Citizens and Governments on the Internet:

Experimenting with information effects

Helen Margetts

www.governmentontheweb.org

How do information environments on the internet affect political

behaviour?Information seeking

What people find (how government and political organizations present themselves)

‘Social information’

Feedback, co-production, co-creation

Social networks, peer-to-peer interactions, chain reactions

Differential demographics, personalities, access, skills

How can we investigate information effects?

Experimental approachVarying information across control and treatment groupsRandom allocationPossibility of causal inference (internal validity)

Design variationsLaboratory experiments (eg. Grimmelikhuijsen, 2010)Field experiments (eg. Gerber and Green, 2008;

Goldstein,2008; Schultz, 1998) Internet blurs field/laboratory distinction

laboratory in field, field in laboratoryTo become ‘virtual laboratory’ (see Salganik et al, 2006,

2009)

Collective Action on the Internet

Social information and political participation

Effect of social information:hypotheses

High numbers of signatories could have:

Negative effect (can free-ride, Olson)

Positive effect (critical mass, bandwagon effect)

Low numbers of signatories could have:

Negative effect (hopeless cause)

Positive effect (make a difference, Olson)

Relationship between participation and expected participation according to Schelling (2006: 104)

Experimental DesignQuasi-field Experiment

668 subjects from OxLab

Participating remotely via custom-built interface

Paid £6-8

6 petitions on global issues

Control: no social information

Randomized treatments with ‘high’, ‘low’, ‘middle’ nos. of signatories

Low Medium High

Treatment: number of other signatories

P1: Human Rights in TibetP2: Cluster BombP3: End WhalingP4: Protect DarfurP5: Climate ChangeP6: Fair Trade

Subjects Signing Petitions (by number of other signatories)

Low Medium High

Treatment: number of other signatories

P1: Human Rights in TibetP2: Cluster BombP3: End WhalingP4: Protect DarfurP5: Climate ChangeP6: Fair Trade

Subjects Donating to Petitions (by number of other signatories)

Citizen-government interactions

Information Effects on Citizens’ Propensity to Seek

Redress

When do citizens seek redress?

H1: Documentary evidence

H2: Social information: what other people are doing

H3: According to their personality (locus of control)

H4: Nature of the issue

H5: Ease or difficulty in locating information on how to complain

Experimental Design7 scenarios, involving tax, police, benefits, social

care, healthcare, private sector comparator

Subjects seek information on how to complain – then asked if they will complain

Control group: no additional information

Documentary evidence treatment

Social information treatment (real time feedback)

Pre-experiment questionnaire – agreement with issue

Post-experiment questionnaire, including personality questions

Analysis of variance shows that severity of issue is highly related to likelihood of complaining (p<<0.001)