The Handbook of Public Sector Communication

Part VPublic Sector Communication Measurement and Evaluation

Jim Macnamara

Introduction

In the past two decades, governments in a number of countries and states have sought to expand public access to information and participation in policy making through “open government” (OGP, 2015), “Government 2.0” (Tanner, 2009), “government to citizens” (G2C) projects (Garson & Khosrow‐Pour, 2008), and other e‐democracy initiatives (Carpentier, 2011; Dahlgren, 2009), along with traditional public communication through media and public consultation. This has resulted in substantial commitments to public communication, as noted in previous sections of this handbook.

Equally, governments are applying increased focus on governance, transparency, and accountability in relation to public sector expenditure. Continuing budget pressures in the wake of the global financial crisis that began in 2008, the effects of globalization on trade and investment, technological change, recent massive immigration influxes in a number of countries, and other economic, political, and social factors, mean that public sector communication must be shown to be necessary, cost‐efficient, and effective.

Despite this pressure on public sector organizations, UK communication evaluation scholars Anne Gregory and Tom Watson (2008) have reported a “stasis” in measurement and evaluation. In the US, David Michaelson and Don Stacks have observed that “public relations practitioners have consistently failed to achieve consensus ...