1 / Daniel Heine Government Communication on the Social Web An Experimental Study Exploring the Use of Interactive and Participative Elements Daniel Heine, M. A. Euprera Spring Symposium Ghent 2010
Jan 13, 2015
1 / Daniel Heine
Government Communication on the Social Web
An Experimental Study Exploring the Use ofInteractive and Participative Elements
Daniel Heine, M. A.
Euprera Spring Symposium Ghent 2010
2 / Daniel Heine
Introduction
3 / Daniel Heine
Agenda
_ Theoretical Basis & Research Question
_ Method
_ Results
_ Discussion
4 / Daniel Heine
Theoretical Basis & Research Question
5 / Daniel Heine
Social Web – From “Bypass“ to “Main Artery“?
Has the Social Web the potential to improve
government communication in a way that it is no
longer used exclusively as a “bypass” to get around
mainstream media?
6 / Daniel Heine
Background
Output side of the political process
_ Neglected perspective (in contrast to election campaigns)
_ Focus on functions a government has to fulfill: policy implementation (Blum & Schubert 2009)
Communication is essential to put political decisions into effect
_ Citizens ought to act according laws (generally binding decisions) – but often they cannot or should not be forced
_ Communicative persuasion is necessary
Communication is framed by specific social circumstances
_ Network Society (Castells 2006; Van Dijk 2006)
_ Mediatisation (Krotz 2007)
7 / Daniel Heine
Research Question
_ Is the Social Web more effective than other, “established” communication tools?
8 / Daniel Heine
Method
9 / Daniel Heine
Experimental Research Setting
Object
_ Examining a causal link between the use of a communication tool as an instrument of government communication and the achieved effects
Basic idea
_ Simulating the communication process occurring in the context of policy implementation using different communication tools under constant circumstances
10 / Daniel Heine
Independent Variable: Social Web Use
Social Web
_ Interactive and participative elements in online communication settings (Welker & Zerfaß 2008 p. 12)
Four levels of Social Web use
1. Neither participative nor interactive: no Social Web (control group)
2. participative and interactive: Simple Social Web
a. based on text: Simple Social Web/Comment (experiment group I)
b. based on video: Simple Social Web/Video (experiment group II)
3. participative and interactive based on both text and video allowing to recount relatedness of earlier messages : Complex Social Web (experiment group III)
„Lurking“ as dominant using practice
_ Only six percent off all onliners are writing blogs, adding comments or videos (Busemann & Gscheidle 2009: 357)
_ Analyzes of passive use (reception) of Social Web
11 / Daniel Heine
Dependent Variable: Communication Effect
Initiation of communication processes
Measu-rement range
Results ofcommunication processes
Output
Outcome
Internal Output
Process efficiencyQuality
Budget complianceFailure rate
ReadabilitySatisfaction of internal clients
…
External Output
CoverageContent
ClippingsVisits
DownloadsImpact ratio
Share of voice…
DirectOutcome
PerceptionUtilization
Knowlegde
AwarenessUnique visitorsSession length
Reader per issue
RecallRecognition
…
IndirectOutcome
OpinionAttitudeEmotion
BehavioraldispositionBehavior
Reputation indexBrand image
Strategic awareness ofemployees
Purchase intentionLeads
Innovative ideas…
Ressources
Employee
assignmentFinancial Expenses
Personnel costsOutsourcing costs
…
Input
Value creation
Impact on strategic and/or financial targets (Value chain)
Impact on tangible and/or intangible
resources(Capital
accumulation)
SalesNo. of project agreements
Cost reduction
Reputation capitalBrand valueEmployeeknowledge
…
Outflow
ORGANIZATION
Communication processes
MEDIA/CHANNELS STAKEHOLDERS ORGANIZATION
low impact on value creationstrong influence of communication management
Level of impact
Indica-tors(e.g.)
Mea-sured object
high impact on value creationweak influence of communication management
© DPRG German Public Relations Association & ICV International Controller Association 2009
DPRG/ICV framework forcommunication controlling
12 / Daniel Heine
Treatment: Fake Law
“Konsumkostenentlastungsprogramm” – “Consumption Discharge Act”
_ Saxon federal state law
_ Refund of VAT payments for private spendings in shops in Saxony in July 2009
_ Application as condition sine qua non
_ Other regulations, descriptions, etc. according to real wording
_ Sophisticated internal construction – understanding all the regulations is not trivial
_ Issue and political intent refer to the surrounding situation of economic crisis (e.g. in Germany Abwrackprämie, Wachstumsbeschleunigungsgesetz)
13 / Daniel Heine
Treatment: Fake Government Website
Control Group
_ No Social Web
_ Neither opportunities to participate nor to interact (no relations between messages because there is only one sender: the government)
_ Represents „traditional“ tools of online (government) communication
14 / Daniel Heine
15 / Daniel Heine
Treatment: Fake Government Website
Experiment Group I
_ Simple Social Web/Comment
_ Opportunity to participate in communication sequences by adding a comment
_ No differentiation between sender and recipient
_ Relations between messages from different senders
_ Represents the communication style ofweblogs
16 / Daniel Heine
17 / Daniel Heine
Treatment: Fake Government Website
Experiment Group II
_ Simple Social Web/Video
_ Opportunity to participate in communication sequences by adding a video comment
_ No differentiation between sender and recipient
_ Relations between messages from different senders
_ Representing the communication style ofvideo blogs
18 / Daniel Heine
19 / Daniel Heine
Treatment: Fake Government Website
Experiment Group III
_ Complex Social Web
_ Opportunity to participate in communication sequences by addingboth videos and text comments
_ Relations between messages taking into account the relatedness of earlier messages
_ Represents the communication practiced at Social Web Platforms like Youtube
20 / Daniel Heine
21 / Daniel Heine
Research Participants and Sampling Procedure
Sampling procedure
_ Particular choice of typical cases: Persons with different use of Social Web and political interest
_ Setting up „statistical twins“
_ Random matching to one version of the website
Location an time
_ Check-in-area of Leipzig/Halle Airport
_ 23., 24. June 2009
Measurement methods
_ Survey (questionnaire)
_ Observation (did anyone take an application form?)
22 / Daniel Heine
Analysis
Steps
_ Calculation of indices for every measurement range
_ Aggregation of the separate indices to one index describing the global communication effect (PICO)
_ Bi- and multivariate analysis on different levels of data aggregation considering other independent/intervening variables:
_ Analysis of variances
_ Rank correlation
Limitations
_ Statistical analysis yielded no significant effect
_ Probably because of the low number of participants (Diekmann 2009 p. 714).
Interpretation is limited
23 / Daniel Heine
Results
24 / Daniel Heine
Socio Demographic Structure
_ All in all 68 research participants
_ According to this 17 research participants each experiment group
_ 59,7 % male, 40,3 % female
_ Average age: 38 years
_ Different professions, use of internet and Social Web, political interest
25 / Daniel Heine
Social Web Improves Communication Effects
_ Lowest communication effect in control group (no Social Web use)
_ Complex Social Web (comments and videos) shows best effects in affective measurement ranges where it even beats forms of moderate Social Web use (in contrast to the global level)
26 / Daniel Heine
Influence of Intervening Variables
Use of Social Web
_ Declining communication effect caused by Social Web use when there is a lack of routine in handling Social Web applications and platforms
Political interest
_ Communication effect improvement is higher with research participants with less political interest
Involvement
_ Communication effect improvement is higher with research participants with high involvement
27 / Daniel Heine
Discussion
28 / Daniel Heine
Discussion
Social Web has the potential to be more than a “bypass”
_ Empirical reasons to suppose that Social Web use as an instrument of government communication has positive influence on the communication effects
_ Using relatively simple patterns of participation and interaction is usually the most suitable way to communicate political decisions
_ Complex forms of Social Web should be used when the focus lies on persuasion (changing emotions, opinions, attitudes, behavior)
All these effects do not conform to any automatism
_ Practice in using Social Web leads to greater increase of the communication effect caused by Social Web use
_ Less political interest leads to greater increase of the communication effect caused by Social Web use
_ Higher involvement of a person in a policy leads to greater increase of the communication effect caused by Social Web use
29 / Daniel Heine
Thank You For Your Attention
Daniel HeineM. A. Communication Management | B. A. Media Management
University of Leipzig | City of Dresden
www.danielheine.de
30 / Daniel Heine
References
_ Bieber, C. (2006). Zwischen Grundversorgung und Bypass-Operation. Von der Idee zur Praxis digitaler Regierungskommunikation. In Kamps, K. & Nieland, J.-U. (Eds.): Regieren und Kommunikation. Meinungsbildung, Entscheidungsfindung und gouvernementales Kommunikationsmanagement – Trends, Vergleiche, Perspektiven (pp. 239-260).
_ Blum, S. & Schubert, K. (2009): Politikfeldanalyse.
_ Busemann, K./Gscheidle, C. (2009). Web 2.0: Communitys bei jungen Nutzern beliebt. Ergebnisse der ARD/ZDF-Onlinestudie 2009. In Media Perspektiven, No. 7, S. 356–364. URL: http://www.media-perspektiven.de/uploads/tx_mppublications/Busemann_7_09.pdf, last access 12.09.2009.
_ Castells, M. (2006). The Network Society: From Knowledge to Policy. In Castells, M. (Ed.): The network society. From knowledge to policy (pp. 3–21).
31 / Daniel Heine
References
_ Diekmann, A. (2009). Empirische Sozialforschung. Grundlagen, Methoden, Anwendungen.
_ Krotz, F. (2007). Mediatisierung. Fallstudien zum Wandel von Kommunikation.
_ Rafaeli, S. & Sudweeks, F. (1997). Networked Interactivity. In Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, Vol 2, No. 4, URL: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/120837708/HTMLSTARTW, last acsess 12.09.2009.
_ Welker, M. & Zerfaß, A. (2008). Einleitung: Social Web in Journalismus, Politik und Wirtschaft. In Zerfaß, A., Welker, M. & Schmidt, J. (Eds.). Kommunikation, Partizipation und Wirkungen im Social Web. Strategien und Anwendungen. Perspektiven für Wirtschaft, Politik und Publizistik. Volume 2 (pp. 12-18).