3 Challenges in Conducting Online Engagement
The development of information and communication technology (ICT) has changed human behaviour into fast-paced and multitasking. Most of communication and interaction are now conducted virtually. People are able to gather and discuss every day on the internet but rarely meet face to face.
The behaviour then shifts public engagement to the digital world. Practical, fast, and cheap are the undeniable advantages of digital things. Online engagement is considered a better solution to public problems for its ease of doing. Although the mechanism seems more practical, fast and cheap, online engagement has its own challenges.
To identify the challenges of online engagement, first, it is necessary to recall the nature of public deliberation, namely information, consultation and participation. Public deliberation is about how the government provides balanced and objective information to citizens, how the citizens communicate reciprocal to the government and how citizens actively participate in the policy-making process.
Second, the principles of public deliberation must be understood. According to the National Consumer Council (NCC) of the UK, a non-department institution that focuses on consumer interests, there are nine principles of deliberative public engagement. They are the process can makes a difference, transparent, has integrity, can be tailored to circumstances, involves the right number and types of people, treats participants with respect, gives priority to participants’ discussions, reviewed and evaluated to improve practice and keep informing the participants. The question is whether online engagement meets these nine principles.
Third, to assess the effectiveness of online engagement (the use of ICT in public deliberation) it is also necessary to look at the stages of policymaking as emphasized by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). There are five stages of policymaking: agenda-setting, analysis, policy creation, implementation, and monitoring. The question for the assessment is whether the use of ICT is effective at these stages. Based on the points above, below are the three big challenges in conducting online engagement.
1. Digital Divide
The use of ITC must be equitable to meet the principles of public deliberation and the stages of its process. Inequality in computer and internet access will limit the participants. Limited participants will cause the information conveyed by the government is not spread well to all citizens. The lack of information and limited access to computers and the internet also makes consultations not to work well. Afterwards, citizen participation also becomes low.
This digital divide is clearly seen in developing countries, especially those in large areas, where infrastructure and education affect the number of internet users. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations agency for information and communication technologies, internet access data in African countries in 2018 is only 21.8% and in Arab states is 43.7%. In Indonesia, internet users have only reached 53.7%, which is considered low among Asia Pacific countries.
Developed countries also experience the digital divide. In New Zealand for instance, many children do not have computers or internet access in their homes according to InternetNZ. Whilst older people who live in residential aged care tend to not be able to access the internet.
The digital divide will cause the online engagement unable to meet the principle ‘involves the right number and types of people’. The digital divide also reduces the effectiveness of using ICT at the policymaking stages.
2. Active Participation
The second challenge of online engagement, in my perspective, is how active citizens will participate. Although internet access sufficiently covers, if citizens are not eager to participate, the effectiveness of deliberations will decrease. Active participation also means involving productively and giving honest answers or opinion. Otherwise, the results of online engagement might be in useless and might not solve the problems. Likewise, the digital divide, the low rate of active participation will cause the online engagement unable to meet the principles above and becomes ineffective at the policymaking stages.
Researchers have discovered the fact that survey results are often not trustworthy. This happens because participants are often dishonest. It is not always due to deliberate fraud but often due to psychological factors. People tend to adjust answers depending on who is asking or because they are aware of being observed. This condition is called the Hawthorne effect.
3. Validity
This challenge might not be mentioned in common discussion but I would like to put it as the third challenge of online engagement. There is a greater possibility for fraud (cybercrime) in online engagement because ICT is vulnerable to manipulation. Fake identity may be the biggest threat, but the possibility of outcome manipulation also exists that could bring invalid results.
Cybercrime is more likely to occur in the polling segment. The insecurity of online voting has become a concern. A researcher at the University of Melbourne Australia, Vanessa Tauge, states that allegedly insecure online voting has been addressed in the 2016 United States presidential election and some state elections in Australia in 2015.
In Indonesian, suspicion has been arisen since 2014 due to online polling wars for presidential and regional head elections. Many contradictory polling results make people doubt about the online survey. Teague also reveals that online voting is more fragile than other online services and far easier to attack.
Once the fraud occurs, the online engagement will fail to meet the principle ‘making the differences’ and ‘integrity’. The online engagement will also be ineffective at the policymaking stages for it will mislead the analysis and create a wrong policy.
Strategy to overcome
Several strategies can be implemented to anticipate the three challenges of conducting online engagement above. To reduce the digital divide, the government should fasten the development of the internet network infrastructure and provide affordable internet access for the public. Besides, offline engagement has to be done to fill the gap in online engagement.
To encourage active participation, the government should strengthen civic education for democracy. Provide as much information as possible about the problem to be discussed in the engagement process. The importance of the issue and the worst impact that might be resulted in a wrong policy have to be clearly delivered to citizens so they will be aware. The trust should be built among the citizens that their voices can make a difference. The trust can only be obtained by proofing it. Frequent communication needs to be conducted. One of the tools is providing a discussion or chat room.
In terms of validity, cybersecurity and monitoring should be improved. Proper legislation is also vital to overcoming the threat of cybercrime. The transparency of the online engagement process is believed to affect the data security because the possibility of fraud does not only exist among the participants but may also exist inside the organizers.
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Other references:
International Communication Union. (2012). Understanding cybercrime: Phenomena, challenges and legal response.
National Consumer Council. (2008). Deliberative Public Engagement Nine Principles.
Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development. (2003). Promise and Problems of E-Democracy: Challenges of Online Citizen Engagement.
(This article is written as an assignment of the E-Engagement course at Victoria University of Wellington)
