Books by Lori Brainard
Despite a broad political environment conducive to deregulation, television is one industry that ... more Despite a broad political environment conducive to deregulation, television is one industry that consistently fails to loosen government's regulatory grip. To explain why, Lori Brainard explores the technological changes, industry structures, and political dynamics influencing this policy quagmire.
Contradicting current scholarly and popular accounts, Brainard demonstrates that new technologies do not determine policy outcomes, nor does the television industry always get its own way in the policy arena—in fact, public interest groups have been unusually successful at influencing television policy over the last thirty years. She concludes that the multifaceted political and social contexts in which television exists have resulted in incremental and incomplete deregulation punctuated by numerous episodes of reregulation and institutional warfare—thwarting all attempts at dramatice and decisive reform.
Refereed Articles by Lori Brainard
International Journal of Public Sector Manager, 2019
Most public affairs programs have some form of director, but we do not know the full scope of the... more Most public affairs programs have some form of director, but we do not know the full scope of the program director’s role. This article thus asks, What tasks and duties does a program director perform? What aspects of the role are most satisfying to those performing it? What aspects of the role present challenges? Based on survey data, we conclude that female program directors are more likely to engage with advisory boards, while males are typically more satis ed in their role. Those currently in the position are less likely than former directors to work on nancial aid. There also appear to be differences in how program size relates to the tasks and duties of the program director, to compensation, and to maintenance of a research agenda. Finally, we draw lessons for prospective program directors and for chairs and deans who have in uence on how this role is structured.
In recent decades, scholars and politicians have concerned themselves with how to more robustly e... more In recent decades, scholars and politicians have concerned themselves with how to more robustly engage people in public life. “Internet Utopians” have looked to various web technologies, including social media, to be helpful; even transformative. This article looks at extant research on which technologies governments in the US use, whether their use of technologies facilitates offline and online civic engagement, and the extent to which the government-citizen relationship has changed or may be changing. For Internet Utopians the picture is dismal, though not without some bright spots. This article ends with areas for future research.
Social media technologies present a new way for government agencies to connect with, and potentia... more Social media technologies present a new way for government agencies to connect with, and potentially collaborate with, their residents. Police departments (PDs) are a setting ripe for use of social media as an extension of their community policing efforts. In this article, we explore the use of social media by PDs in the top 10 most populous U.S. cities. We analyze police-initiated posts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube over a 3-month period to determine what accounts PDs use, if they use social media for information transmission or interaction, and if they use the accounts for dialogue that might make collaboration possible. We find that while PDs have and use social media, and while citizens are responsive, there is much less interaction in part due to nonresponsiveness of PDs themselves. We thus conclude that though the existence of some PD-resident dialogue is promising, very little was collaborative.
American Review of Public Administration, Mar 2014
In recent years, scholars and practitioners have bemoaned the decline in public life. The "common... more In recent years, scholars and practitioners have bemoaned the decline in public life. The "commons," as the worry goes, is shrinking. The article investigates the effort by the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department (DC MPD) to facilitate an electronic commons in which residents and police department personnel can work together, via online discussion groups, to address crime and safety issues. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, the article analyzes the threads originating between July 2005 and December 2007 to answer two research questions. Do the online discussion groups fulfill the spirit of an electronic commons? What is the nature of the online relationship between the police and the community? The findings show that although DC MPD has created an avenue for online discussion, it has had mixed success in creating an electronic commons. Insights are provided for public administrators for fostering social media to create an electronic commons, and suggestions for future scholarship.
Public administration theory and practice suggest that e-government, citizen participation, and g... more Public administration theory and practice suggest that e-government, citizen participation, and government–citizen collaboration are contributing to a movement toward New Public Service—as opposed to Old Public Administration and New Public Management. We explore this by focusing on the relationship between the Washington, D.C., police and local residents via online discussion groups. We ask, How do police interact with citizens virtually? How are these interactions structured? and Are they informational, transactional, or collaborative? Using descriptive data and thread analysis, and drawing distinctions between districts, we conclude that the bulk of activity is informational, a fair amount of activity is transactional, and less activity is collaborative. Thus, the relationship most closely approximates Old Public Administration, rather than New Public Management or New Public Service. The evidence offers some cause for hope for the future of police–community relations in virtual space and ideas for future research.
Administration & Society, Jan 1, 2010
Page 1. Administration & Society 42(7) 836 858 © 2010 SAGE Publications DOI: 10.1177/0095399... more Page 1. Administration & Society 42(7) 836 858 © 2010 SAGE Publications DOI: 10.1177/0095399710386308 http://aas.sagepub.com Virtual Government Citizen Relations: Informational, Transactional, or Collaborative? Lori A. Brainard1 and John G. McNutt2 ...
International Journal of Public …, Jan 1, 2006
International Journal of Public Administration, 2006
Conventional wisdom holds that globalization, and its specific contributing factors such as immig... more Conventional wisdom holds that globalization, and its specific contributing factors such as immigration, information technology, and the emergence of universal values that inform international law, poses a challenge to state sovereignty. This article analyzes this assertion by examining one case, which encompasses each of these factors. Following a review of the literature, this article describes the efforts, using information and
Focus on Law studies, Jan 1, 2004
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector …, Jan 1, 2004
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Sep 2004
This article identifies two models of nonprofit organization roles: the economic model, which emp... more This article identifies two models of nonprofit organization roles: the economic model, which emphasizes business-like methods, and the voluntary spirit model, which emphasizes participation and membership. Highly visible, professional nonprofit organizations must constantly struggle with the extent to which they are to emphasize their role as efficient and competitive economic actors or their role as institutions important to our democracy. After years of shifting toward the economic model, professional nonprofits may be ripe for reform. Simultaneously, they are confronting and engaging with the Internet. This article draws on examples of health-based citizen cyber-organizations to derive lessons for how professional nonprofit organizations can recapture their voluntary spirit generally and places an emphasis on participation and membership. Also derived are specific lessons on how professional nonprofits can use cyber-strategies to do so.
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector …, Jan 1, 2004
American Review of Public Administration, Jan 1, 2003
Administration & Society, Jan 1, 2002
Page 1. http://aas.sagepub.com/ Administration & Society http://aas.sagepub.com/ content/... more Page 1. http://aas.sagepub.com/ Administration & Society http://aas.sagepub.com/ content/34/2/141 The online version of this article can be found at: DOI: 10.1177/0095399702034002002 2002 34: 141 Administration & Society ...
Public Administration and …, Jan 1, 2002
Page 1. public administration and development Public Admin. Dev. 22, 6372 (2002) Published onlin... more Page 1. public administration and development Public Admin. Dev. 22, 6372 (2002) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.207 THE INTERNET AND NGOGOVERNMENT RELATIONS: INJECTING CHAOS INTO ORDER ...
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Books by Lori Brainard
Contradicting current scholarly and popular accounts, Brainard demonstrates that new technologies do not determine policy outcomes, nor does the television industry always get its own way in the policy arena—in fact, public interest groups have been unusually successful at influencing television policy over the last thirty years. She concludes that the multifaceted political and social contexts in which television exists have resulted in incremental and incomplete deregulation punctuated by numerous episodes of reregulation and institutional warfare—thwarting all attempts at dramatice and decisive reform.
Refereed Articles by Lori Brainard
Contradicting current scholarly and popular accounts, Brainard demonstrates that new technologies do not determine policy outcomes, nor does the television industry always get its own way in the policy arena—in fact, public interest groups have been unusually successful at influencing television policy over the last thirty years. She concludes that the multifaceted political and social contexts in which television exists have resulted in incremental and incomplete deregulation punctuated by numerous episodes of reregulation and institutional warfare—thwarting all attempts at dramatice and decisive reform.
Narrative
In recent years, scholars and practitioners of public administration/public policy, as well as public leaders more generally, have bemoaned the decline in public life. Active citizenship is said to be weakening, public life diminishing, government-citizen relations disintegrating and deliberation thinning (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2007, 2000; King & Stivers, 1998; Putnam, 2000). In response, scholars have begun to argue that public servants of all stripes bear a responsibility for facilitating and/or attempting a cure for these ills. Thus, Nabatchi (2010) argues that the field “should refocus its attention on the role of citizens in the work of government” (p. 376; see also Box 1998).
Simultaneously, new technologies have arisen that allow government agencies and citizens to be in frequent and, perhaps, closer contact. While the first wave of Internet development leveraged email and electronic commerce to pursue efficiencies in the business of governing, this second wave—focused on social media, such as Facebook, online discussion groups and the like—holds the possibility for enhancing engagement between government agencies and citizens/residents (Svara and Denhardt 2010). This focus on social media allows citizens to contribute their own content online, thus bridging a communication gap between agencies and citizens/residents.
Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether participation in electoral campaigns and dramatic public crises made possible by technology can translate into participation and engagement via technology in day-to-day governance. Agencies at the federal level are experimenting with on-line interaction with their clients and stakeholders (Chang and Kannan, 2008; Stowers, 2002). Much less is being done at the local level—especially within and by police departments (typically hierarchical organizations based on authority rather than relationship building). Nevertheless, police departments are beginning to experiment with technology in their attempt to engage and collaborate with citizens across agency and authority-based boundaries as part of their community policing effort (see, for example, Brainard and McNutt, 2010), which emphasizes collaboration between officers, citizens and stakeholders (Cordner, 1997; Allender 2004; Cheurprakobkit 2002; Colvin and Goh 2006).
As these attempts at collaborating with citizens have increased, the Gov 2.0 movement of scholars and practitioners has emerged as an attempt to create new models of communication and collaboration between government agencies and the people. In order to do this, the movement goes one step further than mere communication by applying technology to solve big challenges that face government agencies, effectively rethinking how these agencies perform their missions and serve citizens (Gov 2.0 Summit, 2010). The Gov 2.0 movement is characterized by an increase in citizen involvement in governance, as agencies use social media to engage citizens directly in the problem solving process. By submitting a problem to citizens through crowdsourcing, government agencies can engage citizens/residents, save money and, perhaps, improve efficiency. Recently the Library of Congress has asked citizens to help label a backlog of historical photos through an online micro-volunteering site (Library of Congress, 2008). Also, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has developed an application that allows for citizens with the necessary background to review patent applications and help address the backlog of applications (USPTO, 2011).
This project investigates the extent and nature of the use of social media technologies by the top 10 U.S. municipal PDs to engage with their residents and citizens. The project’s goal is to determine how the police departments use these technologies in pursuit of their agency mission, for participation through social media or co-creation through Gov 2.0 technologies. Research questions (RQs) for the project include:
RQ1: Which of the Web 2.0 sites/components do the top 10 municipal police departments in the U.S. use?
RQ2: Are they used for information transmission or interaction?
RQ3: Of the PDs that use social media for interaction, is that interaction transactional (Web 2.0) or collaborative (Gov 2.0)?
RQ4: Of the police departments that are achieving collaboration through interactional social media, what innovative practices (besides the application of technology) enable them to do that?
The study will draw on documentary analysis, interviews, and thread/conversation analysis (both quantitative and interpretive/qualitative), previously used by the authors, to investigate these questions.
This project will provide increased understanding of how PDs are using social media technology to connect with their citizens. It will also demonstrate innovative practices that PDs are employing.