How do the mass media affect levels of trust in government?

by Greg Porumbescu 04/03/2015

Challenging the conventional wisdom that suggests greater exposure to mass media outlets will result in more negative perceptions of the public sector.

by Greg Porumbescu 04/03/2015

The South Korean Government, as well as the Seoul Metropolitan Government have gone to great lengths to enhance their openness, using many different ICTs. Seoul at night by jonasginter.

Ed: You examine the influence of citizens’ use of online mass media on levels of trust in government. In brief, what did you find? Greg: As I explain in the article, there is a common belief that mass media outlets, and especially online mass media outlets, often portray government in a negative light in an effort to pique the interest of readers. This tendency of media outlets to engage in ‘bureaucracy bashing’ is thought, in turn, to detract from the public’s support for their government. The basic assumption underpinning this relationship is that the more negative information on government there is, the more negative public opinion. However, in my analyses, I found evidence of a positive indirect relationship between citizens’ use of online mass media outlets and their levels of trust in government. Interestingly, however, the more frequently citizens used online mass media outlets for information about their government, the weaker this association became. These findings challenge conventional wisdom that suggests greater exposure to mass media outlets will result in more negative perceptions of the public sector. Ed: So you find that that the particular positive or negative spin of the actual message may not be as important as the individuals’ sense that they are aware of the activities of the public sector. That’s presumably good news—both for government, and for efforts to ‘open it up’? Greg: Yes, I think it can be. However, a few important caveats apply. First, the positive relationship between online mass media use and perceptions of government tapers off as respondents made more frequent use of online mass media outlets. In the study, I interpreted this to mean that exposure to mass media had less of an influence upon those who were more aware of public affairs, and more of an influence upon those who were less aware of public affairs. Therefore, there is something of a diminishing returns aspect to this relationship. Second, this…

Governance & Security, Health, Wellbeing

Unpacking patient trust in the “who” and the “how” of Internet-based health records

by Ulrike Rauer 03/03/2014

Key to successful adoption of Internet-based health records is how much a patient places trust that data will be properly secured from inadvertent leakage.

by Ulrike Rauer 03/03/2014

In an attempt to reduce costs and improve quality, digital health records are permeating health systems all over the world. Internet-based access to them creates new opportunities for access and sharing—while at the same time causing nightmares to many patients: medical data floating around freely within the clouds, unprotected from strangers, being abused to target and discriminate people without their knowledge? Individuals often have little knowledge about the actual risks, and single instances of breaches are exaggerated in the media. Key to successful adoption of Internet-based health records is, however, how much a patient places trust in the technology: trust that data will be properly secured from inadvertent leakage, and trust that it will not be accessed by unauthorised strangers. Situated in this context, my own research has taken a closer look at the structural and institutional factors influencing patient trust in Internet-based health records. Utilising a survey and interviews, the research has looked specifically at Germany—a very suitable environment for this question given its wide range of actors in the health system, and often being referred to as a “hard-line privacy country”. Germany has struggled for years with the introduction of smart cards linked to centralised Electronic Health Records, not only changing its design features over several iterations, but also battling negative press coverage about data security. The first element to this question of patient trust is the “who”: that is, does it make a difference whether the health record is maintained by either a medical or a non-medical entity, and whether the entity is public or private? I found that patients clearly expressed a higher trust in medical operators, evidence of a certain “halo effect” surrounding medical professionals and organisations driven by patient faith in their good intentions. This overrode the concern that medical operators might be less adept at securing the data than (for example) most non-medical IT firms. The distinction between public and private operators is…

Health, Publications, Wellbeing

eHealth: what is needed at the policy level? New special issue from Policy and Internet

by Rik Crutzen 24/05/2012

Policymakers wishing to promote greater choice and control among health system users should take account of the limits to empowerment as well as barriers to participation.

by Rik Crutzen 24/05/2012

The explosive growth of the Internet and its omnipresence in people’s daily lives has facilitated a shift in information seeking on health, with the Internet now a key information source for the general public, patients, and health professionals. The Internet also has obvious potential to drive major changes in the organisation and delivery of health services efforts, and many initiatives are harnessing technology to support user empowerment. For example, current health reforms in England are leading to a fragmented, marketised National Health Service (NHS), where competitive choice designed to drive quality improvement and efficiency savings is informed by transparency and patient experiences, and with the notion of an empowered health consumer at its centre. Is this aim of achieving user empowerment realistic? In their examination of health queries submitted to the NHS Direct online enquiry service, John Powell and Sharon Boden find that while patient empowerment does occur in the use of online health services, it is constrained and context dependent. Policymakers wishing to promote greater choice and control among health system users should therefore take account of the limits to empowerment as well as barriers to participation. The Dutch government’s online public national health and care portal similarly aims to facilitate consumer decision-making behaviour and increasing transparency and accountability to improve quality of care and functioning of health markets. Interestingly, Hans Ossebaard, Lisette van Gemert-Pijnen and Erwin Seydel find the influence of the Dutch portal on choice behaviour, awareness, and empowerment of users to actually be small. The Internet is often discussed in terms of empowering (or even endangering) patients through broadening of access to medical and health-related information, but there is evidence that concerns about serious negative effects of using the Internet for health information may be ill-founded. The cancer patients in the study by Alison Chapple, Julie Evans and Sue Ziebland gave few examples of harm from using the Internet or of damage caused to their relationships…

Democracy, Governance & Security, Politics & Government, Publications

New issue of Policy and Internet (2,1)

by David Sutcliffe 16/04/2010

We are pleased to present six articles that spread across the scope of the journal laid out in the first article of the first issue, The Internet and Public Policy.

by David Sutcliffe 16/04/2010

Welcome to the second issue of Policy & Internet and the first issue of 2010! We are pleased to present six articles that spread across the scope of the journal laid out in the first article of the first issue, The Internet and Public Policy (Margetts, 2009). Three articles cover some aspect of trust, identified as one of the key values associated with the Internet and likely to emerge in policy trends. The other three articles all bring internet-related technologies to centre stage in policy change. Helen Margetts: Editorial Stephan G. Grimmelikhuijsen: Transparency of Public Decision-Making: Towards Trust in Local Government? Jesper Schlæger: Digital Governance and Institutional Change: Examining the Role of E-Government in China’s Coal Sector Fadi Salem and Yasar Jarrar: Government 2.0? Technology, Trust and Collaboration in the UAE Public Sector Mike Just and David Aspinall: Challenging Challenge Questions: An Experimental Analysis of Authentication Technologies and User Behaviour Ainė Ramonaite: Voting Advice Applications in Lithuania: Promoting Programmatic Competition or Breeding Populism? Thomas M. Lenard and Paul H. Rubin: In Defense of Data: Information and the Costs of Privacy