Challenges of effective e-engagement in Asia
Although online engagement has its advantages including cost-saving, easy access and available anywhere, the accomplishment of effective online engagement/e-engagement may face some challenges. Those challenges differ from one to another context. For example, having access to technologies and the internet may not be the top challenges in some regions whereas these two issues can be the top challenges in other regions. Therefore, this blog will focus on some countries in Asia.
According to Lin, Hope Cheong, Kim, and Jung (2010), youth e-engagement in 5 Asian regions, which has the advanced technology and the internet include Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei and Tokyo, is limited because of the public’s interest in political involvement. These authors find that there are two main purposes of using the internet, namely, entertainment and information. Those who use the internet for entertainment seems to have less involved in online civic space and politics while those who use the internet for information appear to gain benefits from e-engagement. In the nutshell, this paper shows the main implication that although internet and technology are available, it does not mean effective e-engagement can be fully accomplished due to the lack of the public’s interests.
Another challenge is the digital divide which means students, people who live in urban area, elite and middle-class people, can have access to the internet and technology as the fundamental to e-engagement whereas the older generations who live in the rural areas do not have electricity to access online engagement (Kluver & Banerjee, 2005). This example has found in India when the budget to train people using technology is expensive. As a result, the challenge is inequality which requires a large amount of budget allocation for developing infrastructure and training people to use technology.
The last and important issue in some Asian countries for both F2F and e-engagement is political contents or informational availability. For example, in China, information is constant surveillance and censorship related politics. Even though people in China have accessibility to the internet and social media, those who discuss the legitimacy of the government could be at the risk and punishment (Chan, Lee, & Chen, 2016). This example can be seen in other countries in Asia including Cambodia. The information constraints and the limited ability to discuss politics can also have adverse impacts on the public perspective of e-engagement because people may feel insecure to make comments related to government in general.
Proposed actions to those three challenges
To escalate the effectiveness of e-engagement, three possible actions can be done. The first and foremost solution is political commitment to open the door for the public to express their opinions and engage with governments through online, with the safety and security promises. Political commitments may have positive effects on resource mobilisation including human and financial resources to enable accessibility for those who do not have access to e-engagement. However, this can be debatable in some contexts, for example in China, as its political ideology is communism which means freedom of speech is limited. Nevertheless, political commitment is still the main factor to open the door to people to get involved in policy developments.
The second action is to listen to people (New Zealand Government, 2018). Although those sources explain clearly about the challenges, it does not fully reflect the current needs due to old evidence and significant technological development. Therefore, listening to people could add value to overcome those challenges. As I mentioned that political discussions in some Asian countries could be sensitive, those government might need to adopt some principles from Digital to assure citizens that comments related to improving effective e-engagement will not be perceived as political issues. Those principles are building trust, encouraging openness and learning, clearly informing people about the expectations (New Zealand Government, 2018). For the first public involvement, governments should not expect much from people because their mindsets will be changed over time; not by just one action. This means those government could be able to observe an increasing number of public engagement if they reinforce governments’ positive attitudes toward the comments received from e-engagement.
Lastly, getting people involved to design how they can engage (IAP2 Australasia, 2015) and to monitor and evaluate the e-engagement plan may have profound effects on succeeding effective e-engagement. Citizens’ feedback on improving or re-designing next e-engagement plan can increase the effectiveness of the engagement itself; also, it encourages citizens to be actively involved in online civic spaces.
References
Chan, M., Lee, F., & Chen, H.-t. (2016). Exploring the potential for mobile communications to engender an engaged citizenry: A comparative study of university students in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In R. Wei (Ed.), Mobile media, political participation, and civic activism in Asia (pp. 193–213): Springer.
IAP2 Australasia. (2015). Quality assurance standard for community and stakeholder engagement. Retrieved from Wollongong, NSW, Australia:
Kluver, R., & Banerjee, I. (2005). The Internet in nine Asian nations. Information, Communication & Society, 8(1), 30–46. doi:10.1080/13691180500066847
Lin, W.-Y., Hope Cheong, P., Kim, Y.-C., & Jung, J.-Y. (2010). Becoming citizens: Youths’ civic uses of new media in five digital cities in East Asia. Journal of Adolescent Research, 25(6), 839–857. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0743558410371125
New Zealand Government. (2018). Online engagement. Retrieved from https://www.digital.govt.nz/standards-and-guidance/engagement/online-engagement/
