Euprera Spring Symposium 2010, Ghent

1. 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
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2. Introduction
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3. Agenda
_ Theoretical Basis & Research Question
_ Method
_ Results
_ Discussion
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4. Theoretical Basis & Research Question
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5. 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?
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6. 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)
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7. Research Question
_ Is the Social Web more effective than other, “established” communication tools?
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8. Method
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9. 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
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10. 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
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11. Dependent Variable: Communication Effect
Outflow
Value creation
DPRG/ICV framework for Outcome Impact on
strategic and/or
communication controlling financial targets
Direct Indirect (Value chain)
Outcome Outcome
Impact on tangible
Perception Opinion and/or intangible
Utilization Attitude resources
Level of Emotion (Capital
impact Output Knowlegde accumulation)
Behavioral
disposition
Internal Output External Output Behavior
Process efficiency Coverage
Quality Content
Input
Reputation index Sales
Measu- Ressources Brand image No. of project
rement Employee Budget Awareness Strategic agreements
range assignment compliance Unique visitors awareness of Cost reduction
Clippings
Financial Failure rate Session length employees
Visits Reputation capital
Reader per issue
Indica- Expenses Readability Downloads Purchase intention Brand value
tors Personnel costs Satisfaction of Impact ratio Recall Leads Employee
Outsourcing costs internal clients Share of voice Recognition Innovative ideas knowledge
(e.g.) … …
… … … …
Mea-
sured ORGANIZATION MEDIA/CHANNELS STAKEHOLDERS ORGANIZATION
object
Initiation of communication processes Communication processes Results of
communication processes
low impact on value creation high impact on value creation
strong influence of communication management weak influence of communication management
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12. 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)
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13. 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
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15. 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 of
weblogs
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17. 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 of
video blogs
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19. Treatment: Fake Government Website
Experiment Group III
_ Complex Social Web
_ Opportunity to participate in
communication sequences by adding
both 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
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21. 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?)
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22. 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
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23. Results
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24. 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
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25. 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)
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26. 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
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27. Discussion
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28. 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
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29. Thank You For Your Attention
Daniel Heine
M. A. Communication Management | B. A. Media Management
University of Leipzig | City of Dresden
daniel_heine@yahoo.de
www.danielheine.de
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30. 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).
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31. 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).
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