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"A small plurality of all Americans say they would first turn to the
Net for government information, and nearly three in five Internet
users say this." - Pew Counting on the Internet Report

Extending government information seeking trends to active citizen
participation in government decision-making - are we ready online to
accommodate citizen expectations for effective anytime, anywhere
participation and democratic input?  In terms of government
information seeking, are we ready with services that allow citizens
to be notified on a timely basis when new information important to
them is made available online?  Ah, challenges for the new year.

Steven Clift
Democracies Online Newswire
Happy New Year Europe ... 5 p.m. here in MN, last year. :-)

See:
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=80

Counting on the Internet
Most expect to find key information online,
most find the information they seek,
many now turn to the Internet first

December 29, 2002

Specifically:
http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?
Report=80&Section=ReportLevel1&Field=Level1ID&ID=354  (one line)

Part 3: High expectations about E-government

[menu]

The number of Americans using the Internet to find out about
government services has grown substantially since the Pew Internet
Project first inquired about this in March 2000. Then, 47% of
Internet users had sought information from state, local, or federal
government Web sites; that translated into about 40 million
Americans. By the summer of 2002, 62% of Internet users had done
this. With the growth in the Internet population during that time,
this means 71 million Americans had gone online to find government
information by mid-2002. The breadth of things surfers seek at
government Web sites is striking; people look for tourist
information, they download government forms, they check to see what
services are available, and they look for potential opportunities to
do business with government or handle their transactions like
applying for benefits or renewing car registrations.

With more Americans using the Web to find out more about their
government, this has had a kind of viral effect on people’s
expectations about online government information. All in all, 65% of
Americans expect to find government information online, with four out
of five Internet users expecting to find government information on
the Net.

Success is apparently breeding the high expectations among Americans
about the Web as a source of government information. About three
quarters (71%) of Internet users say that they “always” or “most of
the time” find what they are looking for when they go to a federal,
state, or local Web site. One in five (20%) say they always find what
they need at government Web sites.

A consequence of rising expectations about online government
information is that the Net is
becoming the first choice for most Internet users when it comes to
accessing government information. A small plurality of all Americans
say they would first turn to the Net for government information, and
nearly three in five Internet users say this. For those Internet
users who have gone to a government Web site (57% of online users),
three quarters (74%) say they will turn to the Internet first when
they next need government information.


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Steven L. Clift    -    W: http://www.publicus.net
Minneapolis    -   -   -     E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Minnesota  -   -   -   -   -    T: +1.612.822.8667
USA    -   -   -   -   -   -   -     ICQ: 13789183

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