WEB-USE PATTERNS FOR CIVIC DISCOURSE

Abstract

This research examines communicative and interactive features of Mongolian-language civic-discourse web sites by applying the media typology models proposed by Bordewijk and Van Kaam and Van Dijk. Based on the results of the content analysis of Mongolian governmental and civil society institutions, this research provides (1) empirical evidence useful for understanding the role of the Internet in social and political practices; and (2) a plausible model for assessing interactive characteristics of civic-discourse web sites. The results of the study support the view that the Internet is mostly shaped by existing political and social settings and routines. This does not discount the fact that newly established structures such as diaspora networks, new media organizations and interest groups are becoming more resourceful in using the interactive features of the Internet to expand the civic discourse in the Mongolian language.

Keywords:

• web-use patterns
• civic discourse
• media typology
• civic institutions
• government institutions
• Mongolia
• content analysis

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank the reviewers of the article, John Borczon and Nancy Morris for valuable feedback, advice and support.

Notes

In 2000, the Government of Mongolia adopted ‘The Vision for Developing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Mongolia until 2010’ to increase transparency and openness in the country.

Historically, philosophical debates on citizenship emerge from three main perspectives: libertarian, emphasizing the citizen's personal autonomy and freedom of choice; republican, advocating dialogue and deliberation over public issues to solve common problems; and communitarian, highlighting the interest of historically specific and culturally different communities, self-realization and identity (Hoff et al. 2000).

Scholars conducted feature analysis of web sites (Ha & Lincoln 1998; Massey & Levy 1999; Cyberspace Policy Research Group 1999; Norris 2001; Deuze 2003; Mohammed 2004; Schneider & Foot 2004), and conducted surveys and interviews exploring users' perceptions of interactivity (Downes & McMillan 2000; McMillan 2002a; Jensen 2005; McMillan et al. 2008).

McMillan (2002a) refers to these patterns as responsive dialogue and feedback.

Given the purpose of the study, which explores the web use of Mongolian institutions, the web sites written in the traditional Mongolian alphabet, and the Russian language are not included. The traditional Mongolian script is used in Inner Mongolia, an autonomic region of China. The traditional Mongolian script or the uighur bichig is taught in schools in Mongolia; however, the Cyrillic alphabet remains official. The attempt to replace the Cyrillic alphabet with the uighur script by the Parliament proved to be unfeasible, given the economic downturn.

The word ‘Монгол’ (Mongolia) in the Cyrillic alphabet was chosen, avoiding an inconsistency in search results due to different Cyrillic alphabet standards.

The web sites that are set up for purely commercial, and entertainment purposes such as online shops, banks, music and sport web sites, as well as the web sites that were inaccessible or had secure access were eliminated from the sample.

The seed URL is a URL address to a front page of a web site. Frequently, domain names correspond to institutions' names and are located within the .mn domain – Mongolian country code domain name.

The variable ‘funding’ has categories: (1) Ads; (2) subscription; (3) organizational; (4) donor; and (5) others.

There are corresponding web interactivity categorizations by McMillan (2002a) and Jensen (2005); for the purpose of consistency, I will be using the categorization patterns by Bordewijk and Van Kaam (2002) throughout this paper.

Each of these indexes is derived from a cumulative score of seven variables grouped together into the four information traffic patterns and vary from 0 to 7 for each web site, as shown in Appendix A.