of reference of a federal government-initiated media inquiry in 2011. The inquiry’s report, however, stopped short of recommending newspaper subsidies but did acknowledge the difficulties facing the industry as it grapples with structural changes to the business model that has sustained it for many years.

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.