Information and Communication Technology for Government by Design: The New Digital Media, Actors, Creative Influences, and Fields of Play

Much has been written about the application of the new digital media to government within a growing stream of literature on ICT for development, generating countervailing perspectives where optimistic, technocratic approaches are countered by far more sceptical standpoints on technological innovation. This chapter seeks to, through the use of a case study, unravel the social dynamics shaping e-government projects used to reform public sector institutions. In particular, the research analyses actor behaviour, motivations, and interactions surrounding the conception and maintenance of software platforms facilitating these transformations. The value of such an approach is based on a review of existing ICT and software development literature which tends to be overly systems-rational in its approach and, as a consequence, often fails to recognise the degree to which project failure (viz. the general inability of the project design to meet stated goals and resolve both predicted and emerging problems) is symptomatic of a broader, much more complex set of interrelated inequalities, unresolved problems, and lopsided power-relationships both within the adopting organisation and in the surrounding environmental context.