Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Lesson 10 Challenge

I explored sanantonio.gov and usa.gov. Just glancing at the two, I have to say that the federal site has a much more clean, uncluttered presentation and is more inviting to browse. The sheer number of links on the sanantonio.gov home page can be overwhelming. It's great that the local government info is available, and the city's 311 services section is nice, but it certainly takes some time to learn to navigate it.


I'm not sure that government access and services are really at a level yet where they're "on the go." Government organizations don't have the motivation or the incentive that private app developers do, and their offerings are going to lag behind significantly. I think when we reach a point where government access can be easily accessible away from a computer, we're still reinforcing some privilege. Not everyone's going to have a smartphone or tablet and access to wireless internet or an abundance of data, and not everyone who has one knows how to use it (or all of the things it can be used for).


You can definitely see some engagement with "viral" trends on social media and in the news - like when John Oliver did his bit on net neutrality and the surge of comments was so big that it overwhelmed the FCC's website. However, it seems like these things are short-lived and easily forgotten. So while we might see surges of activism and engagement, I don't think there will be a sustained change in the way we interact with government.

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