ABSTRACT
At the advent of the twenty-first century, citizenship activism is increasingly channeled into and organized through digital communication (Fountain 2001; Dawes et al. 1999; Larsen and Rainie 2002). Political parties and interest groups interact with members through electronic mail and multimedia Web sites. More and more citizens receive their news through online communications, and governments are making available on the World Wide Web documents and records that citizens need to understand, and potentially influence, public policy. Taken at face value, these developments suggest the coming of a golden age for a stronger, more citizen-involved democracy. Proponents of the digital government revolution certainly believe that e-government can improve efficiency and effectiveness across a spectrum of business functions through development of appropriate software, user-friendly interfaces, and portal-fronted enterprise architectures (National Research Council 2002). Nevertheless, some observers have raised flags about the effects of having too much information, too readily available, with too little quality control (Rocheleau 2003; O’Looney 2000).
