Jane Fountain, professor of political science and public policy, was interviewed by Robert Rizzuto of the Springfield Republican for a feature story on the effect of social media on politics as an increasing number of politicians begin to reach out to their constituents via Twitter and Facebook.
“Technology has led a march toward transparency, and we now have a better view of what our elected officials are doing,” she said. “It is a good way for citizens to get more information about the process and see how it all works.”
The print edition of the article ran on March 15 on the front page of the Republican as part of Sunshine Week. For the web article, visit masslive.com.
Professor Fountain is the founder and Director of the National Center for Digital Government, which was established with support from the National Science Foundation to develop research and infrastructure for the emerging field information technology and governance. She also directs the Science, Technology and Society (STS) Initiative, a campus-wide effort based at the Center for Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts. The STS Initiative is designed to build social science, policy, and cross-disciplinary research on a range of social, political, and economic challenges posed by science and technology. Fountain is the Principal Investigator of the Ethics in Science and Engineering Online Resource Beta Site project and of the International Dimensions of Ethics in Science and Engineering project (IDEESE).
Fountain is the author of Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change (Brookings Institution Press, 2001), which was awarded an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice and has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. Her articles have been published in scholarly journals including Governance, Technology in Society, Science and Public Policy, the National Civic Review, and The Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery.