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From Gov 1.0 to 2.0: a change in

users, too
Luigi Reggi

A study based on Eurostat data on ICT usage among individuals in Italy

demonstrates that current Web 2.0 users are not interested in
eGovernment, while eGovernment users are reluctant to be involved in
Gov 2.0 initiatives. A change of paradigm is needed to evolve from Gov
2.0 for policy wonks to large scale participation.

The figure in the summarizes one of the main findings of the Report on
Digital Divide among households in Italy commissioned by the Italian
Parliament and co-funded by all the major telecom companies operating in
the country (see this Abstract of Chapter 2 in English, or the full report in
Italian). Using data from Eurostat (year 2008), the study classifies the
users according to a number of Internet activities that they had
performed in the last 3 months.
Users tend to cluster into three main groups:

• the first group (in light green) tends to carry out quite traditional
web activities, such as on-line banking, information search or
eGovernment

• the second (in darker green) tries out new technologies mainly
devoted to communication and the web 2.0, i.e. blogging, social
networks, on-line gaming, listening to streaming music, etc.

• the third (in red) is composed of occasional users who did not do
any of the activities considered in the last 3 months

Looking at the personal characteristics of the people belonging to the

various groups, the data shows that age still plays a very important
role, following a pattern that could be thought of as a ‘digital circle of
life’ (purple line). Internet users, while starting this virtual cycle among
the occasional users when very young, tend to move to the innovation
adopters group at 16 to 25 years old, and then join the traditional group
once they reach middle age. The circle is eventually closed by virtue of the
fact that senior people belong to the occasional users group. As expected,
the level of education (blue line) is also positively correlated to the use of

1
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the Internet, but the arrows are pointing right to center of the web 1.0
cluster.

Today, who is Gov 2.0 for?

Once again data shows that, on average, digital natives seem to maintain
the monopoly of web 2.0, while traditional and bureaucratic on line services
are generally used by completely different people, namely well-educated
persons in their 30s or 40s.

The difference from 1.0 and 2.0 users is even more dramatic
considering e-government services. People who download public forms
or use advanced on line services (“sending filled in forms”, in Eurostat
vocabulary) are represented in the chart at the exact opposite of blogs
creators. They are different users, having different habits and showing
completely different ways to use the Internet. Gov 1.0 users do on-line
banking, read newspapers on line, etc. Maybe they have responsibilities,
have to pay taxes, find a new job and so on, but are probably not used to
Twitter, Ning or Second Life. On the contrary, Web 2.0 people are younger
and just want to communicate and play.

A tremendous change in service design is necessary to meet the needs

of web 2.0 people without leaving traditional users behind; a change of
paradigm in fact. New services have to be co-designed with 2.0 kind of
users, and a hacker mentality has to be promoted to loose the
boundaries between institutional bodies and society.

But today who is Gov 2.0 really for? David Osimo thinks that the existing
initiatives are just for elitists - designed, he says quoting the New York
Times, for Lisa Simpson, not for Bart - and that new tools are needed in
order to involve him, i.e. to enable large-scale participation. Using the
Simpsons to interpret the Eurostat data, Bart would be - well... he
actually is! - a teenager probably just not interested in political
participation and eGovernment services, or at least not yet. He would
know how to use 2.0 tools to interact with Government, but he prefers to
“play networked games with others” or to download illegal content on peer-
to-peer networks. And Lisa, where is she in the chart? Data shows what is
happening on average, and Lisa is therefore not considered. In fact, she is
absolutely an exception: she is politically involved, she cares about policies
(a policy wonk, someone said), while having the media literacy to be 2.0.

Time is probably going to help this. It is reasonable to expect that, as the

digital natives get older and new commodities and tools such as the iPad
spread, more Barts are going be turned into Lisas, and the hacker/wonk
mentality will eventually become more widespread. In the meantime, as
Alberto points out, it is better to be ruled by a few Lisas than by Mr. Burns.

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 Dimension 2
Creating or maintaing own blog
Playing networked games with others
15-17
Peer to peer
-1.0 11-14
18-19
6-10 Primary education
!! Downloading or watching movies
years !
old
!! Social Networking
Lic. media Downloading music
-0.5 Pre primary
!! education
Lower!!secondary ed.
!! 20-24 Reading
Downloading software
NO email NO seeking information Blogs

! Web 2.0 Activities

!! Finding information
0
!!
e-mail about education
No, I don’t use 25-34 !!
!
Looking for a job

TECHNOLOGY
the Internet for Upper secondary ed. !! !!
!!! finding information Reading newspapers
this activity more than !! !
about goods
74 years old
35-44 and services Seeking health-related information
65-74
!
60-64 45-54 eBanking
55-59 Post secondary
!! ed.
Obtaining information from Web 1.0 Activities
Policies

public authorities’ web sites

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Downloading official forms

Innovation

1.0

Sending filled in forms

1.0 0.5 0 -0.5 -1.0 -1.5
Dimension 1
USE

Source: Report on Digital Divide in Italy, Osservatorio “Il Futuro della Rete”, 2010
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About the chart

A multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) followed by a cluster analysis (CA) is
carried out in order to classify the users according to a number of Internet
activities that they had performed in the last 3 months.

• On the horizontal axis is represented the use of the Internet for specific
purposes: on the right are placed the individuals that do a lot of activities,
while on the left you find the people that answered “No” to the question
“Did you do this particular activity?”
• On the vertical axis is placed the type of technology used.
• The dimension of the circles is related to the number of people that did or
did not do a particular activity in the last three months.
• The arrows represent other personal characteristics: age (grouped in
intervals) and education levels.

In statistics, multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) is a data analysis technique

for nominal or categorical data, used to detect and represent underlying structures
in a data set. It does this by representing data as points in a low-dimensional
Euclidean space. The procedure thus appears to be the counterpart of principal
component analysis for categorical data (source: Wikipedia).