The e-Citizen as talk, as text and as technology: CRM and e-Government

Public service transformation in the UK is being carried out in the name of the citizen and these changes – specifically those labelled as ‘e-Government’ – bring with them the prospect of a significant shift in the nature of the relationship between government and its citizens. Of particular interest is the notion of the e-Citizen, set against a contemporary public management backdrop featuring customer-centric discourses/metaphors, organisational transformation and ICT-intensive ‘private-sector’ business solutions. This paper focuses on a pilot study concerned with exploring the nature and role of socio-technical and discursive factors which may be implicated in the ‘shaping’ of the e-Citizen around the introduction of ‘customer relationship management’ (CRM) systems at a local government level. The research design draws on ‘social shaping of technology’ approaches and emphasises the significance of discursive events in these shaping processes. Preliminary findings suggest that citizen-users of the new face to face access channel within local e-government are being configured primarily as ‘customers’ which we suggest has significant implications for the traditional relationship between individuals and the institutions of government..