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Showing posts from March, 2010

Public Administration Pedagogy

Authors: Jack Rabin, W. Bartley Hildreth, Gerald Miller  The history of pedagogy in public administration in many ways is a mirror image of the history of public administration itself. All the elements of growth, diversification, change, and turbulence that have characterized the evolving field of public administration are present in its academic component as well. Public service education has been repeatedly shaped and reshaped, responding to the spirit and ethos of each era through which it passed. As a consequence, the educational enterprise, much like the field itself, has been built upon a succession of layers, an additive process through which new, competing, contradictory, and often incompatible themes nonetheless maintain a close, if unieasy coexistence. Historical depiction, therefore, takes on something of an archaeological quality. Each historical period represents a separate stratum, peripherally related to those above and below, but largely independent. Each, however,

Participatory Communication

Author: Thomas Tufte, Paolo Mefalopulos The vision of using new technologies to pursue better lives for humankind has always existed, and i was reinforced throughout the 20th century with each new technological advancement. In 1927 the German author Bertolt Brecht formulated a "radio theory" in which he envisioned the new technology, the radio, as a dialogical instrument for change: "Change this apparatus over from distribution to communication... On this principle the radio should step out of the supply business and organize its listeners as suppliers" (Brecht 1927). It was many ways a precursor to the theory and practice of participatory communication, as well as of interactive media such as the internet. In the years that followed Brecht's early vision, the radio lost its dialogic potential as it developed into mass mediated broadcasting instrument. However, today's rapid spread of community radio, as well as the growth of digital radio and inte

Political opinion leadership and advertisement attitude: The moderating roles of cognitive and affective responses to political messages

Author: Beth Harben , Soyoung Kim   Political opinion leadership is a type of viewer involvement measure that may be relevant to predicting the viewer's attitude toward an advertisement with political content. This study was designed to investigate if cognitive and affective responses to political messages in fashion advertisements play any moderating roles in the relationship between political opinion leadership and advertisement attitude. The results suggest that effectiveness of political content in the advertisement for politically involved consumers may be determined by how clearly the message is communicated to the viewers. Discussions were also made as to the distinction between textual and pictorial messages and to how the viewer's recognition of a pictorial message can be a factor affecting the impact of political opinion leadership on attitude toward advertisement with political content.   Outline of discussion: -Political opinion leadership and politi

Attaining Social Value from Electronic Government

Michael Grimsley (Sheffield Hallam University, UK) and Anthony Mehan (Open University, UK) Expectations of electronic government (e-government) go beyond mere customer satisfaction – they encompass a desire for much broader social outcomes, such as social inclusion, community development, well-being and sustainability. Equally, citizens attach value to the entitlements of others, for example, in respect of the quality of health care, threshold standards of education, and access to civil and criminal justice. Attainment of these socio-political and socio-economic goals through e-government depends both upon development of appropriate evaluative measures which meaningfully link service provision to strategic outcomes, and upon systems being designed to generate and sustain high levels of citizen engagement with electronically-mediated access to government and public services. In this paper we define and elaborate a Social Value framework supporting e

Strategies for Orchestrating and Managing Supply Chains in Public Service Networks

Anne Fleur van Veenstra, Marijn Janssen and Bram Klievink Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Joining-up is high on the e-government agenda as this is expected to improve service delivery to citizens and businesses. It requires public and private organizations to cooperate with each other within networks that are formed around public services that cross the boundaries of organizations. Cross-organizational processes in such a network are called supply chains, aimed at delivering integrated services. The performance of each individual organization within the network influences aspects such as lead-time and quality of services delivered. In order to effectively integrate the efforts of the various organizations involved, a strategy needs to be in place to orchestrate and manage a service delivery chain. Various types of strategies can be employed. Yet little knowledge is available about which strategies are effective under which circumstances. In this p