Government Communications in a Digital Age
A Comparative Study of Online Government Communications in Germany and Great Britain
Abstract
Just like political parties, governments must adapt to the demands of the digital sphere as their legitimacy is dependent on their ability to communicate decisions to citizens. However, despite abundant research into how the Internet is changing political communications, little is known about how governments use digital technolo-gies to communicate with citizens. There is also little knowledge of how different political systems shape the use of technology in this respect. Therefore, from a comparative perspective this study examines how government organisations in Germany and Great Britain are using websites and social media to interact with citizens and the media on a daily basis. Its empirical approach involves a content analysis of government websites and social media pages and a social network analysis of Twitter networks. Its findings show that government ministries predominantly use websites and social media for one-way communication and that social media is supporting the personalisation of government communications.
Zusammenfassung
Genau wie politische Parteien müssen sich die Regierungen an die Anforderungen der digitalen Sphäre anpassen, da ihre Legitimität von ihrer Fähigkeit abhängt, Entscheidungen den Bürgern mitzuteilen. Trotz umfangreicher Untersuchungen darüber, wie das Internet die politische Kommunikation verändert, ist wenig darüber bekannt, wie Regierungen digitale Technologie nutzen. Es gibt auch wenig Forschung darüber, wie unterschiedliche politische Systeme die Nutzung von Technologien beeinflussen. Daher untersucht diese vergleichende Studie wie Regierungsorganisationen in Deutschland und Großbritannien Webseiten und Social Media nutzen, um mit Bürgern und Medien zu interagieren. Der empirische Ansatz umfasst eine Inhaltsanalyse von Webseiten und Social Media sowie eine Social Network-Analyse von Twitter-Netzwerken. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Ministerien überwiegend Webseiten und Social Media für One-Way-Kommunikation nutzen und dass es eine zunehmende Personalisierung der Kommunikation gibt.
Schlagworte
Social Media technology Inhaltsanalyse transparency Websites Network analysis government communication government organisations comparative political communications online content analysis personalisation (Regierungskommunikation, Regierungsorganisationen, soziale Medien, vergleichende po- 19–28 1. Introduction 19–28
- 145–191 6. Results 145–191
- 192–214 7. Discussion 192–214
- 215–224 8. Conclusion 215–224
- 225–238 References 225–238
- 239–276 Appendix 239–276
11 Treffer gefunden
- „... government organisations. This means that they all connect to the websites/web pages of other government ...” „... Results This chapter presents the findings of a content analysis of the websites and social media ...” „... each of these categories, this chapter will present the results for each platform, that is, websites ...”
- „... government organisations and individuals in Germany and Great Britain using websites and social media to ...” „... interaction in an online age: RQ1 a. To what extent are government organisations using websites and social ...” „... websites and social media to connect/network with media and citizens? RQ1 c. To what extent do government ...”
- „... organisation in full (as written in the excel list) String variable T_04_Website_date Please write the date ...” „... that the website was saved. See saved web content in the following folder Y:\Great_Britain_web_content ...” „... was saved. YYYYMMDD T_05_Website_Webpage 1 The organisation has its own website 2 The organisation has ...”
- „... & Horsley, 2007; Liu et al., 2010) strongly shape how government organisations use websites and social media ...” „... meso-level environments are influencing the use of websites and social media by government organisations. In ...” „... organisations and individuals in Germany and Great Britain using websites and social media to communicate with ...”
- „... very little theoretical, empirical or comparative research into how governments are using websites and ...” „... particular, studies examining the use of websites and social media by political actors across different ...” „... Sievert and Nelke's (2014) study, she examines and compares government websites in Germany, Austria ...”
- „... websites and social media pages in Germany and Great Britain. This thesis examines how government ...” „... their use of websites and social media. It examines whether government organisations, like political ...” „... ). Data collected as part of the online content analysis of websites and social media pages stems from ...”
- „... Questions6.1 146 Structural analysis government websites & social media 6.1.1. 147 Interaction on government ...” „... websites6.1.2. 149 Government organisations on Twitter: interaction6.1.3. 152 Government ministers on ...” „... Organisational Communications in an Online Age 109 Figure 3. Percentage of Websites (n=44), FB (n=34), TW (n=56 ...”
- „... understanding of how different political systems and organisational environments are shaping the use of websites ...” „... how political parties use websites for election campaigning (e.g., Foot et al, 2009; Gibson & Ward ...” „... government websites and social media pages with a SNA of Twitter (retweet) networks in Germany and Great ...”
- „... organisations in Germany and Great Britain to use online digital technologies such as websites and social media ...”
- „... Press. Nitschke, P., Donges, P., & Schade, H. (2014). Political organizations’ use of websites and ...” „... ). Targeting voters via the Web: A comparative structural analysis of Austrian and German party websites ...”
- „... decisions on central government websites (e.g., www.bundeskanzlerin.de) – Conduct media relations ...”