Governments are increasingly looking to open government as a means addressing complex social issues (Wirtz and Birkmeyer 2015). Their motivation to do so can, in part, be attributed to a growing vein of descriptive literature... [ view full abstract ]
Governments are increasingly looking to open government as a means addressing complex social issues (Wirtz and Birkmeyer 2015). Their motivation to do so can, in part, be attributed to a growing vein of descriptive literature detailing the potential of open government to bolster government capacity (Ganapati and Reddick 2014).
While the transformative potential of open government spans a number of policy domains, one area in particular that has received a great deal of attention is public health. Specifically, through the use of online portals, governments are now attempting to communicate large amounts of information to the public detailing important health trends in their communities (Martin et al. 2016). While the anticipated benefits of doing so are manifold, the overarching notion is that this information will stimulate improvements to public health. As it relates to citizen behavior, the underlying assumption is that this information will engage citizens in government efforts to address health related issues confronting society, be it increased rates of obesity or the spread of an infectious disease. In this way, by informing and engaging citizens, open government portals are meant to encourage a collaborative approach to confronting challenging health issues.
Yet, despite government efforts to engage citizens in collaborative efforts to address health issues, much of the available empirical evidence to date suggests that open government initiatives are falling short (Evans and Campos 2013; Wirtz, Piehler, Thomas and Daiser 2015). This lack of apparent change may be attributable to citizens getting lost in the process of opening government. Specifically, while ample research has focused upon structural determinants of open government and ehealth initiatives (e.g. government efforts), there have been few behavioral assessments geared toward understanding how to convey government information in ways that resonate and engage citizens. This gap in the literature is notable in that a wealth of prior literature suggests factors such as presentation, in addition to content alone, play an important role in shaping the impact of (government) information on individual attitudes and behaviors (Bettman and Kakkar 1977; Reber, Schwarz, and Winkielman 2004; Ubel, Comerford, and Johnson 2015).
Acknowledging this gap in the literature, this study intends to explore how different methods of conveying government information detailing health trends influences citizen health behaviors. In particular, we examine whether different ways of visualizing the same health data regarding infectious diseases will have different effects upon citizen efforts to learn about methods of prevention.
In doing so, we contribute to the extant body of public administration literature: addressing this gap in the literature we may shed light on ways of making more effective use of this popular administrative tool.
