The approach I took was to look at data available on Internet use in Romania, compare it to countries in EU28, interrogate it, and come up with potential stories — my initial interests to find something on citizen involvement.

This post is more an account of the process than a finished story; it reflects better the lessons I learned.

My first and most immediate lesson is that tracking good data and making a relevant data set – even when the information is publicly available – is time consuming (especially when you use different sources). The other lesson was even more humbling. Once I gathered the data I needed, I realized that combining it, merging it, and illustrating the new set takes skills that I don’t yet have (both technically & creatively), and the learning curve was to steep to master for this assignment. I will keep trying.

What I used and looked through: data from Eurostat (the EU’s statistical office), ITU (UN’s information technology arm), UNESCO, Net Index etc. What was great, although it took some time to realize, is that ITU and Net Index make some of their data available on Google’s Public Data, which comes with handy visualization tools. Eurostat also creates visualizations, but they are less appealing.

My first step was to rank the percentage of individuals using Internet in EU28 (ITU, 2012), a dataset which has Romania coming in last. (The Eurostat numbers for 2013 shows it has now passed Greece and Bulgaria, so one potential question would be whether the penetration rate is accelerating — it was almost flat in the years when most countries had their boom – 1997-2003). Another interesting question that comes up looking at the data is whether EU accession (Romania and Bulgaria joined in 2007) has sped up Internet penetration. Countries now vying for accession – Turkey, Macedonia, Serbia – have even lower usage.

I then looked at download speed in EU28 on Net Index, knowing I’ll find the reverse. According to Net Index, Romania has the third fastest download speed in the world. This discrepancy remains staggering and the potential causes/correlations are interesting to investigate: #8 in the world in terms of originating attack traffic (Akamai data),  high level of piracy (BSA data), a strong engineer culture and a budding startup culture, a hacker/cyber crime base.

Another question I’d explore is whether such low internet use might be explained by the urban/rural divide, still about 50/50 (53/47 to be more precise) in Romania compared to EU28, and, more interestingly, holding steady for the past 15 years – most countries, according to UNESCO data have experienced urban migration

The speed/penetration difference is even more interesting if you look at other indicators in which Romania continue to be reliably at the bottom: e-commerce and regular use (daily & weekly). This data and the accompanying visualizations were generated from Eurostat data.

Predictably, Romania also ranks last in e-governance/interaction with public authorities.

[The gray circle is that country’s level of interaction. The red outline is the EU28 average.]

Looking at the public’s interaction with government, a host of other question and stories spring to mind:

• what’s with the gigantic outlier in 2012? Is it a question of measurement? Did something happen? Was data misreported (intentionally or not?)
• does this lack of opportunity appear in any candidate’s discourse/promises (presidential elections are slated for the fall)?
• what explains these numbers? How does this explain the gigantic recent failure of the e-Romania portal for which the Romanian government spent 8 millions of euro?
• what does this mean for initiatives such as ReStart Romania, which aim to use technology to further public dialogue and change?

Other directions suggested by the data:

• there seems to be a digital divide. Does it track along geography (as mentioned above)? What about income? How does it manifest itself in different generations (e.g. 50 percent of people between the ages of 35 and 45 go online every week compared with the EU28 average of 82 percent.)?
• the computer/internet literacy market (both public and private). Eurostat data shows only 26 percent of Romanians have basic computer skills (the EU28 average is 60 percent). What programs exist? Are they working – why/why not?