A lack of proper communication between governments and citizens is contributing to an increasing global shift toward populism, radicalization and extremism, according to a unique survey of communication chiefs across 40 countries carried out by WPP’s Government and Public Sector Practice.

Governments around the world are losing control and authority over communication. They have been shaken by public distrust of government officials and institutions, and are struggling to keep pace with how citizens gather information and form opinions. 

Mobile technology and social media have combined to make citizens more powerful than ever before. Citizens have almost unlimited access to information and they can broadcast their issues widely, regardless of accuracy. 

Equally, citizens can criticize and campaign faster than the speed at which governments can respond. 

At the same time, citizens have become increasingly anxious. They fear change, distrust globalization and often disregard government officials. They vent pent-up anger at elites they believe to be out of touch.

This venting of anger is highly visible — but difficult for governments to respond to. While citizens find it easier to communicate with one another online, governments find it harder: Social media has fractured audiences and made obsolete the traditional one-way broadcast model of public communication. 

Social media has also shrunk the center ground — extreme views appear more mainstream when algorithms amplify them and reflect them back to those with similar views.

The advent of fake news and the dissemination of knowingly inaccurate news — or “alternative facts” — has only increased the appeal of previously fringe groups and hampered the ability of governments to respond. 

Governments need to rethink communications, given their struggle to keep pace with how citizens gather information.

Tania Atallah

So what can be done to address this crisis of confidence and trust?

The WPP study suggests that governments face a long haul in rebuilding their relationship with the public and must respond by being more, not less open, and by providing real-time access to both government and those who govern. 

It suggests they need to do more to switch from a reliance on mass uniform broadcasting to more personalized segmented communication.

This will not be easy. Respondents to the research acknowledge that government communication is rarely citizen-focused: Only a quarter said the voice of the citizen is taken into account in key decisions. They complain that communication is seen by too many governments as little more than a final “car wash,” the tail end that polishes up a policy that has been produced without any citizen engagement.

The research also suggests that many government communication leaders struggle to deal with bureaucracy (one respondent said he has to go through “only” three layers of sign-off before being able to issue a tweet), and struggle to demonstrate the impact that their work can have on public policy. The majority of respondents are judged on communication objectives (for example, how great a television advert looks) rather than policy outcomes (what the public did after seeing the advert.) 

As a result, too many government communication functions are seen as a shared service, rather than a strategic one, and lack the influence they need to place the citizen at the heart of public policymaking.

Whether governments like it or not, the people are taking control. They have the power to express their views and they must be engaged at the earliest stage of policymaking. 

So how and why governments need to communicate has changed, but their communication structures and skills have not. Our research shows an increasing realization that governments need to:

• Run long-term, strategic behavior-change communication campaigns, using paid, owned and earned media;

• Manage citizen engagement across multiple touch points for digital public services;

• Interact with citizens directly on social media, which calls for high quality, rapid content production;

• Build an emotional connection with audiences, particularly through storytelling;

• Integrate communications across on- and off-line channels;

• Disintermediate the media — in effect, harness the power of digital influencers and reduce the reliance on journalists.

This is a long way from how the majority of governments communicate today — and even further from the needs and expectations of citizens in an age of both increasing citizen power and insecurity.

• Tania Atallah is the regional director for training and government affairs at Hill+Knowlton Strategies, the communications and public affairs firm.