Social Computing: Implications for E-Government

This chapter examines the area of social computing and its implications for electronic government (e -government). Social computing is a broad term that refers to different products and services that supports human interaction in a computer mediated environment. Terms such as online communities, peer networking, and social software have overlapping meanings with social computing (Parameswaran and Whinston, 2007). E-government refers to the delivery of government services via information and communications technology to citizens, businesses, employees, government agencies and special interest groups. In this article we present a theoretical model for the application of social computing in the area of e-government and we use an analysis of state websites to assess the extent of social computing development in the e-government domain. Our findings indicate that social computing is in its infancy in e-government applications. We make recommendations and analyze the potential value and challenges of social computing in e-government.