Since 2015, the state council has issued standards and operating regulations for the construction and operation of the government website, established a database of basic information on the government website throughout the country and created the “i mischaracterize the government website” section on the chinese government's web site, with a view to improving the quality of the government's websites and enhancing public oversight over them. The 2015 census found that there were more than 80,000 government websites in the country, which were reduced to over 20,000 after being “skinned”, a reduction of 70. 1 per cent. Some of the non-compliant, non-updated “zombies” government websites have been requested to be overhauled or eliminated, and the remaining government websites have been evaluated and tested, resulting in significant improvements in normative, up-to-date speed and operational efficiency. For example, in the second quarter of 2018, spot-checking information on the national government website showed that the overall rate of sample-checking of over 20,000 government websites across the country was 96 per cent, or even 100 per cent in some areas。
The information, services and channels of interaction provided by the government website are increasingly receiving public attention and use as it is being standardized. The question to be studied is what is the coverage and usage of government websites and how to promote their wider use。
I. How to look at the use of government websites
Access to government websites is generally surveyed through questionnaires, but this approach is often difficult to measure accurately and is costly to survey. In contrast, it is common for countries to look at the number of visits or visits to websites to measure the use of government websites. Google, yahoo and amazon have all developed tools to measure site visits. Among them, alexa, under the umbrella of amazon, publishes a world ranking of the website (www. Alexa. Com/siteinfo/), which is a better way to measure the number of visits to the site. Studies have shown that it has a better quality of statistical access and has the widest data coverage。
Alexa ranked both domestic and global usage of a website. For example, the chinese government network (www. Gov. Cn) ranks 2101 globally, and 253 in the mainland of china. Compared to central government websites around the world, the chinese government network ranks third, after the british government network (742) and the canadian government network (1067). We use alexa’s government website rankings to measure access to government websites at the central ministry, provincial government and local government levels, and to study factors that influence government website access。
Ii. What determines the popularity of government websites
The popularity of government websites depends largely on the following factors. These factors can be grouped into two categories, supply and demand, namely, access to government websites, depending on the quality of the information and services they provide, on the one hand, and the attitude and capacity of their potential audiences, on the other。
First, the potential audience of the government website will influence its physical accessibility, as determined by its maximum possible reach. A city with tens of millions of people is clearly more likely to have access to government websites than a city with less than a million inhabitants。
Second, the level of local economic development may affect access to government websites, as the more a local economy develops, the more attention will be paid. At the same time, governments in economically developed regions have increased financial, human and material resources to build, maintain and promote government websites。
Third, the level of construction or maturity of government websites themselves will also affect their popularity. In the past, many government websites were not consulted, in large part because they were poorly designed, up-to-date and poorly operated “zombie sites”。
In addition, public access to government websites is related to their availability of the necessary equipment, knowledge and ideas. In general, areas with higher levels of education and internet penetration are more likely to engage with government authorities via the internet, and the number of visits to government websites naturally increases。
If specific to government departments, their functions also affect the popularity of their portals. Sectors that focus on the core functions of the government and are often engaged with the population are more likely to receive widespread attention on their portals。
Iii. Why do government websites vary greatly
Using alexa's data, we found that government websites at all levels, locations and departments varied considerably in terms of access, as shown in table 1。
Table 1: number of visits to websites at all levels of government. Note: the provincial government website includes the xinjiang production construction corps. Some of the sites are not searchable in rankings, so the lowest rankings are among those that are accessible。
Among the central ministries, the highest rankings are found in the national directorate of commerce and industry (5611), the general directorate of quality inspection (5611), followed by the national directorate of intellectual property (10092), the ministry of commerce (10424), the national statistical institute (12289), the ministry of foreign affairs (12431), the national directorate of taxes (15544), the general directorate of customs (17661) and the ministry of education (18834), all in the order of 20,000。
At the provincial level, the cities of beijing (14290), jiangsu (35461), shanghai (42226), chongqing (45635) and tianjin (46540) are among the top provinces, all within 50,000。
At the urban level, shenzhen city (1888), hangzhou city (23,323), guangzhou city (29112), suzhou city (36196), wuhan city (41904), nanjing city (45168), dong jing city (47214) and wenzhou city (47607) ranked among the top rankings of 50,000. Compared to the above-mentioned high number of government websites, many have too low traffic to reach alexa。
At the administrative level, the median number of visits to the central ministry's website is greater than the provincial government website, which ranks more than the local municipal government website. This is mainly due to the fact that many of the policies issued by the central ministry are national in nature and will receive national and even global attention, which will increase the number of visits. By contrast, provincial governments are the hub of relations in the country, but they are “second-hand” of various policies and do not directly implement specific policies, thus having less impact on the dissemination of information. Local municipalities are responsible for implementing specific policies, so that they deal more with the public and businesses and have more access to their websites. For example, the local municipal website, which ranks ahead, has more access than some central ministries and provincial governments。
A regression analysis of visits to government websites shows that visits to government websites at different levels are influenced by a combination of factors。
A study of provincial government websites shows that their traffic is mainly related to the scoring of website performance, but not to the level of economic development, population size, proportion of population in higher education, internet penetration, etc. The government website performance assessment report 2017, published by the university of qinghua, provides a comprehensive assessment of the availability, accessibility, etc. Of government websites in a number of ways and can be considered as the basis for measuring the performance of government websites. The study showed that the higher the assessment score, the higher the number of visits to provincial government websites。
Interestingly, our study of local municipal websites has produced different results. While government website performance assessment scores continue to have a significant impact, website visits are also highly correlated with levels of economic development and population size. The higher the level of economic development and the larger the population, the greater the number of visits to government websites. In addition, the educational level of the population and internet penetration have no significant impact on the number of government website visits。
A study of the central ministry website shows that the higher its performance rating, the greater the number of visits. At the same time, studies have shown that the number of site visits is related to ministry functions. We have divided the ministries into seven functional categories, including economic development, social policy, monetary policy, foreign affairs, resources and environment, research and advisory and integrated services. Research shows that ministries in the field of foreign affairs, monetary policy and economic development have a higher average ranking on their websites, followed by ministries in the field of social policy, resources and environment and, finally, ministries in the field of research and advice, integrated services. Citizens, businesses, the media and research institutions are paying more attention to ministries and their websites are likely to receive more attention. Relatively little attention has been paid to the web sites of ministries focused on internal government affairs。
Iv. Policy messages
This study shows that the number of visits to the three levels of government websites is related to their performance ratings. This indicates whether government websites are favoured by users and are largely related to the quality of their design and performance of operations. In other cases of equivalence, government websites with higher performance ratings are more popular. This means that government departments should strengthen the performance assessment and improvement of government websites, continuously improve the quality of government websites, enable them to meet the needs of users, and attract users to use and become more adhesive。
The study also shows that the number of visits to government websites is also linked to factors beyond the control of other government departments, such as the level of economic development, population size, government functions, etc., which are related to the economic, social and political influence of jurisdictions or sectors. This means that the number of visits and their ranking do not fully reflect the capacity or performance of government websites, as it is also influenced by many factors that are not controlled. For example, government websites in mexico, angola, egypt, switzerland and belgium have even higher access than in large countries, such as the united states and india, which is highly related to such factors as the level of government, the political system, the characteristics of public services and not entirely dependent on government website performance。
At the same time, the emergence of social media and mobile internet is diverting the flow of government websites, which is facing greater challenges. The 42nd china internet development statistics report, published by china's internet information centre in july this year, shows that 58. 6 per cent of internet users use online government services, but the highest usage is for urban services (44 per cent) that pay for treasures or micro-intelligence, followed by the government micro-intelligence public number (23. 6 per cent). The use of government websites is only 19 per cent higher than the use of government mobile phones (11. 6 per cent) and microblogging (9. 4 per cent), but far lower than the online political services provided by the first two third-party platforms。
How to develop in synergy with mobile government and take advantage of the government's website is key to furthering the government's website in the future. For example, government websites continue to be indispensable in dealing with complex, important and electronically certified online government service processes。
Originally published in the journal of intelligence, no. 10 of 2018, the title was “the higher the e-government performance, the more citizens use it? • evidence study of local government in china”. The original text was written in collaboration with liu liu liu, a graduate student and associate professor at the public administration school of the people's university of china. For technical details, please refer to the original language。
