Smartness, culture and local authority ICT awareness: an empirical enquiry for a province in Poland

The paper reports on a sequence of analyses of the local self-governmental authority website-related features in conjunction with the socio-economic characteristics of the respective administrative units (counties and municipalities). These analyses had two objectives: (a) assessment of the local authority websites, their content and functionality, also in a dynamic perspective, and (b) inquiry into the potential interrelations between the specific features of the websites and the nature of the local unit, with special emphasis on the local development in the rural areas and its forward path. The study has been carried out for the capital province of Mazowsze in Poland, but some hints as to a quasi-comparative international study are also provided. First of all, substantial progress between 2003 and 2008 in the quality of the local authority websites is shown. Further, the conclusions from the study imply a rather loose connection between the characteristics of these websites and the socio-economic profile of the unit, including the characterisation along the urban-rural dimension. At the same time, though, an important role becomes apparent, played by the broadly conceived local culture, including the ‘smartness’ aspect, as perceived by the present authors. This role of culture and ‘smartness’ is visible in the very clear divergences from the general regularities observed, and is partly also associated with the socio-economic function of the respective local unit, as distinguished from the, say, income and education level characteristics of the local population.