Local Government Website and its influence to public information services :: Case study of Sumbawa Local Government, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

NUSANTARA H., E.S. Adi, Dr. Leon van den Dool, dan Prof.Ir. A. Djunaedi, MUP.,Ph.D

2007 | Tesis | Magister Perencanaan Kota dan Daerah

Penelitian ini mencoba menginvestigasi pengaruh dari eksistensi website pemerintah daerah terutama dalam hal rangka penyediaan layanan informasi kepada publik di kabupaten Sumbawa serta factor-faktor yang berpengaruh terhadap efektifitas layanan informasi yang disediakan oleh website pemerintah kabupaten Sumbawa. Bentuk penelitian ini adalah preskriptif kuantitatif - kualitatif yang menggabungkan survey dengan sample 70 responden pengguna internet di kota Sumbawa Besar serta interview dengan beberapa pihak yang mengetahui langsung proyek e-government di kabupaten Sumbawa serta ahli yang berkompeten dengan masalah-masalah e-government. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa keberadaan website pemerintah kabupaten Sumbawa telah membawa manfaat terhadap ketersediaan layanan informasi bagi masyarakat setempat, meski belum sepenuhnya memuaskan. Beberapa faktor yang diasumsikan sebagai faktor yang berperan terhadap efektifitas website sebagai layanan informasi publik terbukti cukup signifikan pengaruhnya. Masih terdapat beberapa faktor yang memungkinkan inisiatif e-government secara umum sedangkan beberapa faktor lain terlihat menjadi faktor pengendali. Penelitian sampai pada kesimpulan bahwa web-site pemerintah sebagai inisiatif e-government mempunyai keunggulan, yaitu terhadap masyarakat pengguna dalam hal memberikan penerangan kepada masyarakat mengenai informasi penting berkaitan dengan kegiatan pemerintah sebagai media akuntabilitas. Masyarakat sadar bahwa pemerintah daerah setidaknya harus menginformasikan kegiatan-kegiatan yang benar-benar dilakukan. Disarankan, pemerintah daerah mengedepankan layanan maksimal kepada masyarakat, dengan menggunakan berbagai media interaksi dan layanan informasi.

Local government website is one of the media through which the citizens and local government interact. With the advancement of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), nowadays local government can bring new way of interaction by providing information service to citizens. The availability, informativity as well as usability of information should be well-tailored in order to maximize the benefit of information provided to citizens. As a gate of the local government, local government website may be affected by several surrounding factors that may be enabling or inhibiting to be effective in providing information services. Several factors been identified and classified into two dimensions: internal factors and external factors. Internal factors are those factors that inherent within the local government bodies; meanwhile external factors are those factors that come from external environments of local government that have effects to the e-government initiative in general. The focus of this research is to evaluate whether the public information services provide through the local government website has a significant benefit to its intended audience, in this case the citizens of Sumbawa District. Data collection is conducted by means of survey and interview. The survey is conducted by means of employing a fellow participant because the researcher can not do the survey by himself due to time and distant limitation; meanwhile interview is conducted by the researcher himself by means of electronic mailing. The survey result shown that to some extent the local government website of Sumbawa District has already brought some benefit to its intended audience, though it’s not fully satisfying. Several factors mentioned as factors that influence the provision of public information services have proven to be quite significant to some extent. Yet, there are some to be the enabling factors while others seems to be restraining factors to e-government initiative in general. This research finally arrived at conclusion that local government website as an e-government initiative has an advantage to its intended audience in terms of enlightening the citizens with important information related to government daily activities as medium for accountability. Citizens are aware that local government should at least inform the citizens on what they really doing. And, the recommendations are that the local government should take into account that whatever media for interaction or service delivery may be used, the benefit should be at maximum to citizens.

Kata Kunci : E-Government, website pemerintah, layanan informasi, Government website, public information service