New Avenues of Participation in Society and Government: Do I Make a Difference?

In many cases people have a desire to contribute, but are not sure how. This is often manifest

after natural disasters when empathy can overtake logic, leading to the provision of unnecessary

supplies that clog up scarce transportation channels. The advent of the Internet has enabled a

more coordinated effort where volunteers find meaningful ways to directly contribute, such as

offering their home to those affected by Hurricane Katrina or helping join families that were

separated. More generally, smart governance infrastructures support clear and meaningful

individual contributions that can be aggregated in useful ways.

- Johnson and Hansen, "Design Lessons for Smart Governance Infrastructures." p. 11

I like this quote because I too am one of these people - someone who wants to do so much more but doesn't know where to begin. I think that is a big issue in society today: people see problems but don't know how to fix them. If a problem is so large that it will obviously take several people and lots of time to fix, many times no one does anything. But, through avenues of e-Participation, we can find ways to help.

For example, I was fascinated by the grains of rice that Free Rice will donate just for answering some simple questions. I could spend hours doing that and feel good knowing my time wasn't wasted and actually promoted good. This is just a small something, but if everyone did it (even just 100 grains as asked), that would add up. Whoever started that site didn't just want to do good, but implemented the ideas to do so.

I think even with the Internet, people are scared to get involved. Maybe it's issues of privacy (as Lessig discusses, anything on the Internet can in essence be traced). Still, using the Internet is a good way to do anonymous acts of kindness (like with donating to natural disasters or local families who face tragedy and have an account to donate money).

Personally I think e-Participation should be taken further to reach more people. As mentioned in this module, a minority of people do the majority of work. Could it be that there are more people who want to be involved but aren't because they feel inadequate? What about "advertising"? That is, how many people really know these e-Participation avenues are out there? Similar to the last module, I fear that most people not only fail to access information that is out there because they do not know it's out there, but they miss out on opportunities to get involved as well.

I've really enjoyed this class thus far in learning about the various avenues through which to get involved. Before taking this class I had no idea so much was available to "'lil ol' me" ... but now I feel somewhat empowered and able to get involved. If I choose not to do so now, I suppose I only have myself to blame. I can't say that I didn't know HOW to do it.

In response to the question of how people can get involved in government, I think that people first need to be aware of government--their actions/in-actions as well as the issues they face. People should get involved by visiting sites like whitehouse.gov and data.gov in addition to their own state's sites to get informed. Further, I think people need to learn about the issues they vote on in combination of who they vote for. Personally, I feel too many people vote "blindly" either voting by party (to hold the party in office accountable) or by voting for who their friends/advertisements encourage them to vote for. Each person should "own up" and make their own voice heard. Will they? I don't know that that will ever change. Further, I'm not certain that as government makes themselves more and more "open" online that people will respond as expected. Sure, the opportunity is there, but will people take it? Only time will tell. For me, personally, I want to get involved and know what's going on. e-Governement and e-Participation is only going to make that easier for me. I guess what I'm trying to say is that those who don't want to find information or be involved will still be "in the dark" no matter how far technology takes us to new levels of participation in government (e.g. some people still prefer to renew their drivers' licenses in person rather than online because of preference). Yet, for others  government issues will finally be accessible and perhaps they will not just feel they make a difference, but see the results of their actions on a larger scale.