Creating a Web 2.0 government: Views and perspectives

Over the last decade, the role played by governments has moved further away from direct service provision towards regulation and governance of services provided by a multiplicity of private and non-profit entities. Governments have put reform and innovation of the public sector into their programs, striving to deliver more efficient and effective public services, in order to meet the increasing expectations of citizens. An Information and communication technologies (ICT) has long been recognized as a key driver of government modernization. Undoubtedly, e-Government has been on the policy agenda for several years to support or redefine the existing and/or future (information, communication and transaction) relations with stakeholders in the internal and external environment in order to create added value. The common features of the reform agenda are a more citizen oriented and open government, better public sector performance, new forms of accountability and control, the use of market mechanisms and more decentralized. In virtue of the nature of Web 2.0, it is often presented as a revolutionary way of gathering, organizing and sharing of information and has much potential for the public sector in terms of interaction, participation and transparency. Despite the fact that a large number of people embrace Web 2.0, some critics also state that Web 2.0 is an exaggerated hype and raise the question whether the potential of Web 2.0 will be realized in practice. This paper focus on significance issues of Web 2.0 for e-Government: Are Web 2.0 applications relevant for the government context? If they are, in what way is Web 2.0 likely to have an impact on e-Government? How significant could this impact be? How is Web 2.0 applications implemented in the government context? and what are the expected opportunities and threats of Web 2.0 for the public sector?