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Digital Cities Web Marketing Strategies in Italy: The Path Towards Citizen Empowerment

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E-Business and Telecommunications (ICETE 2013)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 456))

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Abstract

The concept of ‘digital city’ has been introduced as a strategic way of designing a city by highlighting, in particular, the importance of Information and Communication Technologies. Nowadays the performance of our cities depends only in small part on its infrastructure, as an increasing importance is given to the availability, quality and delivery of public services. In this context, citizens have new expectations based on involvement, collaboration and participation. The aim in managing a city becomes making citizens actors in the decision making process creating engagement and involvement, providing ways of direct relationships with politicians and civil servants.

This paper attempts on the one hand to assess the web strategies of Italian municipalities to see their level of “citizen empowerment” by adopting a revised version of the Citizens Web Empowerment Index (CWEI) designed to benchmark administrations’ official web portals – and on the other hand, to present some best practices: initiatives which, according to the CWEI, allow the creation of empowerment by answering at citizens’ needs.

The analysis was made on the web portals of the 104 Italian cities with over 60,000 inhabitants in 2012 and 2013. Results show a low level of the indicator which testifies that the path towards citizen empowerment is still long. Despite this, the good examples spread around the country allow to believe in a close future where marketing strategies will be more and more oriented towards empowerment creation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CERMES, Department of Marketing, Bocconi University, Via Roentgen 1, 20136, Milan, Italy

    Elena Bellio & Luca Buccoliero

Authors
  1. Elena Bellio
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  2. Luca Buccoliero
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Correspondence to Elena Bellio .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Monmouth University, West Long Branch, New Jersey, USA

    Mohammad S. Obaidat

  2. Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal, INSTICC, Setúbal, Portugal

    Joaquim Filipe

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Bellio, E., Buccoliero, L. (2014). Digital Cities Web Marketing Strategies in Italy: The Path Towards Citizen Empowerment. In: Obaidat, M., Filipe, J. (eds) E-Business and Telecommunications. ICETE 2013. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 456. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44788-8_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44788-8_9

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-44787-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-44788-8

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