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How Do Online Public Messages Affect Local Government Responsiveness in China? A Multilevel Analysis Based on the Message Board for Leaders

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Abstract

The development of the internet has enabled a novel channel for citizens to express their opinions and needs, and governments have become more responsive to citizens’ messages as a result. We performed a two-dimensional classification of 3,900 citizen messages from 13 cities posed on the Message Board for Leaders platform between 2011 and 2017. We then created a hierarchical linear model for cross-level analysis. These analyses indicated that local government responses, which was found to be highly selective, was significantly influenced by micro- and macro-level factors: message characteristics, institutional provision of online message processing, and internet penetration rate. In addition, macro-level regional variables were found to play a moderating role in the impact of each type of citizen message on government responsiveness.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

  1. MBFL, an online platform, was founded in 2006 by the People’s Network for citizens to express their demands, problems, and suggestions for local political leaderships, allowing for the local leading cadres and local message processing units to handle and reply. People’s Network MBFL, website: http://liuyan.people.com.cn/index.html

  2. The country’s multi-provincial institutionalization for netizens to leave messages, website: http://leaders.people.com.cn/GB/178291/218130/370359/index.html

  3. There are 19 municipalities directly under the central government and sub-provincial cities in China, including 4 municipalities directly under the central government and 15 sub-provincial cities. However, due to the limitations of the capacity of the People’s Daily Online Leaders’ Message website, only up to 6,000 citizens’ messages to mayors or municipal party secretaries are displayed for each city, among which Beijing, Tianjin, Chengdu and Xi’an have a large number of messages. The limited capacity of the website also leads to the fact that no data from before 2017 are displayed for these four cities. In addition, the data collation showed that Jinan and Ningbo had 904 and 170 messages, respectively, in eight years from 2011 to 2017, but the number of government responses was zero, so these two cities were not included in the data analysis to ensure the validity of the statistical analysis of the data. After all exclusions, data from 13 cities were finally retained.

  4. The specific treatments are as follows. First, “message reply,” “message processing” and other key words were searched directly through the People’s Network (people.cn) or the local government official website to establish whether a local-network message processing system is introduced to municipalities. Then, documents posted on the MBFL are checked to determine whether they are related to handling of messages. Finally, variable processing is carried out, in which the institutional variable for the city for that year and subsequent years is recorded as 1 if the city has the relevant official document; otherwise it is recorded as 0.

  5. Shrout (1979) noted that the definition of ICC is equal to the ratio of the variance between groups and total variance. The formula of the total variance is $${VAR={\tau }_{00}+\sigma }^{2}$$, where $${\tau }_{00}$$ refers to the variance of the second-layer variable, and $${\sigma }^{2}$$ is the variance of the first-layer variable. Therefore, the proportion of the total variance that is explained by the variation of the second-layer variable is calculated as follows:

    $${\rho }_{2}=[{\tau }_{00}/({{\tau }_{00}+\sigma }^{2})]$$

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Funding

This work was supported by the by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (23JNLH04) and National-sponsored Social Sciences Funding Program (21BZZ087).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Public Administration College, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China

    Difei Hu, Enmei Wang, Qianen Ye & Siyin Chen

  2. Social Science Department, Communication University of Zhejiang, Hangzhou, China

    Xiao Gu

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Correspondence to Xiao Gu.

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Appendices

Appendix 1 Examples of message type

Example 1: individual message caused by public behavior

Suggestions for options to improve the traffic environment in the Science Park area (Shenzhen city)

Message ID: 161702882022-09-30 17:33

Hello, Secretary, I am a long-time employee of Kexing Science Park in Shenzhen's Nanshan. The Science Park area has been plagued by traffic due to long years of metro road construction and high company density. After a study and research of the Science Park area, some suggestions for improving the traffic are made, please see the attached diagram for details. By opening up easy access to the main roads in the area, the scheme relieves unnecessary congestion on the other two main roads and facilitates peak traffic flow in the area, one stone with two birds. I hope that the leaders will pay attention to the relevant programs, and the relevant departments could study them. Thank you.

Example 2: Individual message caused by non-public behaviour

Proposals to stop indiscriminate charges in the subdivision(Shanghai city)

Message ID:156178562022-08-02

I am a foreigner working in Shanghai, came to Shanghai in 2013. The rate for foreign vehicles in Shanghai living in the district has increased from 150 per month to 300 per month, starting from January 2022. I have argued with the Property Management Office several times about it and they told me this price increase is for everyone. But as far as I know, the monthly charge to the owner remains at $150 and has not increased. The Property Management Office does not give me a reasonable explanation, and I would like the mayor help us to solve the problem. Thank you.

Example 3: collective message caused by public behavior

Temporary permit for electric vehicles and non-motorway issues(Guangzhou city)

Message ID:161603282022-09-29 16:57

Guangzhou traffic police promote electric vehicle licensing, but now the temporary permit compulsorily scrapped after one year. There is the issue of mandatory scrapping of the provisional licence after one year. The public have strong opinions on this matter and want the temporary permit to be automatically renewed when it expires. In addition, the non-motorway is uneven and the riding experience is not good. Looking to the government to upgrade the non-motorway. Thank you.

Example 4: collective message caused by non-public behaviour

Concerning the living environment of No. 50-154 Fumin Road, Shiling Town Hall, Huadu District (Guangzhou city)

Message ID:162068752022-10-06 17:00

Greetings, Mayor! For many years, there have been hawkers in the road section of No. 50–154 Fumin Road, Shiling Town Hall in Huadu District. The hawkers occupy the road since 6am every day, leaving our residents and shopkeepers with no way to get around. We have called the complaint hotline many times but still no improvement and no attention from the authorities. We hope that the Government will properly arrange these hawkers to the appropriate stall sites and give us a clean and tidy environment.

Appendix 2 Proportion of Message Types

The people's network leadership message board platform set up in urban construction, environmental protection, transport, education, finance, employment, tourism, other, business, agriculture, recreation, medical care, collection, government, law and order, and other 15 types of issues for citizens to express in the message to combine their own situation to choose. The distribution of citizen's message issues shows a strong concentration, the issues focus on ‘others’ and ‘urban construction’, and the two categories accounted for more than 50 per cent. Further analysis showed that the message of the city's construction issues includes mainly the administration of demolition and relocation, water supply, power supply and heat supply, and the construction of residential buildings and so on. The proportion of each message type is shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4
figure 4

Proportion of message types

Full size image

Appendix 3 Coding Rules and Procedures

The classification of the messages in this article was done manually by members of the research team after reading the messages from MBFL one by one. The classification coding was done in 2 rounds by 3 research team members. The first round is coded independently by two of them according to the coding rules. After the first coding is completed, a third coder performs a final check of the coding results for checked inconsistencies. When none of the third person codes agree, the determination is made collectively. The coding is done in the following way.

  1. Step 1:

    Determine the dimensions for classifying the message categories, which are divided into public and representative dimensions.

  2. Step 2:

    Determine the cause of the message problem: ‘whether caused by the conduct of public bodies and their staff in the performance of their duties?’ If the problem with the message arises from the conduct of a public body and its staff in the performance of their duties, it is coded as "public in nature", otherwise it is 'non-public'.

  3. Step 3:

    Determine the type of message taker: ‘representing individual interests or group interests?’ When the message represents a personal interest to reflect a problem, coded as "individuality", otherwise "collective".

  4. Step 4:

    Combine the codes of each of the two dimensions to form a two-dimensional four-category public message category: individual message caused by public behaviour, individual messages caused by non-public behaviour, collective messages caused by public behaviour, collective messages caused by non-public behaviour.

Appendix 4 Operational Definitions of the Variables and their Encoding

Name

Definition

Encoding

Dependent variable

Government responsiveness

Whether citizen’s online messages were replied to or not by local governments

A reply to a citizen message was assigned a value of 1, and 0 if no reply was given

Micro- variables

Individual messages caused by public behaviour

(reference)

(1) The problem is caused by government behaviour and (2) the message represents individual interest

Dummy variables: D1, D2, and D3 = 0

Collective messages caused by public behaviour (D1)

(1) The problem is caused by government behaviour and (2) the message represents collective interests

Dummy variable:

D1 = 1; D2 and D3 = 0

Individual messages caused by non-public behaviour

(D2)

(1) The problem is caused by individual behaviour and (2) the message represents individual interest

Dummy variables,

D2 = 1; D1 and D3 = 0

Collective Message caused by non-public behaviour

(D3)

(1) The problem is caused by individual behaviour and (2) the message represents collective interests

Dummy variables,

D3 = 1; D1 and D2 = 0

Macro- variables

The level of regional economic development (Economy)

Gross domestic product per capita

Continuous variable,

in Yuan

The institutional provision of online message handling (Institutionalization)

When did the local government issue institutional guidelines for online message handling?

Dummy variable,

(1) Cities that have yet to issue institutional guidelines for online message handling were assigned the value of 0;

(2) Cities that have issued the guidelines were assigned the value of 1 from the beginning of the year when it was issued; the assigned value for years before the issuing of the guidelines was 0

Internet penetration rate

(Internet)

The number of Internet broadband users

Continuous variable, unit of 10,000 households

Cross-Level variables

cross-level interactions

Basing on three regional development variables and three virtual citizen to create nine new interaction variables

D1* Log(gdp), D1*Institutionalization, D1* Internet, D2* Log(gdp), D2* Institutionalization, D2*Internet, D3*Log(gdp), D3*Institutionalization, D3* Internet

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Hu, D., Wang, E., Ye, Q. et al. How Do Online Public Messages Affect Local Government Responsiveness in China? A Multilevel Analysis Based on the Message Board for Leaders. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-023-09866-y

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