Title: US e-government headings and their ideology

Authors: Zhenglun Chen

Addresses: School of Foreign Languages, China West Normal University, 1 Shida Rd., Shunqing, Nanchong 637009, China

Abstract: The US e-government has continuously maintained a strong interest among researchers from different academic backgrounds. Although interdisciplinary studies have examined a wide range of themes on technology, content, performance and result, the political ideology of web content has been mostly left untouched. This study, therefore, randomly selected 160 US government websites to measure their political representation. However, instead of the extraction of texts from these websites, the first three levels of headings on these websites were surveyed. The results showed: i) significant differences between most variables of different tiers of e-governments; ii) the fact that the sequential major factors are e-services, political education, government performance and transparency. It is argued that the relations between different tiers of governments have been generally reflected in the e-governments, and that all the headings, showing mixed influences from various e-government theories, signify and promote an incontestable ideal of the American Dream in the virtual world.

Keywords: USA; United States; tiers of e-government; headings; differences; similarities; political ideology; electronic government; web content; US government websites; political representation; e-services; electronic services; political education; government performance; transparency; government services.

DOI: 10.1504/EG.2014.063311

Electronic Government, an International Journal, 2014 Vol.11 No.1/2, pp.16 - 38

Received: 05 Nov 2013
Accepted: 17 Feb 2014
Published online: 30 Apr 2015 *

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