How Modern Governments Communicate

And is anyone out there listening when they do communicate?

Once upon a time long, long ago, a government minister or ministry official with something to say would invite one or more reporters in for a conversation. This was often called an “interview” or perhaps a “press conference.” The reporters, still basking in the warmth of the minister’s regal beneficence, would rush to file their reports. The government’s message was duly spread, and all the citizens of the realm were exceedingly happy.

The end.

Of course, the main reason it’s “the end” is because there’s no longer anything resembling a straight line between government mouths and citizens’ ears. Compared with previous decades, today’s newspapers and TV networks haven’t got the available manpower to attend interviews. And even if they did, not many Canadians bother consuming what they publish.

Data I’ve seen suggests that, at any given time, fewer than one in 200 Canadians are watching CBC TV and no more than 3.5 percent are listening to CBC radio. I hope to publish that research in the near future.

As Paul Wells put it in his “End of Media” series, the ability of anyone with internet access to publish anything, anytime has dethroned once-powerful media empires. But the existence of countless millions of new content publishers makes it nearly impossible for any one of them to be heard.

However governments do have a legitimate need to speak to their citizens. And if they can’t do that through legacy media outlets, then they’ll have to find alternatives.

The canada.ca website is the federal government’s official online platform. It’s a busy place, attracting around 68 million visits each month. But those visits are spread across a very wide range of topics. Site usage estimates suggest that at least 13 percent of visits are the result of web searches looking for help from the CRA with tax-related issues. I suspect that very few people come to the site looking for today’s breaking policy announcements.

So then how does the government communicate? Official federal contract data shows us how one common approach is to hire private sector press release agencies. When you purchase a “release” from one of those companies, they’ll push your message to hundreds of online services, including search engines, wire services, and media outlets. The hope is that, as a result, enough of the right eyes will end up seeing your announcement and the message will, as the cool kids say, go viral.

Here’s how much money the Canadian government spent with such agencies since 2020:

Large organizations like governments will obviously purchase such services in bulk, so they’ll get better rates than you or I would. But, as you can see from the table above, they’re far from free.

Government agencies who have spent the most on such services include Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (48 contracts since 2020), Canada Revenue Agency (41), National Defence (37), and Health Canada (35). Given how important it is for governments to communicate effectively, I believe a lot of that spending can be justified.

But I doubt it works. In fact, short of having ministers sing drinking songs in Parliament while tearing off their clothes (No! PLEASE no!), I’m not sure anything they can do will reliably attract public attention to important messages.

The problem, as these things go, isn’t propagating your message across platforms, but getting people to notice it from among the millions of other folks’ messages.

As an experiment, I took advantage of a “free first release” offer from EIN Presswire to spread the word about The Audit. The release - which would normally have cost me $100 - successfully got my announcement listed on many platforms, including Google News.

But the results were disappointing. No more than 30 visitors were inspired to click through to visit and, of those, exactly one (1) ended up subscribing. And a very warm welcome to you, new subscriber!

The problem governments face here is real and I can’t fault them for their efforts at solving it. But in our fragmented and attention-starved society, there just may not be a really good answer.