Governance & Digitalisation
Week 1 - Introduction: How did we get here?
The impacts of digital technology on governance
➢ Organisational
➢ Political
➢ Social
➢ Economic
E-Government Stages and Models of Technological Change (west)
,Public media (De Donk et al, 2005 article)
➢ Freedom and equality
➢ Accessibility
➢ Independence
➢ Pluralism
Public logic - > Media logic:
We made a some kind of shift from Public logic to Media logic. People can choose different media
channels and there is less of a collective sense of responsibility.
Infotainment: we get information from media not necessarily to inform us but more for
entertainment us.
Ted video of this week:
Examines some of the other political impacts on governments
Harrari, 2017
“the bo-right divide”
Links en rechts standpunten
“Global ecology”: Because of the internet we live in a global ecology. One thing in area A has impact
on Area B even if it’s geographically very far away.
“The cyber river”: All human society’s now live on a cyber river where we are all connected. We get
the same life source of the information we consume
“Artificial intelligence”: Refers not to robots but more to any type of computer intelligence that
resembles how the human brain can work in terms of doing things automatically and can be self-
taught to learn new things.
,Social capital (Bell)
➢ The basic idea of social capital is that governance the healthy functional of political society’s
depends on people who have active socialized with import organizations. For example
political parties or political interest groups.
➢ The more networked you are in these types of organizations the more Social Capital you
have. Bell (author) says that that because people are spending much more time on the
internet they are doing less of the traditional forms of social capital. According to bell this
means that part of the important fabric of governance could be undermined by the growth
of individualistic uses of types of internet technologies like social media.
➢ There is also evidence that the Internet can improve your social capital because it can
connect you with different people outside your personal geographic area. New idea’s, New
groups etc.
➢ There is also evidence that people who have a high offline social capital (sport clubs, church,
political etc.) also have a higher online social capital. The problem with this is that if you have
lower offline capital you develop lower online capital and this may leads to a vicious circle. A
divide between different groups in society.
, Week 2: Challenge 1: Information complexity
Moore’s Law
Moore’s Law is an observation that the computer scientist Moore made in the 1960 that would
predict how the improvement in technologies in microchips would increase the amount of
information you be able to store. Microchips are the tiny software on our devices that allow
information to be communicated and the ability of microprocesses is to process information doubles
every 2 years, that’s Moore’s Law. So our ability to process information is moving much faster than
generally economic growth. This is a very simple mathematic example but shows how big it can be.
➢ This races the question on how we can possibly begin to manage the amount of information
as government decisionmakers.
Information: a double-edged sword
There are both positive and negatives about having all this information. This is why information is
sometimes described as a double-edged sword. On the left side information can allow us to do lots
of good things. On the right side there are negative aspects of having a lot of information. Its
important to accept that while having all these technologies giving us all this information there are
some negatives and downsides on it.
Week 1 - Introduction: How did we get here?
The impacts of digital technology on governance
➢ Organisational
➢ Political
➢ Social
➢ Economic
E-Government Stages and Models of Technological Change (west)
,Public media (De Donk et al, 2005 article)
➢ Freedom and equality
➢ Accessibility
➢ Independence
➢ Pluralism
Public logic - > Media logic:
We made a some kind of shift from Public logic to Media logic. People can choose different media
channels and there is less of a collective sense of responsibility.
Infotainment: we get information from media not necessarily to inform us but more for
entertainment us.
Ted video of this week:
Examines some of the other political impacts on governments
Harrari, 2017
“the bo-right divide”
Links en rechts standpunten
“Global ecology”: Because of the internet we live in a global ecology. One thing in area A has impact
on Area B even if it’s geographically very far away.
“The cyber river”: All human society’s now live on a cyber river where we are all connected. We get
the same life source of the information we consume
“Artificial intelligence”: Refers not to robots but more to any type of computer intelligence that
resembles how the human brain can work in terms of doing things automatically and can be self-
taught to learn new things.
,Social capital (Bell)
➢ The basic idea of social capital is that governance the healthy functional of political society’s
depends on people who have active socialized with import organizations. For example
political parties or political interest groups.
➢ The more networked you are in these types of organizations the more Social Capital you
have. Bell (author) says that that because people are spending much more time on the
internet they are doing less of the traditional forms of social capital. According to bell this
means that part of the important fabric of governance could be undermined by the growth
of individualistic uses of types of internet technologies like social media.
➢ There is also evidence that the Internet can improve your social capital because it can
connect you with different people outside your personal geographic area. New idea’s, New
groups etc.
➢ There is also evidence that people who have a high offline social capital (sport clubs, church,
political etc.) also have a higher online social capital. The problem with this is that if you have
lower offline capital you develop lower online capital and this may leads to a vicious circle. A
divide between different groups in society.
, Week 2: Challenge 1: Information complexity
Moore’s Law
Moore’s Law is an observation that the computer scientist Moore made in the 1960 that would
predict how the improvement in technologies in microchips would increase the amount of
information you be able to store. Microchips are the tiny software on our devices that allow
information to be communicated and the ability of microprocesses is to process information doubles
every 2 years, that’s Moore’s Law. So our ability to process information is moving much faster than
generally economic growth. This is a very simple mathematic example but shows how big it can be.
➢ This races the question on how we can possibly begin to manage the amount of information
as government decisionmakers.
Information: a double-edged sword
There are both positive and negatives about having all this information. This is why information is
sometimes described as a double-edged sword. On the left side information can allow us to do lots
of good things. On the right side there are negative aspects of having a lot of information. Its
important to accept that while having all these technologies giving us all this information there are
some negatives and downsides on it.
