METHODOLOGY
The findings and recommendations in this report are based on in-depth
qualitative research undertaken in four countries between 2014 and 2016 in two
stages as follows:
Case study analysis of the public communication and stakeholder
engagement of 36 organisations in Australia, the UK, and the USA in
2014–2015. This examined a range of organisational functions involved in
public communication and interaction including public relations, corporate
communication; government communication; political communication;
public consultation; customer relations; complaints processing;
correspondence; social media; and social and market research;
Participatory action research in which the lead researcher worked
intensively with staff in two major UK government organisations and in
close consultation with staff in 10 other UK government departments and
agencies over a six-month period to evaluate government communication
and engagement with citizens and to develop, trial, and test strategies for
improving communication and engagement.
This report focusses particularly on the second stage of research conducted in
2016, referred to as The Organisational Listening Project Stage 2, as the first
stage has been extensively reported.5
Furthermore, the participatory action research (PAR) conducted in Stage 2 of
the project was important in enabling this study to extend beyond identification
of breakdowns and failures in communication to development and testing of
proposed solutions.
The focus on listening emerged as a primary theme in this study, as explained
in the sections presenting the research findings (Stage 1 and Stage 2).
Sample
As the purpose of Stage 1 of The Organisational Listening Project was to examine
the public communication of various types of organisations, the sample included
corporate, government, and non-government organisations (NGOs) in Australia,
the UK, and the USA as shown in Table 1.
De-identification was provided to participating organisations as part of Human
Research Ethics Committee approval (HREC Ref. No. 2013000359), except
in the case of organisations that agreed to be identified.
5 This report should be read in conjunction with Macnamara, J. (2015, June). Creating
an ‘architecture of listening’ in organizations: The basis of engagement, trust,
ethics, healthy democracy, social equity, and business sustainability. Report of The
Organizational Listening Project. Sydney, NSW: University of Technology. Available at
http://www.uts.edu.au/node/134066
CREATING A ‘DEMOCRACY FOR EVERYONE’ 7
TABLE 1. SAMPLE OF ORGANISATIONS STUDIED IN STAGE 1 OF THE
ORGANISATIONAL LISTENING PROJECT.
ORGANISATION TYPE AUSTRALIA UK US TOTAL
Government 2 14 2 18
Corporate 3 3 8 14
NGO/Non-Profit 2 1 1 4
Totals 7 18 11 36
With an objective of conducting in-depth action research in organisations
with an identified need to improve communication with stakeholders and
citizens, Stage 2 of The Organisational Listening Project involved a purposive
sample based on (1) willingness to participate and (2) the social and
political environment.
The social and political environment in the UK in the period 2014 to 2016 was
characterised by increasing and unprecedented signs of citizen discontent with
the national government and major political institutions. This was evidenced in
the Scotland Referendum in 2014, which saw the highest voter turnout in any
UK election or referendum (84.6%) and which, while retaining UK unity, saw
44.7% of Scottish citizens vote to leave the UK. Furthermore, in June 2016,
Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said that a second referendum on
Scottish independence was “highly likely”6.
Even more so, in the EU Referendum on 23 June 2016, UK citizens made an
historic decision to leave the European Union against the strong recommendation
and campaigning of the government. The decision, commonly referred to as
Brexit, shocked the government, leading to the resignation of the then Prime
Minister, David Cameron, and was unexpected even by the ‘Leave’ campaign
and its leading proponents including Boris Johnson, and against the predictions
of most polls and opinion surveys. For example, the 2016 British Social Attitudes
survey published just a few weeks before the referendum reported that 60%
of UK citizens were in favour of remaining a member of the EU and only 30%
supported Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.7
The UK Government Communication Service (GCS), headquartered in the
Cabinet Office and the Prime Minister’s Office, agreed to support Stage 2 of the
research by providing access to departments and agencies and funding towards
research costs. The UK Department of Health was nominated as a specific site
for research in addition to the Government Communication Service (GCS)
generally. Also, a number of other departments and agencies volunteered to
participate in the research as it evolved. Thus the sample for Stage 2 of the
research was as follows.
6 De Freytas-Tamura, K. (2016, June 24). Scotland says new vote on independence is ‘highly
likely’. The New York Times, Europe edition. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/
2016/06/25/world/europe/brexit-scotland-independence-referendum.html?_r=0
7 NatCen Social Research. (2016). British Social Attitudes study, No 33. Retrieved
from http://www.bsa.natcen.ac.uk/latest-report/british-social-attitudes-33/
euroscepticism.aspx
8 CREATING A ‘DEMOCRACY FOR EVERYONE’
Methodology
Primary sites/participants:
The UK Government Communication Service (GCS), Cabinet Office, 70
Whitehall;
Department of Health, 79 Whitehall.
Secondary sites/participants:
Department for Exiting the EU (DExEU), Number 9, Downing Street;
Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC), 100 Parliament Street;
Foreign & Commonwealth Office, King Charles St, Whitehall;
Department of Work & Pensions (DWP), Caxton House, Tothill Street, London;
Department of Transport, 33 Horseferry Road, London;
Department of Energy, Business and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), 3 Whitehall
Place;
NHS England, Skipton House, 80 London Road and 133 Waterloo Road;
Public Health England (PHE), Skipton House, 80 London Road and 133
Waterloo Road;
Scotland Office, Edinburgh, Scotland;
Scottish Government, Edinburgh, Scotland.
In addition, during Stage 2 of the study the Directorate-General for
Communication (DG-COM) of the European Commission (EC) invited review
and analysis of several aspects of its public communication and citizen
engagement. Several visits were made to Brussels for meetings and workshops
in 2016.
Research Questions
The overarching research question explored in the first stage of this research
was ‘how, and how well, do organizations listen to their stakeholders8 and
publics’9, noting that listening is a fundamental corollary of speaking to achieve
two-way communication, engagement, dialogue, and create and maintain
relationships as identified in communication literature.
8 The term ‘stakeholders’ refers to individuals or groups beyond stockholders or
shareholders on which an organisation depends or which depend on an organisation
in some way (e.g., employees, service delivery partners, affected communities, etc.).
See Freeman, R., & Reed, D. (1983). Stockholders and stakeholders: A new perspective
on corporate governance. California Management Review, 25(3), pp. 88–106.
9 ‘Publics’ refers to groups of people with whom communication is desirable
or necessary.
CREATING A ‘DEMOCRACY FOR EVERYONE’ 9
Methodology
10 CREATING A ‘DEMOCRACY FOR EVERYONE’
The research questions for Stage 2 of The Organisational Listening Project were:
- What are the specific requirements for an effective ‘architecture of
listening’ and how can these be implemented in practice? - What are the most effective listening strategies, processes, and
mechanisms for organisations? - What technologies work best to increase organisational listening
capabilities? - What challenges need to be overcome to improve organisational listening?
- Can organisational listening be improved within current budgets and
resources by reallocating and prioritizing activities and eliminating wastage,
as recommended by research to date? - Can a scalable model of organisational listening be developed and, if so,
what does it look like? - Ultimately, what is the cost-benefit comparison of improved organisational
listening?
Methods
Analysis of case studies in Stage 1 was based on triangulation of data from
three research methods as follows:
In-depth interviews with senior staff involved in government
communication, policy development and advice, engagement, and
specialised fields of communication-related practice such as social
research, public consultation, complaints processing, customer service,
and correspondence;
Content analysis of documents related to government-citizen
communication and engagement such as communication and engagement
strategies, plans, and reports; and
Field experiments involving contact with a sample of organisations to
test their response (e.g., inquiries, requests for information, feedback,
and complaints).
The participatory action research (PAR) conducted in Stage 2 used:
Ethnography (i.e., first-hand observation of and participation in activities
during an extended period of time);
In-depth interviews with senior management executives and senior
professional staff involved in government communication, policy development
and advice, engagement, and specialised fields of communicationrelated
practice such as social research, public consultation, complaints
processing, customer service, and correspondence; and
Content analysis of documents including strategic communication plans
and reports of communication campaigns, consultations, complaints
analysis, and correspondence.
Methodology
CREATING A ‘DEMOCRACY FOR EVERYONE’ 11
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Governments and political parties spend hundreds of millions of dollars,
euro, pounds, and other equivalent currency on public communication.
Apart from the vast amounts spent on election campaigns, particularly in
the USA, governments have ongoing programs of public communication. For
example, the UK national government spends around £300 million a year
on communication to inform and engage citizens. Even state governments
spend $100 million a year or more on activities such as advertising and
PR. The European Commission has conducted single issue communication
campaigns across its 28 member states costing upwards of €30 million.10
Despite major investments in public communication, there are signs that
democracy is breaking down or broken in a number of Western democratic
countries. This is evidenced in:
— Low levels of trust in government, politicians, and political processes
as well as in other institutions central to democratic and civil society;
— Disengagement from traditional political participation. For example,
while a few political parties have gained support recently (e.g., the
Scottish National Party), membership of the three major political
parties in the UK (Conservative, Labour, and Liberal Democrat) totalled
just 1.6% of eligible voters in 201611;
— Declining voter turnouts in elections other than some recent
‘protest votes’;
— Increasing radicalisation and extremism ranging from the rise of
Far right political parties in a number of countries to youth becoming
‘foreign fighters’ with violent extremist organisations. (See ‘The Context:
Why Governments Must Act’, pp. 15 – 19)
Research reveals that one of the causes of dissatisfaction and
disengagement is that public ‘communication’ by organisations is
predominantly focussed on distribution of their messages – i.e., speaking.
Organisations including government departments and agencies “listen
sporadically at best, often poorly, and sometimes not at all” according to
research, which shows that 80% to 95% of the communication resources
of organisations is focussed on top-down, one-way dissemination of
information and promotion.12
Furthermore, when organisations do listen, organisational listening is
predominantly instrumental – that is, it is undertaken selectively to
achieve the organisation’s objectives such as gaining ‘intelligence’ and
insights’ to help sell products, services, or policies. (See p. 20)
10 Figures obtained from HM (Her Majesty’s) Government Communications Plan 2015/16
(see https://communication.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/government-comms-plan), the New
South Wales Government Web site http://www.advertising.nsw.gov.au/advertising/
advertising_expenditure, and other sources.
11 Keen, R., & Audickas, L. (2016). Membership of UK political parties. Briefing
Paper. London, UK: House of Commons. Retrieved from http://researchbriefings.
parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN05125
12 Macnamara, J. (2016). Organizational listening: The missing essential in public
communication. New York, NY: Peter Lang, p. 236.
12 CREATING A ‘DEMOCRACY FOR EVERYONE’
In addition to the ongoing erosions of democracy listed above, recent
events have dramatically demonstrated a lack of listening by governments
and political institutions including:
— Brexit, the 2016 UK referendum vote to leave the European Union,
was a stark illustration of a lack of listening by government, as the
UK national government strongly campaigned for and confidently
predicted a ‘remain’ decision, demonstrating a lack of understanding
of the views and concerns of citizens;
— The 2016 shock election of Donald Trump as President of the USA
also dramatically demonstrated that the major political parties and
the ‘political system’ in Washington DC were out of touch with public
opinion and have substantially lost public support.
In addition to direct engagement between politicians and their constituents,
organisational listening by government can and should be undertaken
through social research; consultation; processing of correspondence
(e.g., letters and e-mails to Ministers and MPs); processing of
complaints; social media monitoring and analysis; direct stakeholder
engagement; and specialist research methods such as behavioural
insights.
However, new research identifies a number of failings and breakdowns in
these important activities including:
— Research conducted by government is mostly quantitative
(e.g., surveys and polls), which provide statistically reliable but limited
data about means (i.e., averages), but do not reveal deep insights into
perceptions, attitudes, and concerns; (See discussion on p. 23)
— Consultations, which are potentially a major channel for listening to
stakeholders and citizens, fail to provide representative information
and feedback for a number of reasons including:
— Many consultations are framed narrowly with specific questions
that the government wants to ask, which limits what can be said
to government;
— Many use technical and official language (i.e., jargon);
— Some have short time frames for response;
— Most do not acknowledge submissions, leading to assumptions of
lack of listening and disengagement;
— Most attract submissions from the ‘usual suspects’ such as
major industry organisations and professional lobbyists;
— Consultations lack outreach – most use a ‘sit and wait’ approach,
which means that the voices of many groups such as those who
cannot easily articulate their views or those who feel marginalised
and disenfranchised are not heard;
— There is a lack of in-depth analysis of consultation submissions,
especially when large numbers of responses are received.
Government departments and agencies studied did not have
the specialist tools or skills to conduct large-scale qualitative
textual analysis;
Executive Summary
— There is little reporting back following consultations. An official
report is posted on Gov.UK, but stakeholders and citizens who go to
the trouble of making a submission do not receive a ‘thank you’ or
report on what has been learned and what will happen as a result;
(See details and examples of these issues on pp. 24 – 26)
— Correspondence is processed in terms of individual responses,
but is not analysed collectively to identify key issues, trends,
and patterns, despite hundreds of thousands of letters and e-mails
being received by government departments and agencies each year;
(See details on p. 29)
— Similarly, complaints, while dealt with individually, are not analysed
over time to identify patterns, key issues, trends, etc., which can
inform policy and proactive strategies (e.g., to launch an initiative to
address a cause of complaints); (See discussion on p. 30)
— Social media are predominantly used for disseminating
organisations’ messages despite their interactive capability and
the large volume of public comment available online, which can be
analysed at low cost and in real time to identify public response to
policies and announcements and ‘hear’ conversations about issues;
(See discussion on p. 31)
— Stakeholder engagement is often undertaken as ‘pitch rolling’ –
that is, meeting with key stakeholders only when the government wants
something such as support for a policy. Stakeholder engagement
should involve ongoing interaction and relationship building, which
includes listening as well as talking and telling. (See discussion
on p. 32)
The UK Government, one of the main case studies examined, has no
central insights database or knowledge management system to store
and share feedback from stakeholders and citizens. Despite marketplace
hype about using ‘big data’, millions of words spoken and written by
stakeholders and citizens sit in ‘data siloes’, unable to be searched or
retrieved by other than the department or agency that collected them.
It is believed that many other governments similarly do not have central
systems for sharing insights, while protecting privacy (e.g., through
de-identification). (See details including obstacles to be overcome on
pp. 33 – 36).
The public communication of many governments is heavily focussed
on campaigns. Campaigns address what governments want to say,
when they want to say it, and involve top-down, one-way transmission of
information and persuasive messages. Along with campaigns (which are
speaking), governments need to recognise the concept of ‘government
as audience’ (i.e., listen more) and adopt ‘always on’ communication with
stakeholders and citizens rather than periodic communication conducted
on the government’s terms. (See discussion on pp. 38 – 39)
CREATING A ‘DEMOCRACY FOR EVERYONE’ 13
Executive Summary
Digital media including Web sites and social media afford opportunities
for low-cost engagement with many stakeholders and citizens and
are still under-utilised. However, it needs to be recognised that digital
communication and service delivery are not used by some sectors of society
(e.g., many older people and many in low socioeconomic circumstances).
Therefore, governments need a mix of digital and ‘analogue’ methods of
communication and engagement, as well as face-to-face interaction
(e.g., direct community engagement, partnerships, etc.).
Politicians listen, but they mostly listen to and are influenced by:
— Traditional media – often spending much of their time garnering
publicity and monitoring media such as newspapers, TV, and radio in
the belief that these channels both influence and reflect the views of
stakeholders and citizens. With ‘audience fragmentation’13 and a major
decline in trust in traditional media, this belief is misplaced. Large
sections of society now derive their news and information via social
media and do not read newspapers or watch TV for news or current
affairs. Also, many media organisations reflect partisan views;
— Political parties – most major political parties have flagging
membership and no longer represent or speak for the majority or
even a significant minority of the sectors of society that they purport
to serve. As noted previously, despite membership increases in some
minority parties, membership of the three major political parties in the
UK (Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats) amounts to just
1.6% of eligible voters in the UK.
— In summary, the major sources of information and feedback that
politicians rely on are declining institutions that do not represent the
voice of stakeholders and citizens.
Politicians, political parties, and governments need to recognise that to a
significant extent democracy has relocated from traditional sites such as
mass media (press, TV, and radio), political parties, trade unions, and other
institutionalised organisations to new sites of political participation
and voice such as social media, social movements, and community
organising groups. Instead of focussing only on institutionalised politics,
engagement needs to expand to a broader range of organisations, groups,
and media. (See discussion on pp. 41 – 42)
The UK Prime Minister’s commitment to creating a “society that works
for everyone” and a “democracy that works for everyone”, as well as
an economy and country that work for everyone is commendable and
deserves support. However, the stated goals will not be achievable without
a sustained commitment to listening to stakeholders and citizens.
A number of pilot projects were established as part of the participatory
action research that informed this analysis. These are briefly outlined
in this report (see highlighted sections on pp. 27 – 39). The pilot projects
were ongoing at the time of this report and tracking their effectiveness
in addressing some of the communication breakdowns and failings will
be informative.
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