Role of Public Service Blogs

Public Service can be simply defined as the services offered by the government for the public directly or indirectly. Its scope is different in different countries depending on the prevalent political ideology. Generally, the functional areas that come within the domain of public services are education, fire, health care, law and order, social housing, waste management, water supply, military, etc. In highly liberal and democratized countries, the public service is limited to some key areas of strategic importance only and the rest is open for private participation. On the other hand, the countries with socialist or communist leanings have far greater public service domain as almost everything is sought to be done by the government.

With an increasing trend of greater democratization of countries, these services have become more reflective of the quality of life people wish to lead. There has been openness in the working of government, and citizens have the right to seek information from the government. This can be done in a number of ways. Maintaining the public service blogs is one of these ways.

These blogs can be general in nature but it is better to have them focused on a specific area. This maintains the coherence of the subject matter and provides all news and views on that area at one place.

Further, the publishing of content shall be as per a pre-defined policy which shall itself be open for public scrutiny. Though it is quite an informal medium, the content has to be authentic, candid, ethical, and shall not violate any law. Considering its importance, responsible people shall be assigned the work of publishing. A pre-defined policy is helpful in listing down the guidelines for content publishing and making people accountable. But, it is also important to realize that this medium has to retain informal and non-technical character.

Key Features And Benefits:

1) This is an inexpensive way of sharing information about service being offered to public. All the latest news on the subject matter can be had from the blogs and the discussions can take place on any issues. All this and much more at no costs.

2) Due to its non-technical nature, it is easily understood by the common man.

3) The content can be published from any computer. This provides tremendous ease and flexibility of operations.

4) It is easy to receive the feedback from the citizens and employees alike. It also provides a medium to the employees for having a say on any matter. In that way, it imparts greater participation of employees in the communication process.

5) This facilitates better and quicker communication for the government offices that are located far away from each other. So, it removes constraints in exchange of ideas.

6) At an international level, it provides a platform to make a comparative analysis of the practices and principles followed in different countries. This makes it much more interesting and comprehensive. Both the best practices and the results of their implementation across different cultural settings can be shared.

The public service blogs are helpful in determining, discussing and exchanging news, ideas and opinions from all sections of the society with an objective of imparting greater transparency, establishing greater credibility and increased participation of people.