Communicating Europe via websites: How personalization
and nationalization can raise people's interest in the EU
Irina Bindlechner 10858423 Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication University of Amsterdam Master: Communication Science Track: Political Communication
Yphtach Lelkes
Abstract
The European Union is often criticized for a lack of connection to the public. This leads to ongoing discussions about information and communication deficits, which are closely intertwined with the emergence of a European public sphere. The result is an uninformed public, a public that does not care about the EU. This state of the public affects policy preferences, voter's choice, trust in the EU and ultimately attitudes towards the EU. Communicating Europe is a challenge and raising citizens' interest lies in the heart of these discussions. Political marketing theory offers new ways to make people interested in politics and, especially on EU-level, features like personalization and nationalization have not been exhausted. This study investigates the effects of personalized and nationalized features implemented in the official EU website to suggest new ways of communicating Europe. Results show that
personalization and nationalization affect people's interest in the information they are provided with. Personalization effects were stronger when participants started the experiment with a low level of interest in the EU.
Key words: information deficit, experiment, EU online communication, website, personalization, nationalization, political information
Introduction
European citizens are not interested in EU politics and the European Union is often criticized for this lack of connection to the public. The European Union is often described as too distant or too high-toned. The latest Standard Eurobarometer from September 2015 shows that citizen’s trust has decreased since spring 2015 (32%, -8 percentage points), the majority of European citizens tends not to trust the EU. Also, election turnouts over time show a negative trend: European parliament election turnouts are declining since 1979 (European parliament website, 2014). A report from the European Commission (2014), shortly after the latest parliamentary elections, found that "respondents generally felt that they lacked information about the
European elections and the parties involved." (p.48). Information is vital for citizens to discharge their democratic responsibilities and the age of the Internet offers many new possibilities for governmental institutions to inform citizens.
Previous research about the alleged communication and information deficit of the EU has so far focused on the news media or television (De Vreese &
Boomgaarden, 2003; Esser et al., 2012; Koopmans & Erbe, 2004; Martins, Lecheler, & De Vreese, 2012). Quite recently, considerable attention has been paid to the effects of online political communication on political interest (Bârgăoanu, Negrea, & Dascălu, 2010; Jiang, Raghupathi, & Raghupathi, 2009; Kruikemeier, van Noort, Vliegenthart, & de Vreese, 2013). A study by Schuck & de Vreese (2006) has shown that risk and opportunity frames in the news public support for EU enlargement. While citizens are provided with a huge amount of information from journalists, the EU's own marketing efforts have not been investigated yet.
EU online communication could focus on political marketing theory and implement features in their online strategy. Personalization has already been proven to be an effective method to increase people’s interest in politics. Another concept, nationalization, could gain the interest on EU-level.
This study investigates if popular political marketing features make citizens care about the EU, consequently the following research question has been developed:
What kind of information do citizens want from the EU? New knowledge about
effects of personalization and nationalization was gained by conducting an EU-wide online experiment. The evidence suggests that more personal and national information would increase people's interest in EU information.
Theoretical background
The European Union is often criticized for a lack of connection to the European public; hence this study assumes that individuals do not care about the EU because they are not informed in the best possible way. The latest Eurobarometer report (2015) shows that: "only 65% of European citizens know that the EU currently consists of 28 members" and only "54% say they understand how the Union works" (p.128). The lack of EU knowledge affects policy preferences (Gillens, 2001), voter’s choice (Blais, Gidengil, Fournier, & Nevitte, 2009) and ultimately attitudes towards European integration (Clark & Hellwig, 2012). Eurobarometer compared data from over 40 years and found that individuals with greater knowledge about the EU are more likely to have a positive opinion towards the EU: "The image that people have of the EU is more positive among those who feel they understand how the EU works
(41% positive) than among those who say they don’t understand how it works (20% positive)."
Ultimately, the information shortage affects the pressure to demonstrate legitimacy as well as transparency and finally leads to the creation of a vicious circle of other deficit allegations (Moravcsik, 2008). Individuals' lack of EU knowledge eventually leads to the perceived communication deficit, which is intertwined with the highly debated democratic deficit.
In recent years, research on the alleged democratic deficit of the European Union has become very popular. A central part of the discussed communication deficit is the question of the existence of a European public sphere (Adam, 2016; Bruggemann & Schulz-Forberg, 2009; Koopmans & Erbe, 2004; Meyer, 2005). Adam (2016) defines the European public sphere as "an arena of public deliberation and discussion of those issues, which are dealt with at a supra- or inter- governmental level". However, it is my contention that citizens do not have the knowledge about the EU that is required to be able to contribute to the discussion of European issues.
Moravcsik (2008) argues that even when EU institutions would be open and transparent, its citizens would still "... seem neither to like nor trust the EU, and thus it lacks a “subjective” sense of democratic legitimacy." The alleged deficits and their explanations are a highly discussed contemporary challenge, which underlines the societal importance of access to basic information about the EU for all members of society. The lack of knowledge can be explained by two reasons: the EU has failed to inform the public about basic concepts and the public does not make the effort to inform themselves because the political process is far too complex.
Scholars have generally linked various factors to this lack of knowledge. Lodge (1994) argues that there is an institutional need to clarify the European Union's bodies and their powers in order to establish a functioning democracy. Also Meyer (1999) emphasizes on a need to disperse clear communication and decision-making responsibilities between the European commission and the European parliament to tackle the communication deficit. The different roles of the institutions are one example of the complexity of the system. Furthermore, one possible reason for the disinterest is that the EU's messaging is too substantive and high-toned for the European populace (Brüggemann, 2005). Due to the fact that different EU bodies have different responsibilities and only experts really have an understanding of the decision-making process and policy areas, many just ignore EU affairs (Christiansen, 2001; Craig & de Burca, 2003; Schmitter, 2003). It is contented that European affairs are too high-level and people get bored. But this posits the question: Why even bother? Informed citizens are important for democracy: less informed voters choose randomly and not according to their believes (Sara Binzer Hobolt, 2005), individual’s lack of EU knowledge negatively impacts attitudes towards the EU (Boomgaarden & Schuck, Andreas R T, Elenbass, Matthijs; de Vreese, 2011), the less informed are more likely to vote on EU-level based on national issues (De Vries, van der Brug, van Egmond, & van der Eijk, 2011; Sara B. Hobolt & Wittrock, 2011).
The focus of recent research on the information deficit has been on the role of the media. Lecheler (2008) emphasized the influence of Brussels correspondents on the Europeanization of media discourse. She revealed that journalists feel
overwhelmed with the information they are provided with by the EU institutions and their websites. The language is too technical and the information is too voluminous, hence the current work situation and professional network of new member states’
correspondents in Brussels may impede the emergence of a Europe-wide public discourse (Lecheler, 2008). (Martins et al., 2012) deepened the research into the relationship between the media and EU officials against the background of the ‘communication deficit’ discussion. Their findings show that some EU bodies seem invisible in terms of communication and that inter-institutional cooperation is unavoidable for effective communication.
To the authors' knowledge, official EU communication channels have been scarcely investigated from the theoretical point of view. The only example of research about the effects of an official EU website is presented in the analysis of Europe’s News Website presseurop.eu. Bârgăoanu, Negrea, & Dascălu (2010) analyzed structure, content and functionality of the website to find if and how this tool affects the transmission of content. They found that the content was 'less European' than expected and the transmission of content was very complicated. The problem with this study is that the News website does not exist in this form any longer and the study lacked to investigate how useful it was perceived by citizens. Baumgarten & Grauel (2009) state that websites can be framed or featured such as the news, "Actors thus decide not only about the content of communication but also about how it is framed and channeled". However, except for the presseurop.eu study, none of these studies have investigated the effects of communication tools coming directly from the EU. Political marketing theory offers common features used in the news media or campaigns to make people care about politics. Personalization has proved to be a successful storytelling technique to make people care about politics (Strömbäck, 2008), although some scholars believe it is the beginning of the end for politics (Marsh & Fawcett, 2011). Previous research has shown that personalization is one of the most important shifts in political communication lately (Van Aelst, Sheafer, &
Stanyer, 2012). Not only are campaigns focusing more on individuals now, but also spin-doctors focus on spreading personal news about party leaders (Lobo, 2008). The increasing importance of individual politicians compared to the party is not just during campaign times, but also continually (Garzia, 2011). The frame, which has been used for this study, the politician is portrayed as a private individual (Holtz-Bacha, 2004). This specific trend has gained a lot of attention over the years, for example by Richard Sennett who described portraying politicians like an ordinary person already in 1974. The fact that citizens assessment of political leaders becomes more superficial can be ignored if it means that citizens start being interested in politics (Adam & Maier, 2010). This new symbolic closeness between the citizens and political actors (Garzia, 2011) leads to electoral success and political leadership. Although the success of personalization cannot be denied, it is almost not existent on a European level. McAllister (2007) concluded that, "personalization of politics will remain a – and perhaps the – central feature of democratic politics in the twenty-first century." Consequently, personalization has been chosen as one manipulation feature of this study.
Another distinction that seems to be an obstacle in EU communication is the link between national and pan-European issues. Citizens naturally see their national government as more legitimate than the EU Commission (Hix, 2002). The latest Eurobarometer shows that respondents expressed a wish for more stories relating to their everyday life as well as a wish for more regulation on the national level. The understanding and interest of individuals in national affairs lead to the creation of a nationalization feature in the EUROPA website. For that reason, personalized and nationalized information, compared to general information, is expected to increase ratings about interest and usefulness of the website. The idea was to give the visitor of
the page an impression that everything that happens on EU-level can be linked to their member state. To test these effects the following research question was formulated:
What kind of information do citizens want from the EU? However, these effects may
not be the same for all people. Personalization has been proved to raise the interest especially of people with low interest in politics (Schmitt, Hobolt, & Popa, 2015). Thus, different effects for those who are interested in EU politics and those who are not interested were expected:
H1: Exposure to personalized information produces higher user ratings than exposure to non-personal information.
H2: Exposure to nationalized information produces higher user ratings than exposure to European information.
H3: Individuals who show low levels of interest in EU politics rate personalized information higher than individuals who are very interested in EU politics.
The main communication route of the EU to inform their citizens is the EUROPA website with more than 475 million visits in 2014 (DG Communication, 2014), therefore it has been chosen for this study. Europa.eu is maintained by the Commission in coordination with all EU institutions. The website was launched in 1995 and aims to inform and engage citizens directly. It leads directly to the official homepages from every EU institution and relevant pages like Eurostat. The latest reports from the Commission show that a complete overhaul of the website, including interactive elements, is being planned. The possible impact of online communication was observed by the Commission: "Studies into electronic campaigning in France in the run-up to the referendum on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe in
2005 suggest that the absence of the “establishment” in the Internet debate may have contributed to the “no” vote".
Method
Design
Participants were asked to rate five different websites in random order. The experimental design was a repeated measures design: within-subjects (nationalized vs. personalized vs. original) factorial design. The same group of participants was
exposed to all experimental conditions. The questionnaire, consisting of 30 questions, was created online. Participants were exposed to five different websites, whereas two of them were manipulated and three of them were used as distraction. The mock-up websites were changed in terms of content, one nationalized and one personalized. The design or layout was changed at no time.
FIG. 1. Official EUROPA website.
Participants
An experimental study was conducted using a convenience sample, which was recruited via social networks. The sample consisted of 227 participants, 53.4%
females, with an average age of 25.7 (SD = 4.85). In total participant's age ranged from 18 to 60. The majority (78.2%) of participants was Austrian, British, Croatian or German. Dutch and Spanish participants accounted 17% of the sample. In total, every EU member state was represented. Informed consent was obtained from all
Stimulus material
The material was obtained by using the official EUROPA website, Fig. 1 shows the official website. The website served as a draft for two mock-up websites, one personalized and one nationalized. The three other websites were official EU institution websites used as distractor. The two mock-up websites had the exact same design and function as the original, but one was 'personalized' and another one was 'nationalized' in their content. All participants were asked to have a close look at the original EUROPA website, the EUROPA website with a personal features, the EUROPA website with the national feature, an overall fake version of the EUROPA website and the official EU delegation US website. Fig. 2 shows the personalized mock-up page and Fig. 3 shows the nationalized mock-up page.
Procedure
Participants were exposed to five websites after answering a set of socio-demographic questions. Participants were also asked to indicate how interested they are in politics and how interested they are in European politics on a 7-point Likert-type ranging from not at all interested (1) to very interested (7). To test participants political knowledge about the EU, three questions were asked: "Who is the current President of the European Commission?", "How many member states are currently in the EU?" and "Which EU body can agree, reject or amend legislations proposed by the Commission?". All three questions were multiple-choice questions with one correct answer. Participants were also asked to indicate: "Where do you get most of your news about politics?" and were able to choose between Newspapers, Websites,
TV, Radio and Social media. After the exposure to each website, which was randomly
assigned, everyone was asked to indicate ratings right after the exposure. Four questions were intended to measure participant's ratings: "Please rate your overall impression of the website" by choosing on a 7-point Likert-scale ranging from very
poor (1) to excellent (7).to indicate the usefulness "How useful would you rate this
website" on a 7-point Likert-scale ranging from not useful at all (1) to very useful (7) and "How interesting would you rate this website?" on a 7-point Likert-scale ranging from not interesting at all (1) to very interesting (7) and "How likely are you to visit this website again?" on the same scale. Participants were thanked for their
FIG. 3. Mock-up EUROPA website with nationalization features.
Measures
Feature exposure. The type of feature, nationalization or personalization, was
a within-subjects factor. The different websites that each participant was exposed to featured either personalization, nationalization or the original. Different scores across conditions were expected. The original substantial website was also tested as a control variable. The personalized website had features like a personal interview with
President Juncker's wife to present him as an 'ordinary man' and a link to 'meet commissioners' to create a feeling of being closer to European politicians. The 'nationalized' mock-up website had the same layout and functions as the original website, but every item of content was linked to the respective member state.
Website rating. The dependent variable Website rating was measured with four
items per site, which included overall impression, usefulness, interest in the website and likelihood to visit the website again. The reliabilities of items concerning the different ratings of the websites (Cronbach’s a=0.95) were high and were hence combined into one single variable Website rating. Overall impression was measured on a 7-point Likert type scales ranging from very poor (1) to excellent (7). Usefulness was measured on a 7-point Likert-scale ranging from not useful at all (1) to very
useful (7). Participant's were asked "How interesting would you rate this website?"
with answers ranging from not interesting at all (1) to very interesting (7). In the end, participants were asked how likely they are to visit the website, also measured on a 7-point Likert-scale ranging from not likely at all (1) to very likely (7).
Interest in EU politics. The dependent variable was measured before the
exposure. Participants were asked to indicate how interested they are in European politics on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from not interested at all (1) to very
interested (7) (M= 4.8, SD= 1.5).
Manipulation Check
The three conditions compared in this study differed by their implemented features. As intended by the study, the stimuli in mock-up websites aimed for a more positive rating of the mock-up websites. In order to test whether the manipulation was successful, an independent t-test was conducted.
Results
nationalization and personalization in websites on individual's ratings of the official EU website. The aim was to find out which features could make citizens care about the EU. A new approach was introduced by creating two features based on political marketing practice, which were implemented in mock-up versions of the official EU website.
The first hypothesis proposed that exposure to personalized messaging produces higher user ratings than exposure to substantial information from the original website. A paired samples t-test indicated that the difference in ratings of the personalized website, using the new computed variable Website rating, were not significantly different to the ratings of the original website. The average rating of the personalized website (M = 4.5, SD = 1.31) was higher than the average rating of the original website (M = 4.25, SD = 1.30), t (145) = -1.51, p = .13. A paired sample t-test was also conducted for usefulness and interest in the website to check if there is a difference in individual's ratings. The t-test indicated a significant difference in
interest in the personalized website (M = 4.25, SD = 1.47) and interest in the original
website (M = 4, SD = 1.43), t (145) = -2.28, p = .02. Also when conducting a paired sample t-test for usefulness, the personalized feature (M = 5, SD = 1.38) was better received than the substantial 'original' website (M = 4, SD = 1.39) t (145) = 8.31, p = .40.
The second hypothesis suggested that exposure to nationalized messaging produces higher user ratings than exposure to substantial information as provided on the original website. The rating of the nationalized website (M = 4.5, SD = 1.27) was lower than the rating of the substantial website (M = 4.25, SD = 1.30), t (145) = 0.30,
p = .75. A paired sample t-test was also conducted for usefulness and interest in the
nationalized and substantial website to check if there is a difference in individual's ratings. The t-test indicated a significant difference in interest in the nationalized website (M = 5, SD = 1.46) and interest in the substantial website (M = 4, SD = 1.43),
t (145) = .59 p = .55. When conducting a paired sample t-test for usefulness, the
nationalized feature (M = 5, SD = 1.38) was not very well received compared to the substantial website (M = 4, SD = 1.39) t (145) = .90, p = .36.
FIG. 24. The effect of each condition on perceived level of interest.
The third hypothesis predicted that individuals who show low levels of interest in EU politics rate personalized messaging higher than individuals who are highly interested in EU politics. First, descriptive statistics show that the interest in EU politics (M = 4.93 SD = 1.55) is lower than interest in politics (M = 5.21, SD = 1.52). On the other hand, the original website (M = 4.15, SD = 1.39) was perceived more useful than the personalized website (M = 4, SD = 1.33). However, participants with
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
Original website Personalized
wesbite Nationalizedwebsite
M
ea
n
How interesting would you rate this website?
Low interest in EU politics
High intrest in EU politics
low interest in EU politics rated the personalized website the most interesting (M = 4.89, SD = 1.49). Analysis of Variance indicated that the features differed
significantly in their level of political interest, F (145) = 5.06, p = .02.
In general our findings replicate the finding that individuals are less interested in EU politics than in politics in general (Moravcsik, 2008). The findings also suggest that citizens do find personalized messaging more interesting and more useful than the substantial information, however individuals received the overall impression of
general information better. Therefore, hypothesis 1 has to be rejected. With regards to nationalization, it has been found that individuals also found the nationalized website more interesting than the original website, but the overall impression was perceived negative. Consequently, hypothesis 2 has to be rejected. Hypothesis 3 was approved and revealed that people who are less interested in EU politics prefer the personalized website. The analysis indicates that features of nationalization and personalization in governmental websites affect individuals' interest in the information.
Discussion
This exploratory case study is based on an online experiment with EU citizens using the “EUROPA website,” the most visited online information website of the European Union. The aim was to investigate which features, implemented in the website, could improve citizens’ interest in the EU.
This study found that personalization and nationalization features affect the interest of individuals in information. The online experiment showed that the overall
impression of the information they are provided with may be the same, but individuals describe personal and nationalized information as more interesting or useful.
Accordingly, hypotheses 1 and 2 have been partially approved. Particular attention is paid to the finding that individuals find personalized information on websites more interesting, than non-personal information. Although, many European politicians are engaging more and more in social media networks, the findings show that citizens would be interested in a personal link on the website that has been investigated. One unexpected finding was that nationalization is described as more interesting, but not as more useful than European information. The results of hypothesis 1 and 2 show that also if individuals describe the information provided as more interesting or useful, they wouldn't necessarily describe it as better.
The analysis does not enable us to determine, why individuals rate personal information as the most interesting, but still give it a lower overall rating. One possible reason could be that individuals focus on the content when they are asked how interesting they would describe it and maybe they focus more on the layout and the design of the website when they are asked to indicate their overall impression. We have also considered the consequences of interest in EU politics on the ratings of personalized information. Our hypothesis that people who have a low interest in EU politics are more affected by personalization has been approved. This result agrees with a study conducted by Schuck & de Vreese (2006), who also found that individuals with low levels of political knowledge were more affected by the news frames. Making use of individuals’ interest in politician’s personal lives could be the first step to make them care about politics, as it is a popular practice in the news media already.
Conclusion
People do not care about the EU, consequently individuals believe that the EU’s own communication and information efforts are in deficit. Several publications have appeared in recent years assessing the alleged deficits. Whereas Schuck (2006) looked into news framing effects, Lecheler (2012) assessed EU-media relations to contribute to the discussion of alleged deficits. Scholars have generally linked education,
political interest, different political information environments to this lack of knowledge about the EU. Little research has investigated the success or failure of communication strategies directly from the EU. The Internet offers many
opportunities to inform citizens directly. Therefore, the answer to the research question: What kind of information do citizens want from the EU? is that citizens prefer information linked to their member states as well as more personal info about politicians.
The results of this study have shown that there is room for improvement when it comes to the EU’s online communication strategy. The interest of citizens in the website could be improved by generating different content like more personal news about the commissioners, or perspectives regarding each member state, depending on where the website is being visited. The existence of these effects implies that citizens are not informed in the best possible way. A stronger focus on possible advantages of the Internet as an opportunity to give individuals the information they want and need to discharge their responsibilities, as citizens would be reasonable. Communication is a far more important tool of democracy than the EU is realizing. There is a strong need of clear and concise information to engage citizens in public debates. It has been
wrong voter choice and differences of opinion about the EU. Ignorance and lack of knowledge lead to the alleged democratic deficit, ultimately communicating Europe is essential to maintain democracy. After all the academic research that has been done about the EU’s deficits, a whole new strategy could be provided based on that data.
This study suggests that the EU has to change its way of marketing. The EU’s communication strategy must focus on the Internet for citizens who are making an effort to inform themselves and especially for young Europeans, explain the impact of policies on everyday life for people who think that the EU has no power, provide personal information about politicians online to make people with low interest care about the topic and continue to spread basic knowledge online as well as offline in every member state. Especially in the case of the EU, where national borders seem to limit communication, the Internet can play an essential role. If the DG
Communication wants to provide corporate communication and close the information gap, there has to be more awareness of the variety of their target groups. This
experiment would be applicable for a target group of people with low interest. The experiment shows that it is not only news that effects publics interest in the EU, but also their own communication tools that can improve.
The main limitations of this experiment may be the external validity and a possible shortcoming of the stimuli used in this study. It is not clear if participants may have figured out the real purpose of the study and rated certain pages more negative on purpose.
Future research could assess different frames and investigate why some websites were described as more interesting or useful than others. Further research could ask what citizens describe as useful information about the EU and where they would want to access it.
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Acknowledgement note
The author would like to thank Yphtach Lelkes, for his supervision and stimulating feedback; Penny Sheets, Jonas Lefevere and Claes de Vreese for their inspiring courses; And Gabriela Bindlechner for continuously making the impossible possible.
Appendix Stimuli material
FIG. 1. Official EUROPA website.
FIG. 3. Mock-up EUROPA website with nationalization features.
Distractors
