Government Web Sites as Public Forums

Abstract

Public managers who are the gatekeepers regarding the informational content of communication systems have to be especially cognizant of which resources to provide on public owned systems. At times, online solutions provided by the government may involve referring citizens to for-profit firms through hyperlinks on governmentowned Web sites (Sellitto & Burgess, 2005). The inclusion of one firm over another on government Government Web Sites as Public Forums Web sites has been noted to be a real concern for public managers (Menzel, 1998). In this article, we employ a legal perspective to examine the ramifications of public information strategies that allow firms to have hyperlinks embedded within the content of public information systems. This perspective allows the public information manager to make informed decisions when developing government portal strategies.