E-government discourses: An inductive analysis

This article offers a new perspective on e-government by documenting the categories of e-government discourses, and evaluating them within a public value framework Understanding e-government discourses is significant, since these discourses represent contested visions of e-govemment, and one can derive a feel for public sentiment about e-govemment from the discourses used in the media. The findings are accumulated through an inductive analysis of 85 newspaper articles, published during the year of 2010, in three top-selling, ideologically different, nationally circulating Turkish newspapers. In these 85 articles, 98 discourses presented by 90 policy actors are found. Five positive and four negative discourse categories and their relationships emerged from the analysis of the data. The results show that, government reform efforts shaped by the New Public Management movement and Turkey's harmonization efforts with the global political system in general, and with the European Union in particular, are influential in the presentation of e-govemment projects to the Turkish public through newspapers. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.