Government Technology

The policies set by the U.S. federal government on media ownership have tremendous impact on community media that traditionally has played an important role in fostering community awareness and involvement. For local municipalities and constituencies, the on-the-ground media ownership rules ultimately boils down to the question of how diverse the opinions expressed in local media will be and how representative of topical issues the local news will be.

How we measure success is as important as what we are measuring. On March 19, 2008, the FCC dramatically revised its broadband data collection, in essence, finally giving in to mounting evidence that current assessments have been woefully inadequate. Previous data collection may have allowed politicians to declare "mission accomplished" -- that universal affordable broadband is available throughout the United States -- yet the fact remains that large swaths of the United States have fallen behind a growing list of other countries in broadband provision.

Most media have it wrong. Municipal wireless networks across the United States didn't stumble in 2007 -- high-profile cities where deals fell apart, such as Chicago, San Francisco and Houston, were not going to finance, own or operate their respective networks. These weren't municipal networks at all. The business model that faltered in 2007 was the "private corporate franchise" model based on the deal that Philadelphia and EarthLink agreed to in 2006.

Why do government officials love e-government and hate e-democracy? The answer is implicit in the definition of the question. E-government uses information technology to make government operate more efficiently, often by copying techniques first developed in the private sector. E-democracy uses information technology to make elected officials more accountable to the public.