Digital Governance and the Digital Divide: A Matrix of the Poor’s Vulnerabilities

Although Internet penetration has reached 64.8% of the Indonesia population (APJII, 2019), the digital divide still remains a major issue for Indonesia, especially among the poor. This paper aimed to study and explain the risks of digital governance implementation in the poverty reduction policies, with the study on how the poor obtains and shares public information in the digital governance era as the focal point. This study was conducted in Magelang City, Central Java Province, in Indonesia, a city which has been awarded with the Smart City Award. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and a social network analysis. The study found that some of the impoverished populations are adapting to the digital governance with the help of the social network in their community; and yet, some of them are still digitally alienated. They have been at risk of becoming marginalized both socially and economically. This paper suggested further studies focusing on the information demand among the poor and the use of new communication technology in the poverty-reduction policy-making that is inclusive.


Rutiana Dwi Wahyunengseh
is a lecturer and researcher in public administration. She obtained her Doctorate in Public Policy and Management, from Universitas Gadjah Mada Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2016. Rutiana Dwi Wahyunengseh has research interests in the areas of local governmental and regional development policy and poverty. She is also involved as a trainer for the Training for Government Planners. The vulnerable risk intended is anything that has been or will be potentially encountered by poor groups in relation to the digital divide. The digital divide represents the gap between individual, household, business, and geographical area at different social-economic level related to their opportunity of accessing information and communication technology (ICT), and in the term of Internet use for various activities (Sparks, 2013). The approach used for analysis is information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) models combined with a sustainable livelihood (SL) analysis to portray the vulnerability of poor populations in the research location in the digital government era. The basic premis of this paper is as follow: Communication can effect developmental changes in societies, both reinforcing and attenuating (increasing the vulnerability risk).

Sri Hastjarjo
The theoretical objective of article is to map the forms of poverty risk to be faced by the poor group in relation to digital government development. The novelty of the article lies in the formulation of a poverty risk matrix resulting from poverty alleviation policies in government era 4.0 using the ICT4D model. The researchers calls it novelty because it argues the mainstream preposition mentioning that the expansion of ICT penetration impacting on the improved welfare of society, thereby reducing the proportion of the poor population (Viodeogo, 2019). Previous literature studies on ICT use in governmental service or digital governance defines digital government is the platform for members of society to access governmental information International Division of the Faculty of Economics and Business, UNS. she has strong international research collaborations with colleagues from Australia and Asia. She received an international research grant from the Australian National University on their study of regional skill differentials, and the project has successfully published a paper in the Singapore Economic Review.

Didik G. Suharto
is a lecturer at the Public Administration Program, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Sebelas Maret University in 2003. He become the head of a study program in the master of public administration from 2015-2023. He pursued his doctorate in Administrative Science, Brawijaya University, in 2012. He actively works as a speaker for various international and national conferences and has produced several writings in the form of book and academic journals on local government. and service anywhere, anytime, and using any devices and encourages the public participation in decision making so that government is more accountable, transparent, and effective (Unesco, 2011;Björklund, 2016;Kelleher, 2017;Gil-Garciaa, Dawesa, Pardoa, 2018). Digital government ascertains ICT use for communication, information, public service, and development governance (Sanders, Crespo, andBacha, 2011, Wolfson &Funke, 2013). Digital government emphasizes public participation in collecting and utilizing Internet-based data and social networking applications to expand public service inclusiveness (Milakovich, 2014;Wolfson, Crowell, Reyes, & Bach, 2017;Johansson & Raunio, 2019 (Powell, Bryne & Dailey, 2010;Milakovich, 2014).
Although the use of Internet-based information technology has penetrated into public service area in Indonesia more broadly, however on the other hand 34.2% of population encounter digital divide (CNNIndonesia.com, 2019;Kompas.com, 2019;Skipper, 2019). Factors resulting in digital divide are: accessibility, bandwidth size, human resource competency quality, and willingness to use (May & Dhiga, 2015;Chetty et al., 2018). Digital divide potentially results in new gap called digital poverty (Powell., Bryne, & Dailey,2010;Flor, 2014;Desmod, 2015;Njoki & Wabwoba, 2015;Bach, 2018). Poverty needs multidimensional lens to study, including communication and information theoretical lenses.
The poor group's limited access to information on social networks potentially marginalizes more that same group. Communication exchange theory assumes that people communicate with each other due to the presence of resources needed and searched for that can be fulfilled by certain people. increasing income opportunity and reducing gap (May, Dutton and Munykazi, 2014;Yulmaz, et al., 2018). Another variable related to the role of ICT in reducing poverty is education level, age, and location of the village/city (Urean et al., 2016).
In other words, in certain groups with limited access to ICT, they instead experience the risk of marginalization and disadvantagedness in an attempt to reduce poverty.
ICT is useful in facilitating the government to involve the participation of stakeholders broadly in implementing the poverty alleviation policy if it is operated in an appropriate policy environment (Kelles-, 2003;Harris, 2005). Government accountability mechanism). So the good criteria of communication mechanism from government to the public can be seen from: (i) whether or not a system is available for providing the latest information on public service; (ii) whether or not information is available on government-priority programs and projects; (iii) whether or not public space is available to express idea/opinion, consult, monitor, criticize and make an evaluation (Prabhakaran & Kalyani, 2014;Kozma & Vota, 2014;Rauchfleisch, 2017).   Source: Adopted from The Hague framework (Flor, 2015) with some modification

Results and Discussion
This section is meant to address the research problem related to poor group's risk and strategy of developing informational life in the digital government era. This description follows

Framework of ICT4D analysis for Poverty Alleviation Policy
Source: Adopted from The Hague framework (Flor, 2015) with some modification Data regarding the application of digital government is explored using the content analysis method from OPD's (Regional Government Organization) website and social media accounts.
This research was also equipped with a focus group discussion with governmental apparatuses for the triangulation of research results obtained and confirming the data interpretation made by the researcher. In addition, the presentation of analysis result was conducted using the information communication for development (ICT4D) model combined with sustainable livelihood (SL). The adopted ICT4D framework is illustrated in Figure 1.

Results and Discussion
This section is meant to address the research problem related to poor group's risk and strategy of developing informational life in the digital government era. This description follows the ICT4D model (Figure 1). Strategic intervention impacting on the improved Table 1.

Type of Service Information 1 DataGo and Portal Open Data
To publish sectoral data 2 KISSME (Online Column for information on Community's Social Welfare) containing information on poverty data and poverty programs.

Free Wi-Fi in public places
Providing Internet access to the public. 4 City government's official Facebook and Twitter Account To communicate, to disseminate information, and to accommodate people's complaints (e.g. "Monggo Lapor" channel in Facebook). 5 Android-based digital ("Magelang Cerdas" application) Integrating several services into one portal that has been in operation since 2018. 6 Fiber Optic (FO) network interconnection has been established involving 29 OPDs, 14 out of 17 kelurahans, 19 puskesmas/health facilities, 2 culinary centers, 7 out of 13 Public Junior High Schools, and 7 public locations.  Digital divide encountered by research population is viewed from the following aspects:

Source: Document of Regional Government's Work Plan for Magelang City in 2019
(i) cell phone ownership (62% having and 38% c. Vulnerability Vu l n e ra b i l i t y i s ex p o s u re to r i s k , powerlessness, and feeling of insecure. As such, poverty vulnerability means that a certain group or community has greater potential to be poor or to remain poor in the coming years (Gallardo, 2018). Vulnerability to poverty related to the digital divide means connecting poor groups to ICT-based poverty information services.
In-depth interviews with intermediaries The informational life pattern of research population is as follows: (i) citizen groups viewed as information sources by the community (5% of total population); (ii) citizens undertaking information exchange with low frequency (30%); (iii) citizen undertaking high information exchange (5%); (iv) group with one-way communication as the seeker of information (26%); (v) group not connected to its community (23%). The group is not connected, meaning that they never ask for or report on information about public policy in their community, including poverty policy. They are never asked for or never receive reports on any case from their neighbor related to the unclear enactment of government (public) policy in the community. They have some similar characteristics: (i) they do not a cell phone or an Internet-based cell phone, (ii) they are not local people, (iii) their are more than 55 years old.
The results of this research shows some very strategic roles played by intermediaries: (i) answering citizen's question; (ii) receiving citizen's report or complaint; (iii) connecting government to citizens to deliver information; (iv) reporting data to government when there is poverty grant. In addition to the positive effect, the power of an intermediary's role is also at risk of perpetuating a patron-client relation.
This assumption builds on the characteristics  Table 2. The theoretical contribution of research is the finding of a proposition that ICT needs government apparatuses with pro-poor sensitivity to deal with poverty, so that it is concerned with poverty issues and poor people's vulnerability.

Conclusion
Pro poor sensitivity will result in apparatuses responsive to the poor group's limited ability of accessing digital-based public service. The second proposition contributed by this article is that digital divide potentially institutionalizes patron-client relation for the poor group. The third proposition is that digital divide potentially makes the poor group marginalized in the terms of accessing, participating in, controlling, and benefiting from development.
Considering the result of this study, some recommendations are given to policy practitioners.
First, the one admitted by its community to be the information broker should be coordinated in a forum, for instance, a Community Information Group The recommendation given for further research is to conduct a study on poverty issues in social media accounts operated by the government and community groups using a mining database from social media platforms.