How responsiveness works in mainland China: Effects on institutional trust and political participation

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2019.101855Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The effect of perceived institutional responsiveness on institutional trust and political participation is studied.

  • A total of 4068 respondents from Mainland China completed survey questionnaires.

  • Institutional trust mediates perceived government responsiveness and public’s political participation.

  • Government responsiveness is likely to boost institutional trust for online information seeker.

  • Dialogue theory is extended with the revisited pre-conditions and social impacts in China.

Abstract

This study investigated whether and how institutional responsiveness, a constitutive element of dialogic communication, influences institutional trust and political participation among members of the public in mainland China. A total of 4068 respondents from mainland China completed questionnaires. Results demonstrated that institutional responsiveness indirectly reduced publics’ destructive non-institutional political participation by building institutional trust. Extending the public relations literature on dialogue, we found that this indirect relationship is conditional on online political information seeking rather than online political expression among members of the public. For people who frequently use the Internet to seek political information, institutional responsiveness is more likely to boost institutional trust, which decreases the likelihood of participation in offline political activities.

Introduction

In mainland China, the influence of governmental institutions extends deeply into every corner of society, across political, cultural, and economic realms (Guthrie, 2012; Pye, 1992; Shi, 2001; Sigley, 2006). Consequently, researchers who focus on Chinese institutions tend to reach beyond the theoretical perspectives of political science and political communication for multidisciplinary approaches to social questions. Literature on political communication mostly considers dialogue as a function of political rivalries composed of competing parties with different political goals (Strøm, 1990). In contrast, public relations scholars focus on studying the mechanism underlying the purposeful management of organization-public relationships in light of organizational transparency, public trust towards institutions, and resulting social impacts (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2013). One approach that has been particularly useful in examinations of the kinds of expansive governmental organizations that exist in mainland China is dialogue theory, which emphasizes responsiveness as the fundamental requirement of dialogic communication (Anderson, Swenson, & Gilkerson, 2016; Avidar, 2013). Within this theory, the concept of dialogic propinquity defines listening, consulting, and disclosing as the responsive activities that institutions use to consult with public constituencies about decisions that affect them (Kent & Taylor, 2002; Yang, Kang, & Cha, 2015).

To revisit dialogue theory in the context of the Chinese mainland, the central challenge is to reconsider the pre-conditions and social impacts of effective communications practices that can facilitate dialogue between the Chinese government and publics in the present transformative media environment (Chen, 2003, 2009). Enhanced dialogue enabled by digital communication can develop and improve government-public relationships and potentially mitigate emerging social conflicts. Public trust towards governmental institutions, particularly in the Chinese context, is an essential element for building a productive government-public relationship; and public engagement with political issues is beneficial in any society as a process for conveying public needs and interests to government bodies. However, communication is strictly regulated and often censored by the Chinese government (Cai, 2008; Zhang & Lin, 2014); moreover, Chinese culture places a strong emphasis on social harmony and stability as an ideal. As a result, institutional responsiveness considered as the basic prerequisite of effective dialogic communication can either undermine or facilitate public trust and political participation in mainland China, thus influencing the stable or harmonious qualities of political participation (Teets, 2013). We attempt to address this issue by using dialogue theory to explore the following research question: How does institutional responsiveness build publics’ institutional trust and further influence their political participation, with the understanding that political participation is mostly understood in mainland China as a negative influence on social harmony and stability?

The rapid development of Internet technology has granted publics access to massive amounts of political information and the ability to voice their needs and interests in social and political life. Such a large-scale transformation of the structure of organization-public communication may influence the effects of dialogic communication strategies (i.e., responsiveness) on public trust and political participation. Consequently, this study also discusses how publics’ Internet use influences the relationship between perceived responsiveness of governmental institutions and levels of institutional trust among publics. Specifically, we focus on two common patterns of Internet use: online political information seeking and online political expression (Shah, Cho, Eveland, & Kwak, 2005).

We extend the previous research on dialogic communication in several ways (e.g., Bruning, Dials, & Shirka, 2008; Henderson & Bowley, 2010; Kent, 2013; Rybalko & Seltzer, 2010; Watkins, 2017; Watkins & Lewis, 2014; Wirtz & Zimbres, 2018; Yang et al., 2015). First, we depict the political implications of responsiveness conceived as the basic step of dialogic communication. Second, we show that the effects of dialogic communication (i.e., responsiveness) on public trust and engagement can vary based on particular cultural and political contexts. Third, we demonstrate how the impact of dialogic communication strategies can be moderated by publics’ Internet use patterns.

Section snippets

Perceived institutional responsiveness

Responsiveness refers to “an organization’s willingness and ability to respond to referrals by individual public members” (Avidar, 2013, p. 442). In dialogic communication, organizational responsiveness can partially reflect the principle of dialogic propinquity in that “publics are consulted in matters that influence them” (Kent & Taylor, 2002, p. 26). Organizational responsiveness to publics sets a base for communicating in the present about issues and for further effective dialogic

Method

To test our hypotheses, we used data from the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS). This comparative survey collects data in Asia on attitudes and values towards politics, power, reform, democracy, and citizen activism. The Asian Barometer Survey has released four waves of survey data, and this study used the fourth wave of ABS data from mainland China (released in 2016) for two reasons. First, the fourth-wave data is the most current and can ensure the timeliness of our analysis (McGivray, 2010; Wang

Results

To test our hypotheses (see Fig. 1), we adopted a three-step approach. In the first step, with regard to H1, H2, H3, and H4, we tested the mediation relationships. In the second step, with regard to H5 and H6, we tested the moderation effects of Internet use on the relationship between perceived institutional responsiveness and institutional trust. In the third step, we tested the moderated mediation effect of Internet use. Next, we categorized the moderators into three levels based on the

Discussion

This study extends dialogue theory by examining its social impacts in the changing media context of mainland Chinese society. In particular, we found that institutional trust mediated the relationship between perceived institutional responsiveness and destructive non-institutionalized political participation. The finding generally supports Huang (2001b) “communication-relationship-conflict resolution” model, suggesting an institutional perspective. Government communication practices (i.e.,

Limitation and future research directions

Like any other study, this study has some limitations. First, it should be noted that the values of regression coefficients and R-square are relatively low. Second, due to the nature of secondary data, future studies should analyze primary data to enhance the reliability of some variables examined this study. For example, institutional responsiveness has low, although still acceptable, reliability. Third, online political information seeking and online political expression were measured by a

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgement

We sincerely thank to the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS) for granting us to use its data.

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