Measuring Transformational Use of ICTs at Regional Level

The experience of recent years has shown that take-up of ICT, for example within strategies toimplement online public services, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for making progresstowards regional development goals. What is of interest is not ICT use per se, but applications oftechnology which exert a transformational impact on users, i.e. which support people, firms and thepublic sector by opening up new, more effective ways for achievement of goals rather than simplymaking existing structures and processes more efficient. This chapter focuses on use of ICT byindividuals in their roles as citizens, workers, learners, patients, consumers, and so forth. We arguethat here, the transformational potential of ICTs is rooted in its effect in terms of empowerment ofusers, i.e. “the process of granting people the power to take responsible initiatives to shape their ownlife and that of their community or society in economic, social and political terms”. The chapterpresents a conceptual framework for analysing ICT-enabled empowerment. It also presents someresults of an Internet user survey conducted in early 2008 in 12 selected regions in the EU.