Assessing Emergency Information Sharing between the Government and the Public during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Open Government Perspective

Abstract

This study aims to conduct an assessment of emergency information sharing between the government and the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, this study intends to explore how the government provides emergency information on the pandemic to the public, how the public provides input to the government, and how the government and the public work together to respond to the pandemic. This study employed a mixed case study method focusing on the Oregon Citizen Assembly on COVID-19 Recovery and the Oregon State Government’s pandemic response activities. This study found that ordinary citizens were overall satisfied with pandemic information provided by the state government, but they reported that they did not have sufficient opportunities to share their input with the government. Online mini-publics can serve as a meaningful and deliberative forum for civic participation during pandemics.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• pandemic
• emergency management
• crisis management
• open government
• citizen deliberation
• mini-publics

Ethics approval

Our research design and methods were approved by the Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) for Pennsylvania State University (STUDY00015593), the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (IRB 261459), and the University of Oklahoma (IRB 12291), respectively. For the surveys and interviews, implied/verbal consent was obtained by including the consent for the surveys on the Qualtrics landing page prior to the start of the survey; participants were able to click either “I agree” or “I disagree” to consent. Similarly, the consent form for the interviews was sent by email after scheduling, and consent was obtained verbally before the start of the interview.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chul Hyun Park

Chul Hyun Park is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. He received a Ph.D. in Public Administration and Policy from Arizona State University and a Master of Public Policy from Georgia State University. His research interests include open government, e-government, collaborative governance, and program evaluation. Currently, he focuses on how nonstate actors collaborate with public organizations to address complex social problems, using information, communication, and computational technologies.

Robert C. Richards

Robert C. Richards, Jr. is an Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. He received a Ph.D. in Communication Arts and Sciences from Penn State University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. His research interests include deliberative democracy and participatory governance. His current research concerns the roles of goals and sense-making in democratic deliberation.

Justin Reedy

Justin Reedy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and a research associate in the Institute for Public Policy Research & Analysis at the University of Oklahoma. He received a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Washington. His research focuses on how groups of people make political and civic decisions, particularly on public policy issues that involve significant societal and personal risk.