The “smart village” flourishes – at least in policy papers that envision the revitalization of rural areas through the civic deployment of networked media and telecommunications. Yet, while such aspirations are widespread, little is known about the views of those tasked with supervising and supporting digitally driven public participation for rural progress. To address the lack of insight into what these intermediary administrators conceive as catalysts and challenges for the realization of smart village conceptions, we surveyed representatives of regions in Germany who oversee rural development schemes, most notably within the European LEADER framework. For these key actors, digital participation does not mainly hinge on broadband access and IT availability. Instead, they emphasize the importance of human and administrative resources as well as multi-actor collaboration, which we discuss in terms of digital readiness, digital willingness, and digital activity. Building the smart village, we conclude, seems not so much a matter of technological infrastructure, but rather of sociotechnical infrastructuring.

中文翻译：

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数字参与农村发展的社会技术基础设施：对德国公共管理者的调查

“智慧村庄”蓬勃发展——至少在政策文件中，这些政策文件设想通过网络媒体和电信的公民部署来振兴农村地区。然而，尽管这种愿望很普遍，但人们对那些负责监督和支持数字驱动的公众参与农村进步的人的看法却知之甚少。为了解决这些中间管理者对实现智慧村庄概念的催化剂和挑战缺乏深入了解的问题，我们调查了德国各地区负责农村发展计划的代表，特别是在欧洲领导者框架内。对于这些关键参与者来说，数字化参与并不主要取决于宽带接入和 IT 可用性。反而，他们强调人力和行政资源以及多方协作的重要性，我们从数字化准备、数字化意愿和数字化活动方面进行讨论。我们的结论是，建设智慧村庄似乎不是技术基础设施的问题，而是社会技术基础设施的问题。