How E-Government Can Help Societies during a Crisis: Implications of UTAUT Model in Lebanon

Introduction: Information and communication technology (ICT) usage has grown rapidly, with a significant rise following the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study assesses the relationships among task-technology fit, sense of virtual community, and the continuous intention to use electronic government services (e-government). Methods: Through quantitative approach using surveys, a total of 390 data was obtained from registered citizens in Tripoli municipality during the pandemic. The data were analyzed using partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Results: The mediating role of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model was observed, which shows that task-technology fit, sense of virtual community, and the consideration of society and its development are essential factors for citizens to use ICTs. Systems should entail features that meet the needs of citizens, community-building elements, and satisfactory performance. The importance of e-government ICTs in community development, particularly in a fragile state such as Tripoli, Lebanon, is the highlight of the current results. This can be beneficial for governmental authorities in the region of the Middle East, helping them to increase communication effectiveness by implementing appropriate digital means for the public during a crisis. Community development is a highly effective aspect that governments can implement in their digital services to provide opportunities for learning, awareness, and social progress to the public.

Adequacy of Public Information for Meaningful E-Participation in Policy-Making: Human Rights-Based

Within the first two years of COVID-19's exposure, countries around the world mitigated, among other things, social mobility control, resulting in other limitations on fundamental rights, such as freedom of movement and peaceful assembly. Within the rights restrictions, the desire of citizens to satisfy their desire for information and exercise their right to free expression was insatiable. The authors argue that citizens deserve access to sufficient information in order for them to have a meaningful right to participate. At the same time, electronic means can be an additional feature to channel public participation in policy-making. Regrettably, the primary platform adopted in Human Rights laws in operationalizing the right to participate in public affairs remains minimal to coexist meaningful e-participation embarked on the adequacy of the right to information based on Human Rights (HR) standards. This study aims to answer how a justification for meaningful e-participation in lawmaking can be defined. It also queries which framework can provide sufficient public information based on a rights-based approach. The study leverages the convention of civil and political rights (ICCPR) as the primary legal instrument for a qualitative doctrinal approach. The study suggests that adequate information should be in one package with e-participation to optimize the enjoyment of the right to participate in policy-making. © University of Jember & Indonesian Consortium for Human Rights Lecturers.

Stance Trees: A Novel Approach for Assessing Politically Polarized Issues in Twitter

Social and political polarization, which sometimes is the result of misinformation, is a common obstacle that can be harmful at the moment of communicating government policies. Intelligent tools that aid critical thinking in the light of different opinions and standpoints available in social media can help ameliorate this obstacle. This paper presents preliminary research work toward developing such tools by proposing a methodology for building stance trees based on tweets collected from social media. Stance trees are hierarchical structures where nodes represent arguments pro, anti, or uncertain about a target issue and edges stand for attack relations between those arguments. The proposed methodology includes retrieving tweets relevant to the target issue, manually labeling a sample set of the collected tweets, developing and applying a model for stance detection, and finally building a stance tree. We illustrate the expected results through a case study on the politically polarized "COVID-19 vaccine"issue. Our preliminary results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposal and highlight the utility of stance trees as a tool for aiding critical thinking. © 2022 ACM.

Adoption of Public e-services versus Civic Tech Services: On the Issue of Trust and Citizen Participation in Ukraine and Belarus

Belarus and Ukraine embarked on digitalisation relying on an international experience. Ukraine experienced difficulties in building infrastructure and connecting their regions and faced challenges in providing training and raising citizen awareness on advantages of the digital services. Yet, the digitalization reform proceeded from the principles of citizen-centeredness and e-participation. Belarus, on the contrary, was quick in building the basic infrastructure and training their public officials. However, the e-government was oriented rather on technical aspects and inter-sectoral communication, than on the needs of the citizens. Despite the differences in both cases, the level of trust, the basic prerequisite for the quality e-services, has been low (Ukraine) or non-existent (Belarus). This paper uses multi-method approach to examine citizen trust and their adoption of e-services in developing political or administrative regime contexts that are characterized by low trust, variable digital literacy, and variable access to information. A key finding is that in both countries it was the historical legacy of access to free services, that was one of the barriers to building a sustainable and reliable system of e-services. However, while Ukraine started to improve their infrastructure and building trust towards digital services during the COVID-19 pandemic, in Belarus the authorities’ ineffective management of the pandemic has led to sharp decrease in trust towards authorities. As a result, rudiments of an alternative system of public-services’ delivery, based on the people-to-people model, have been launched by the civil society. © 2022, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.

Did the intensity of countries' digital transformation affect IT companies' performance during covid-19?

This study explores the impact of the intensity of countries' digital transformation on the performance of 3961 global companies in the Information Technology sector in 2020. We analyse the impact of e-government index, e-participation index, and cybersecurity commitment on firms' performance (enterprise value, book value per share, and cash flow from operation per share) using OLS regression. A structural equation modelling was further employed to explain the mediating role of cybersecurity commitment. Results suggest that e-government has a positive linkage with cybersecurity commitment and performance. However, there is preliminary evidence that cybersecurity measures initiated by e-government will drive performance. The e-participation index has a positive association with cybersecurity commitment and a heterogeneous impact on performance, suggesting the need to differentiate between development and participation. Finally, results highlight the pivotal role of e-government and cybersecurity commitment in boosting the profitability of companies and supporting the influence of the surrounding technological environment on companies' performance.

A Resilient Approach to Social Solidarity During Covid-19. Evidence from Smart Communities in South African Cities

Covid-19 exacerbated and brought to light some of the inequalities and vulnerable conditions of millions of people in the big metropoles of South Africa. The communities of Cape Town responded in a timely way to the risks associated with the pandemic to limit its dangerous potential and find solutions to support people in critical situations. These are due to existing critical medical conditions (TB and HIV rates), impossibility to practice physical distancing (particularly in the informal settlements of the cities), food insecurity related to poverty and increased rate of unemployment, lack of running water and hygiene possibilities, and potential violence increase (particularly related to gender). Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions, particularly connected to the use of social media, allowed for deploying support respecting physical distancing as well as security and medical measures. At the same time, the solutions and approaches oriented to social solidarity amongst communities created the bases for reducing the social divide. The formation of networks of support which reached out for the needs of the most vulnerable people, proved to be problem solving oriented and succeeded in developing cooperative approaches that involved groups of people who have previously never encountered. Considering the still deep digital divide, Cape Town could not count on Smart Cities’ approaches to fight the pandemic, but it proved it could rely on Smart Communities responses. The case study displays the potential to use ICTs to connect, debate, suggest, and deploy solutions to respond in a resilient way to a crisis. The responses highlight the role of e-Participation from the bottom to combine solutions offered by ICT and reactivity and creativity of communities. The approaches further opened the way to the reduction of the social divide in one of the countries with the highest inequality rate in the world. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Analysis of the Perception of Professionals in Municipalities of Dammam Metropolitan Area Towards Introducing E-Participation in Saudi Urban Planning

The aim of the study is to investigate the e-participation in urban planning in Saudi Arabia (KSA). It further investigates the perception of the employed professionals in the municipalities of Dammam Metropolitan Area (DMA) towards introducing e-participation. The study adopts a quantitative research method. The data is collected through a structured self-administrated survey. The sample for survey is drawn from the municipalities in DMA, KSA. The target population of the study is defined as professionals working in municipalities in DMA. The findings of the study indicate that the professionals in municipalities have optimistic attitudes toward e-participation in urban planning. They believe that e-participation in urban planning will contribute in having high representation of public, positive contribution, and speeding up the decision making. The findings also show that there is almost complete agreement in the views regarding the e-participation feasibility in planning process during crises (such as COVID-19). © 2022 IGI Global. All rights reserved.

COVID-19 and real e-government and e-learning Adoption in Iraq

Today, e-government services globally are a true indicator of the growth of countries and societies, and it's a mirror of the country. With all the digital conditions, Iraqi society is growing and continuing its movement towards building an information society without any significant government influence. According to the United Nations e-government survey 2018 and 2020, Iraq placed in the 155th, and 143th position among the world countries, and according to the ITE statistical reports, 103 % of Iraqi citizens have cell phones (82 % according to World Bank reports), and 100 % of these cell phones are smart phones. With 17 % using the Internet, the %age among the Iraqi population is rising. These numbers suggest that Iraqi society can easily be an electronic society, but the truth on the ground says something entirely different, and it's as simple as there's no true Iraqi e-government. The pandemic of Covid-19 proves that Iraqi society has the capacity to use online services. The main reason for this weakness is the failure of ongoing e-learning trials in the Iraqi education and higher education systems in Iraq. Today, the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education (MOHEDSR) is actually beginning to successfully adopt e-learning services through ministry and university capabilities, not e-government support, in all Iraqi higher education sectors. Digital skills are required to prepare for future occupations. © 2021 IEEE.

E-participation decision across different channels

Purpose>This study focuses on understanding how channel features can affect people's intention to continue to use an electronic channel in public affairs and their recommendation behaviors. Specifically, three different channels are focused on: email, microblogs and online meetings.Design/methodology/approach>A research model on an e-participation channel based on the channel-disposition framework was developed and an online survey was conducted to collect data from 397 individuals who used three e-participation channels to validate seven hypotheses.Findings>The study found that information quality, channel interaction quality and the social appearance of other citizens all had a significant impact on users' intention to continue to use an electronic channel, which, in turn, affected their recommendation behaviors. However, the impact differed across the three e-participation channels. Information quality had a stronger impact on microblog and online meeting users' intention to continue to use these channels than on email users' intention to continue using email to participate in public affairs. Channel interaction quality had a stronger impact on email users' intention to continue to use email than on microblog and online meeting users' intention to continue to use these channels in public affairs.Originality/value>This study helps better explain how various channels and their features can affect participants' use intentions and behaviors in e-participation. It also provides practical guidance for government to better manage e-participation channels and effectively engage citizens in public affairs.

Social Media Enabled Rehabilitation Services: Influence of Covid-19 Metaphors

This study analyses the social media discussions on disability during the Covid-19 in the Southern part of India. The purpose is to assess the e-participants’ attitude toward disability problems during their social media participation. Participant observation and focus group discussions with citizens often post in social media disability groups. Existing studies less reported the social media disability discussions in regional language, even though it is vital to explore justice at the grassroots level of disability inclusion. The current findings show that citizens’ ill-conceived understanding of disability challenges during the covid-19 results in an unsupportive social media environment. The extreme and exploitation expressions in regional language groups show the lack of local support from the common public for the disabled during the pandemic. The lack of non-institutional voluntary metaphors emphasizes the need to improve the disability support structures at the regional level. Recommendations to enhance e-participation competency are provided. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

E-Government Services Introduction Effects in the Covid-19 Pandemic: 2020-2021 Surveys Results

The paper analyzes the development features of e-government services, based on the residents' surveys results. The? were conducted in St. Petersburg in 2020 and 2021. The first survey was conducted prior to the introduction of face-to-face restrictions in March 2020. The survey was aimed at getting citizens' opinions on the relevance, trust and attitude towards the «smart city» services. This survey was conducted on a representative sample in multifunctional city centers. Based on survey results, it was decided to conduct an online survey in the summer of 2021 to analyze the services, the levels of their effectiveness as perceived by citizens. This survey was conducted on a representative sample of the population using the Anketolog.ru system. The article presents the results of a surveys comparison. As a study result, the most popular electronic services were identified, as well as stable factors influencing the success of their implementation. It was found that the pandemic has only increased the demand for electronic services in three areas: health, security and transportation. The development dynamic of services was determined, their advantages and disadvantages were named. It is assumed that the economic and temporary benefits from the use of services by citizens will increase. The article also contains guaranteed achievements in the services implementation. The key obstacles are a high level of trust in the authorities, as well as ensuring the safety. It is assumed that the electronic services use level will continue to increase after the coronavirus pandemic. It is concluded that electronic services make it possible to optimize the public administration structure and accelerate the civil society development in Russia. © 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors.

Relevance of E-Participation in the state health campaign in Spain: #EstoNoEsUnJuego / #ThisIsNotAGame.

Confronting the COVID-19 health emergency has forced public administrations in Spain to work with various networks as a means of promoting their campaigns to citizens. This paper aims to analyse digital citizens' e-participation by focusing on the state health campaign #EstoNoEsUnJuego - #ThisIsNotAGame. This campaign was launched by the Spanish Ministry of Health in September 2020 via Twitter with the objective of reinforcing protection measures against the virus. A sample consisting of 19,576 tweets, sent from September 2020 to February 2021, was investigated and the results have indicated that, of 9133 users, 64.8% of citizens collaborated in the dissemination of tweets. It was observed that most messages supported the campaign by disseminating information on measures, data and news. Only 0.1% of the messages were aggressive. The conclusion is that, despite not having created a true form of communication between public institutions and citizens, e-participation has generated a functional connection between them. Citizens have acquired a responsible and participatory digital role which, although failing to show personal involvement in their comments, has been the main driving force behind the success of this campaign.

Digital citizens' feelings in national #Covid 19 campaigns in Spain.

BACKGROUND: In 2020 Spain launched an official campaign, #EsteVirusLoParamosUnidos, aimed at uniting the entire country through citizen cooperation, in order to combat Covid-19. The objective of this research has been to analyse how this Twitter campaign revealed the feelings expressed by Spanish citizens. METHODS: The research is based on a composite design that triangulates, from a theoretical model, a quantitative analysis and a qualitative analysis. RESULTS: Of the 7,357 tweets in the sample, 72.32% were found to be retweets. Four content families were extracted which relate to politics, education, messages to society and the defence of occupational groups. The feelings expressed ranged from those of unity, admiration and support to those of discontent and criticism of issues regarding the health situation. CONCLUSIONS: The development of networked socio-political and technical measures, which enabled citizen participation, facilitated the development of new patterns of interaction between national or regional governments and digital citizens. This increased citizens' possibilities of influencing the public agenda and, therefore, strengthening citizen engagement regarding specific situations.

Predictors of e-democracy applicability in Turkish K-12 schools.

Today, the COVID-19 pandemic has paved the way for a more democratic climate in K-12 schools. Administrators and teachers have had to seek out new ways through which to interact. This raises two questions; "What about the quality of interaction and participation in decision-making?" and "Which factors affect the level of participation in decision-making?" The aim of the current research is to determine the factors that predict the applicability level of e-democracy (i.e., "reporting and declaring opinions" and "decision-making") in K-12 schools. An associational research design was used in order to attain the main goal of the study, with Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA) technique used to analyze the factors predicting the applicability level of e-democracy. Data were collected from a total of 765 inservice K-12 teachers through a questionnaire developed by the researchers. DFA results showed "motivation to participate," "the level of participatory democracy in the country," and higher levels of the "use of Twitter" as the significant determinants of different levels of e-democracy application. Moreover, the results also indicated that those participants with the belief of e-democracy's applicability at the decision-making level found the "motivation level of stakeholders" to be the most critical. Their level of Twitter use was higher. They also believed that the level of participatory democracy in the country was at a higher level. Another result of the DFA pointed to "security and ethical issues," and lower levels of the "use of Twitter" as factors differentiating the group believing that e-democracy can be applicable with reporting and the declaration of opinions to administrators from the other groups. The discussions highlighted the critical role of participation level in e-democracy within K-12 schools.