5 Paradigm Shifts identified for the European Commission

In line with one of the objectives of the Internet Strategy ‘Communicating about Europe via the internet – Involving the citizens’, the web portal EUROPA, the internet site of the European Union, will play a major role. It must be aligned with today’s internet usage by European surfers: share information, news and opinion, crowd-source Web tools and software, download and upload music and movies, engage in conversations and participative democracy.

In that context, the European Commission’s department for Communication has required us to realise a study to make an overview of the most currently used, and trends in, interactive web tools and to assess their feasibility and usability on EUROPA.

Methodology

We have developed a 5-step methodology aiming at delivering a quick and qualitative report on the way the European Union could take the most of current web interactive tools (also known as ‘2.0’).

The 5-step methodology developed for the mission

The methodology sequence first foresaw a mapping of existing and emerging interactive tools that are likely to cover the main activities allowed on the Web. Once the list established and the mapping drawn, each tool was described and roughly assessed in relation to an institutional context throughout Europe (WP2). The tools were then rated (WP3) according to their costs (they are evaluated according to the money and energy they would require if implemented) and benefits (they were confronted to the primary and secondary objectives followed by the Commission’s programs around citizens’ engagement and involvement through the Web). Recommendations and presentations were delivered in WP4 and 5.

Key observations from WP2

We listed and described the interactive tools available on and for the Web, and we positioned them according to the potential they contain in terms of institutional usage. We call potential the tools’ consistency towards the generic objectives of an institutional activity on the Web (in general, not yet related to EUROPA). We call institutional usage all electronic, digital activities likely to be operated by a governmental institution (communication, diffusion, documentation, conversation, transaction, inventory, etc).

The reviewed tools have appeared in the web landscape for a reason, if not necessarily for a purpose. Understanding the underlying forces and evolutions that have led to their emergence is key in order to delineate a path out of a vast array of considerations. By putting into perspective all the changes that these tools embody, and by detecting patterns from our analysis grid, we can see a series of paradigm shifts that will make web communication in the next 10 years very different from what it was in the past decade. We have captured this in the five paradigms shifts below. Each of them is rephrased and exemplified as statements.

1. The landscape of visibility has evolved: The flow of information on the Internet follows many paths and patterns, some well known, and some that have evolved (or even appeared) in the past couple of years. It is well known that a limited share of visitors come directly to the website; most of them arrive by indirect ways. For the last decade, the major pathway was known to be search engine. This is changing, in the following ways.

2. Individuals act as human neurons: The previous paradigm of institutional communication was pyramidal: the all-powerful originator at the top was broadcasting its message to the passive, receiving base. Now, the trends of web 2.0 make us realize that the base of the pyramid has a life of its own: that it reacts, shares, and becomes more and more independent from the top. Many tools from our review enhance this capacity of users to become part of the conversation.

3. Enabling plasticity enhances the information ecosystem: Content providers used to think that they would communicate better by controlling every detail of their communication, website, etc. Recent history has shown to the contrary that by being open, by making data or information available in a format that lends itself to be recycled or manipulated, spreading of information is improved.

4. Communication takes more than a web page: The page was the natural paradigm when the web first appeared, and for good reason. There was a main flow of text, and a few menu links. Now the layout of pages make room for all sorts of areas.

5. Communication takes more than a web page: Of course, the notion of a dynamic website dates back to the early days when web development moved beyond static websites. Still, the influence of time on the web has radically changed in the past couple of years, and needs to be taken into account in a new way.

Each of those paradigms will be discussed in additional posts to be published in the coming days.

The following people have participated to this analysis: Serge Fontinoy, Laurent Kinet and Roald Sieberath.