E-government discourses: An inductive analysis Mete Yıldız ⁎, Ayşegül Saylam Hacettepe Universitesi, Beytepe Yerleşkesi, İİBF Siyaset Bilimi ve Kamu Yönetimi Bölümü, 06800 Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey abstract article info Available online 15 February 2013 Keywords: E-government Discourse analysis Public value Government reform New public management European Union Turkey 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-government, and one can derive a feel for public sentiment about e-government 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 par- ticular, are influential in the presentation of e-government projects to the Turkish public through newspapers. © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The provision of government information and services, and opening of additional channels for political participation, transparency and ac- countability via information and communication technologies (ICTs) is defined as electronic or digital government. Means and Schneider (2000, p. 121) define e-government as the relationships between gov- ernments, their customers (businesses, other governments and citizens) and their suppliers (again, businesses, other governments and citizens) by the use of electronic means. E-government is not only comprised of and cannot be fully under- stood only by studying government web sites, the innovative ways of providing government information and services, the necessary tech- nical infrastructure, or the personnel who operate these technical and organizational systems. Students of e-government should also recognize and take into account the perceptions of e-government by the major stakeholders of this process, who are the citizens, businesses, government agencies, civil society organizations and political and ad- ministrative decision-makers. The processes through which the demand for e-government products (i.e., information and services), and the jus- tification for the use of resources for e-government projects, also need the attention of e-government scholars. Issues of demand of and justifi- cation for e-government are closely related to the public value that e-government produces. Therefore, discussions of e-government dis- courses are conducted in this article within the public value framework. This article offers a fresh perspective on e-government from a non-Western point of view by documenting the discourses of e- government used in Turkish newspapers. Understanding e-government discourses is crucial since these discourses represent contested visions of the e-government, and competing and complementing evaluations of public value emanating from e-government applications. Discourses presented in the media can be instrumental in creating demand and pro- viding justification for e-government projects. As West (2005, p. 13) aptly observes: Media coverage is important to the dissemination of new technology because it affects both how people think about technology and their receptivity to change. Reporting that is positive about technology en- courages people to be favorable to new creations. Given the importance of analyzing multiple discourses for a better understanding of the e-government construct, the objective of this paper is to empirically document the numerous and sometimes compet- ing discourses used in the media by examining the newspaper coverage of e-government in Turkey. The data analysis method is the content analysis of news and commentaries of all e-government projects in three major Turkish newspapers during 2010. Five positive and four negative e-government discourses are documented in this study. The final section of the article includes critical evaluation of the findings and suggestions for future research. 2. Brief literature review 2.1. Discourse The academic exploration of the discourse concept can be traced back to the discussions of Mannheim (1936) regarding the reproduction of knowledge and authority in a society. Gee (1999) defines discourse as what is typically sayable about a topic within the constraints of a given Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) 141–153 ⁎ Corresponding author. Fax: +90 312 2978740. E-mail address: myildiz@hacettepe.edu.tr (M. Yıldız). 0740-624X/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2012.10.007 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Government Information Quarterly journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/govinf