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Government Communication on the Social Web

An Experimental Study Exploring the Use ofInteractive and Participative Elements

Daniel Heine, M. A.

General Online Research 2010 Pforzheim

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Introduction

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Research Question

_ Is the Social Web more effective than other, “established” communication tools?

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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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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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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

…

Direct

Outcome

PerceptionUtilization

Knowlegde

AwarenessUnique visitorsSession length

Reader per issue

RecallRecognition

…

Indirect

Outcome

OpinionAttitudeEmotion

Behavioral dispositionBehavior

Reputation indexBrand image

Strategic awareness of employees

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

agreementsCost 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 for communication controlling

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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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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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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

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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

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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

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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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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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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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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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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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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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Thank You For Your Attention

Daniel Heine, M. A.

Public Relations Executive/Online CommunicationsCity of Dresden – Economic Development Office

dheine@dresden.de

www.danielheine.de

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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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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).