In search of a useful government website

JDM090908govt.png

Online public service

The website of your local government is never going to compare to other online options for news, entertainment, or commerce, but for specific tasks, it has the potential to be quite useful. On a well-designed site, timely policy updates, online form processing, and even interactive Q&A services can help citizens make the best use of their local government agencies.

Unfortunately, many government websites in China simply provide another channel for the government to avoid communicating with the public. How sluggish the response of the government can often be in today’s lightning-quick Internet era was demonstrated in July, when rumors of a cobalt-60 leak (and possible explosion) circulated in Qixian county, in Kaifeng, Henan Province:

When the official Kaifeng media suggested that “rumors hurt the people,” many local netizens agree and condemned those rumors. But many other netizens said that the rumors surfaced because the local government departments had been untimely and opaque with their information.

The program also pointed out in a critical note: “Even when the reporter went to gather news in Qixian, the relevant Qixian leaders still stick to the Three No’s policy: No information released; no interviews given; no reporting allowed. At a time when the Internet is more developed and information is getting more transparent, it is incomprehensible for Qixian to behave this way.” (ESWN’s translation of a Yunnan Information News article)

The lead editorial in the most recent issue of New Weekly takes the Qixian incident as a starting point for a look at how the government makes use of the Internet as a communication tool. Or more properly, how local governments don’t use the Internet, and why Chinese Internet users stay away from government websites in droves.

The author, lead writer Xiao Feng, may be a little over-enthusiastic about the practical uses of government websites like the one for the White House in the United States, and may entirely ignore the role of a free press in quelling rumors and shedding light on the public sector, but his indictment of government websites as misdirected prestige projects that do little to serve the minority audience to whom their information is actually of interest at least points out one of the problems with the government’s current approach to the Internet.

Why Don’t Chinese Internet Users Visit Government Websites?

by Xiao Feng / NW

A false report of a “cobalt leak” in Qixian, Henan Province sparked a widespread panic, spurring hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes in a real-life version of the old story of the man from Qi who worried that the sky was falling. The rumor quickly spread through Internet forums and text messages, and the government’s pathetic credibility was the ultimate cause of the whole charade.

During the incident, the government’s website played virtually no role as a mainstream channel for disseminating information. A CNNIC report shows that by the end of June, China’s Internet users numbered 338 million, larger than the population of the United States. Although China’s online population is the largest in the world, just 25.4% of people have visited a government website. Government websites have degenerated into mere “prestige projects.”

Why don’t Chinese netizens visit or trust government websites?

At the moment, the central government, and all province- and municipality-level governments have set up portal websites, and the percentage of prefecture- and county-level governments that have websites are 99% and 92%, respectively. Many sub-districts, townships, and even village and neighborhood committees have their own web pages or websites. But such government website projects are still quite far removed from a “innovative governance and enhanced public service,” as well as from problem-solving and communication with the public.

“Electronic administration” (电子政务) is not the same thing as “online government” (政府上网), and the main problem with government websites at the moment is that they are electronic but not administrative, or the “electronic” is entirely divorced from the “administrative.” Government websites are usually built by IT departments, and in a segmented, hierarchical system it is difficult to link everything together. Is an information center comprising mainly technicians able to tie together such powerful, interested agencies as Planning and Construction, PSB and Procuratorate, and Commerce and Taxes?

In addition, instead of the services and accessibility that citizens are interested in, government website content is internal government information. This ignores the fact that the public is the most important audience of a government website, and in its place adopts the pose of a paternalistic bureaucrat who says, “I will speak and you will listen,” overlooking the fact that the public is not just a listener but a speaker as well, part of a dialogue.

Even worse, many officials do not go online themselves. If officials do not go online, then what is the point of going to the expense of building a government website? It is hard to restrain our disappointment at this singular expression of the digital divide.

Yet today, the expression of online public opinion has been elevated to mainstream opinion. The rise of a “New Opinion Class” (新意见阶层) possesses immense energy, and in incidents like the Sun Zhigang affair,* the Nail House, the black kilns, the Xiamen PX project, the South China Tiger, “70kph”, and the Deng Yujiao case, we can see how online public opinion influences the way authorities ultimate resolve social problems. Officials do not go online, and they may not pay close attention to online public opinion, yet they lament, “reporters can be ducked, but netizens are hard to block,” or they are nostalgic for pre-Internet days. They are good at plugging things up (as in the so-called “real name system”), but the public is not the sole victim; there is also government credibility, the cause of social openness, equality, and justice is even worse off. Over the past few years, practically all public incidents have demonstrated that if the government does not do its job, the netizens will “make a scene,” so that ultimately the government is unable to escape and must face return to address the situation.

Broadcasts by everyone about everyone: this is the essence of new media. Free, interactive, and open communication characterizes online forums and BBSs. The public can use the Internet to express their own opinions and learn about the views of others. In the United States, the White House website tells you, “We hope your visit was informative and enjoyable,” whenever you make a comment, and the site itself has staffers who handle various modes of feedback, from Facebook to YouTube to Twitter to Flickr. This is inseparable from Barack Obama’s pledge to create the most open, most accessible government in history. Think about it: if the government occupies the primary channel of information access for the public, SMS rumors and fake information posts on BBSs will not find such wide purchase, and situations like the sky-is-falling scare in Henan would no longer take place. Access to public opinion, along with open governance, will help turn the government into a service-oriented government — that is the true mission of setting up a government website.

Netizens would like to see more measures like Guangdong party secretary Wang Yang’s engineering of the “ten smacks”* to enlarge channels for the public to offer suggestions to the government. Energetic discussion on the Internet is not merely a carnival for the public; it can also be a grand occasion for the government.

Information technology can turn democracy from a “luxury” to something as easy as lifting a finger, reducing the cost of all social change, including political reform. Imagine: change without fighting, without the need to take to the streets and shed blood — what’s not to like?


Notes

  1. In March 2003, Sun Zhigang (孙志刚) was detained by police in Guangzhou under the “custody and repatriation system” (C&R) when he was unable to present his ID card. He died three days later, and his death touched off a debate over the constitutionality of C&R. Southern Metropolis Daily did in-depth reporting and commentary on the incident, and the controversy exploded onto the Internet, ultimately resulting in the abolishment of C&R regulations. See Wikipedia for more.
  2. Wang Yang (汪洋), party secretary of Guangdong Province, stated his interest in online public opinion in late 2007. Here’s a short description of the affair, from the Southern Media Group-affiliated web portal Oeeee, which co-sponsored the project:

    On the eve of the Spring Festival, 2008, a letter written by Guangdong Party Secretary Wang Yang and Governor Huang Huahua and posted to Guangdong’s major web portals, including Oeeee, caught the attention of netizens. In their letter, Wang and Huang lauded the contributions that netizens had made to the development of Guangdong, and expressed their willingness to “seek strategies and policies” from netizens and to accept their oversight. This action was applauded by netizens and was fully affirmed by mainstream media such as Xinhua and the People’s Daily….To put Secretary Wang and Governor Huang’s enthusiasm for “idle chatter” (灌水) and “flaming” (拍砖) into practice, and to fit with the netizen community’s aspirations toward being “online citizens,” Oeee has partnered with Sohu and other national web portals and community forums to put together the views that ten academics wish Secretary Wang to hear regarding Guangdong’s Scientific Development.

    The ten essays were collectively called “Ten Smacks at Lingnan” (岭南十拍), where “拍” refers to online sniping or flaming.

Links and Sources
This entry was posted in Government and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.