Public Policy in the Information Age

In recent years, information technology has become a significant factor in public policy, whether as an area in which to pursue policy, as a tool for implementing policy, or as a reflection on the social environment in which policy is shaped. The aim of this edited collection of articles is to present to the academic and general public a vivid updated picture of the relationship between the spread of the use of various information technologies and the design and operation of public policy. This is the first book in Hebrew to shed light on the changes taking place in public policy in the 21st century as a result of new techno-social processes. The collection includes articles written by researchers from various fields of knowledge: communications, law, education, political science, and public policy. The diversity of knowledge bases, theoretical frameworks, and research methods allows for a comprehensive and complex discussion of the relationships between information technology and public policy. These relationships raise several key issues discussed in the articles included in the edited collection.

The first issue is that information technologies are a new area of public policy, and as such, these technologies and their distribution create multiple challenges for the state as designer and regulator of its citizens' living environment. A second issue concerns the penetration of information technologies into the field of civic participation in policymaking and policy implementation. The wide distribution of social networks, as well as the assembly and analysis of big data are being used to reshape the civil participation environment. A third issue relates to the fact that information technologies are resources in their own right in democratic processes in general, and in policy design in particular. For example, significant parts of the public debate on a variety of policy topics take place through social networks, which are privately owned by Internet platforms. Additionally, access to social networks and advanced technological capabilities can be seen as an important resource for influencing policymaking processes.