Quantitative Evaluation of the Fulfillment of Social Responsibility of
Guizhou Governmental WeChat Official Accounts
Na Yuan
1
and Liyuan Lou
2*
1
School of Communication, Guizhou Minzu University, Guiyang, Guizhou, 550025, China
2
School of Literature and Communication, Guizhou Education University, Guiyang, Guizhou, 550018, China
Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic, New Media for Government Affairs, Social Responsibility, Quantitative Assessment.
Abstract: Based on 904 articles from 10 governmental WeChat public accounts in Guizhou Province from October 19
th
,
2021 to October 31
st
, 2021, this study quantitatively evaluates their social responsibility performance by using
the social responsibility evaluation index system developed by Huazhong University of Science and
Technology. It is found that although much remains to be improved concerning communication and
coordination, value guidance and cultural education, Guizhou governmental new media has fulfilled its social
responsibility well in information production since the COVID-19 epidemic entered the stage of normal
prevention and control. And it is suggested that attention should be paid to the work of platform participation,
public participation and platform response in the construction of governmental WeChat public accounts.
1 INTRODUCTION
Against the background of big data development in
Guizhou, the “Internet+ government” mode in
Guizhou has been steadily promoted. Earlier in 2017,
Guizhou set up 1528 governmental WeChat official
accounts and realized province-wide coverage of new
media for government affairs, forming the first new
media matrix for government affairs in China (China
News 2017). The new media for government affairs
shares an important role in promoting the openness of
governmental affairs, optimizing government
services, gathering social consensus, innovating
social governance, etc. In early 2019, in response to
the prominent problems of unclear functional
positioning of new media for government affairs, lax
information release, irregular construction and
operation and maintenance, and lack of supervision
and management, Guizhou Province issued the
Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Healthy
and Orderly Development of New Media for
Government Affairs. The Opinions pointed out that
by 2020, a set of new media for government affairs
integrating release information, policy interpretation,
About the Author:
1
Na Yuan (1996-), female, born in Xishui, Guizhou, is a graduate student of School of Communication at
Guizhou Minzu University, with research direction in communication.
∗
Corresponding Author:
*
Liyuan Lou (1983-), male, born in Guiyang, Guizhou, is an associate professor of School of
Literature and Communication at Guizhou Education University, with research direction in communication.
concern response, government interaction, office
services, and other functional roles should be built in
Guizhou, featured by a number of quality accounts
and applications welcomed by the public. It is
planned that by 2022, the provincial new media for
government affairs will truly become an important
channel to connect the masses, serve the masses, and
unite the masses in the mobile Internet era, an
important means to accelerate the transformation of
government functions and build a service-oriented
government, an important front to guide online public
opinion and build clear cyberspace, and an important
way to explore new modes of social governance and
improve social governance capacity (General Office
of Guizhou Provincial People's Government 2019).
At present, Guizhou has witnessed the basic
construction of a new media matrix system for
government affairs with the new media of the
Guizhou Provincial People’s Government at the
center. The new media for government affairs in
Guizhou has basically formed the characteristics of
overall synergy and rapid response. It is moving
towards a new pattern of standardized development,
innovative development, and integrated
Yuan, N. and Lou, L.
Quantitative Evaluation of the Fulfillment of Social Responsibility of Guizhou Governmental WeChat Official Accounts.
DOI: 10.5220/0011912300003613
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on New Media Development and Modernized Education (NMDME 2022), pages 367-381
ISBN: 978-989-758-630-9
Copyright
c
2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
367
development. Has the propagation, guidance,
influence, and credibility of Guizhou’s new media for
government affairs been comprehensively enhanced
during the COVID-19 epidemic? Did the role of
connecting the masses, serving the masses, and
uniting the masses really come into play? Has the
purpose of service-oriented government been truly
implemented? Was the guidance of network public
opinion really promoted? Has the ability of social
supervision and social governance been really
improved? These questions constitute the criteria to
evaluate whether the Guizhou new media for
government affairs really “serve the people”. In this
paper, Guizhou governmental WeChat official
accounts are taken as research objects to study the
social responsibility fulfillment situation of
Guizhou’s new media for government affairs and then
provide reference suggestions for the development of
Guizhou governmental WeChat official accounts.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Research on WeChat stands as a hot topic in academic
circles with a lot of literature about “WeChat” on
China National Knowledge Internet. However, a
fuzzy search combining “WeChat”, “WeChat
platform”, “media responsibility”, and
“responsibility” yields very limited literature, mostly
focusing on the copyright infringement of works
generated by the WeChat platform. For example,
some scholars point out that the copyright
infringement of works on the WeChat platform is so
prominent that it is urgent to build a legal, healthy and
orderly WeChat intellectual property network
environment and strengthen the copyright protection
of WeChat works (Yang 2021).
In addition, there are not many studies on the
social responsibility of governmental WeChat official
accounts. With the search of keywords such as
“governmental WeChat official accounts”,
“governmental WeChat”, “new media for
government affairs”, “responsibility”, and “social
responsibility” and their combinations, less than one
hundred pieces of literature can be retrieved from the
journals included in China National Knowledge
Internet in recent years, and those with academic
research value are also very limited. Specifically,
most of the literature focuses on the image shaping
analysis of new media for government affairs,
analysis of platform construction, and research on
proposed operation strategies. Some scholars point
out that the functions of governmental WeChat such
as information transmission and governmental
services have a very important role in shaping the
image of the government. Therefore, multiple
subjects must actively collaborate in governance and
solve new problems of governmental WeChat with
new ideas in order to facilitate the benign
development of governmental WeChat (Mao, Liu,
Liu 2016). In addition, more literature topics center
on the communication of governmental WeChat in
crisis events and the guidance of public opinion. For
example, some scholars conducted an empirical study
based on the users’ perspective to compare the crisis
communication mechanisms of governmental Weibo
and governmental WeChat, the result of which proved
that users adopted the different characteristics of
governmental WeChat and governmental Weibo to
effectively communicate in a crisis, and that
governmental Weibo is more influenced by social
relationships, while governmental WeChat is more
influenced by crisis scenarios (Xie, Peng 2017).
At present, there are many quantitative evaluation
methods that can be used to quantitatively evaluate
new media such as WeChat. Huang Guofan and
others put forward WCI-WeChat Communication
Index, which ranks the scores of WeChat public
accounts by the use of a calculation formula which is
based on relevant quantity of reading index and praise
index.(Huang 2015)
Yan Yueming and others proposed a WeChat
official account influence model by using H-index
and R-index as indicators. R-index is the square root
of the total cited frequency in the performance core
defined by the H-index which is originally used for
evaluating the academic output of scientific
researchers. (Yan, Zhao 2016)
Zhang Siyi and others calculated the weight of the
evaluation indicators by using the analytic hierarchy
process, established the influence hierarchy model of
WeChat official account, and constructed a pairwise
comparison judgment matrix and consistency test to
finally determine the weight coefficient of each
evaluation indicator. (Zhang, Zhong 2019)
Ji Fang et al. used the fuzzy comprehensive
evaluation method and fuzzy mathematics to
comprehensively evaluate the objects affected by a
variety of complex factors, and used the principle of
subordination to comprehensively measure the
relevant elements to achieve quantitative evaluation
of qualitative problems. (Ji, Zhang 2015)
In October 2021, Report on the China’s New
Media Social Responsibility (2020-2021), edited by
Professor Zhong Ying’s team at Huazhong University
of Science and Technology, was released in Wuhan,
in which the developed evaluation indicator system
was used for the evaluation of new media social
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368
responsibility. Since 2014, new optimizations have
been made to the traditional new media social
responsibility evaluation indicator system,
constructing a three-level indicator system in line
with the current communication environment.
(Zhong 2021) The indicator system contains 4 first-
level indicators, namely “information production”,
“value guidance”, “cultural education”, and
“coordination and communication”, under which
there are also 9 secondary-level indicators and 26
third-level indicators. “Information production”, the
first and most important part of information
dissemination, stands as the most important link. And
information quality and process management are the
two secondary-level indicators of information
production; “value guidance” is the purpose and
requirement of information dissemination, and its
secondary-level indicators include consensus
building and social monitoring; “cultural education"
mainly includes three secondary-level indicators of
cultural inheritance, science and education
communication, and entertainment; “coordination
and communication”, the last link in the process of
information dissemination, emphasizes the feedback
of information, which includes two secondary-level
indicators of information coordination and
communication effectiveness. The index system has
weight values and calculation methods verified by
scientific research, which can be directly used.
Therefore, this paper, adopting the new media social
responsibility evaluation indicator system, will
construct a quantitative assessment method to
analyze the social responsibility fulfillment of
Guizhou governmental WeChat official accounts
since the epidemic outbreak in four parts, information
production, value guidance, cultural education, and
coordination and communication. Specifically, this
study intends to answer the following five research
questions.
RQ1: What is the overall situation of social
responsibility of Guizhou governmental WeChat
official accounts?
RQ2: What is the situation of “information
production” of Guizhou governmental WeChat
official accounts?
RQ3: What is the situation of “value guidance” of
Guizhou governmental WeChat official accounts?
RQ4: What is the situation of “cultural education”
of Guizhou governmental WeChat official accounts?
RQ5: What is the situation of “coordination and
communication” of Guizhou governmental WeChat
official accounts?
3 METHOD
3.1 Data Collection and Processing
On October 19
th
, 2021, one confirmed COVID-19
case was reported in Zunyi, Guizhou, the resurgence
of which broke the 608-day no epidemic record since
February 17
th
, 2020. In the face of the epidemic, a
quick reaction was made in Guizhou to prevent and
control the epidemic, building an epidemic firewall
for its people. With no new infections reported from
October 25
th
, 2021, the epidemic was basically
controlled in early November. And this paper
attempts to present the social responsibility
fulfillment status of Guizhou governmental WeChat
official accounts during the sudden epidemic
outbreak.
Therefore, this research focuses on nine local
governmental WeChat official accounts in the
governmental new media matrix published by the
Guizhou Provincial People’s Government (Guizhou
Provincial People’s Government included) to
represent the nine prefecture-level administrative
regions, namely Guiyang People’s Government (The
Voice of Guizhou), Zunyi People’s Government,
Liupanshui People’s Government, Anshun People’s
Government, Bijie People’s Government, Tongren
People’s Government, Southwest Guizhou
Autonomous Prefecture Peoples’ Government
(Southwest Guizhou Government), South Guizhou
People’s Government, Southwest Guizhou People’s
Government (Southwest Guizhou Government
Affairs), and Guizhou Provincial People’s
Government, which constitute the 10 samples of
governmental WeChat official accounts. The contents
of articles published by these 10 governmental
WeChat official accounts between October 19
th
,
2021, and October 31
st
, 2021 were then selected to
count and evaluate article by article.
3.2 Measurements and Data Analysis
According to the specific situation of these samples,
this paper refers to the new media social
responsibility evaluation indicator system
[6]
and
selects 26 third-level indicators under the second-
level indicators to assess the current situation of
social responsibility performance of Guizhou
governmental WeChat official accounts. And the
specific scoring basis for the evaluation indicator is
shown in Table 1.
Quantitative Evaluation of the Fulfillment of Social Responsibility of Guizhou Governmental WeChat Official Accounts
369
Table 1 Scoring Basis for the Third-level Indicators of Social Responsibility Evaluation of Guizhou Governmental WeChat
Official Accounts
Third-level
Indicators
Main Measurement Path Remark
Authenticit
y
The
p
ro
p
ortion of true sam
p
les Whether true or not
Authority The proportion of authoritative sources
The authoritative sources here refer to the
authority on political attributes, including
various national, provincial, municipal, and
county-level media.
Timeliness
The proportion of time difference lower than
24 hours between release time and event time
Coverage The proportion of content and form diversity
Content Diversity: including the epidemic
situation report, national and local epidemic
prevention status, epidemic prevention
science, social livelihood, etc.;
Form diversity: including pictures, video,
audio, or a combination of multi
p
le forms
Depth
The proportion of thematic articles, in-depth
re
p
orts, ex
p
lanator
y
re
p
orts, etc.
Originality The proportion of original content
Based on whether the article is marked as
"original"
Objectivity
The proportion of reports with objective
views
Information Check The proportion of content reviewed
Based on whether or not the audit unit and
auditor are marked at the end of the article
Advertising
Regulation
The proportion of no advertising
The ads here can be divided into four
categories, namely bottom-of-page ads,
header ads, implant ads, and independent
ads
Infringement
Control
The proportion of no copyright infringement
Based on whether or not the source of the
article is clear and the name of the author is
com
p
ile
d
Mainstream Value
The proportion of content in line with the
main theme of socialis
m
Social Ethics
The proportion of content that conforms to
the social ethics during the epidemic
Based on whether or not it is about social
morality, touching deeds in the epidemic,
movin
g
events, etc.
National
Governance
The proportion of reports, reprints, and
explanations of national policies, regulations,
corru
p
tion, etc.
Social Risks
The proportion of information such as
emergency epidemic reminders, detailed
information on the epidemic situation, and
notification of the epidemic situation in
nei
g
hborin
g
re
g
ions
Behavior Anomie
The proportion of reports on social moral and
ethical anomie
Propaganda of
Contemporary
Culture and Anti-
epidemic Spirit
The proportion of content about the anti-
epidemic spirit
The anti-epidemic spirit here refers to
articles, songs, etc. that inspire the fight
against the epidemic
Educational
Communication
The proportion of content about student
learning (early childhood, primary school,
secondar
y
school, and universit
y)
Science and
Technology
Communication
The proportion of content about new vaccine
research progress, new technologies,
epidemic prevention knowledge, rumor
refutation, and daily life tips
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370
Content Richness
The proportion of content about travel, food,
exhibitions, movies, and other entertainment
information
Content Healthiness
The proportion of no vulgarity, pornography,
violence, and other unhealth
y
content
Publicity of Topics
The proportion of content about epidemic
information, social life, government affairs,
and other convenient information
Identity Diversity
The proportion of reports involving multiple
tar
g
ets
Public Partici
p
ation Recordin
g
the s
p
ecific number of reads
Public Recognition
Recording specific number of likes and
"watchin
g
"
Platform Interaction Recordin
g
the number of comments
Platform Res
p
onse Recordin
g
the number of re
p
lies to comments
A total of 904 articles published by 10 Guizhou
governmental WeChat official accounts between
October 19
th
, 2021, and October 31
st
, 2021 were
collected and analyzed by the content analysis
method. The collection and collation of sample data
were completed by two trained personnel. Each three-
level indicator was scored out of 5. And each article
was firstly read and evaluated according to the
evaluation indicator system and then the proportion
of the number of articles that met the indicator to the
overall number of articles was calculated for each
governmental WeChat official account, which was
then converted into a full score of 5. Among them,
specific data should be recorded for the third-level
indicators of “public participation”, “public
recognition”, “platform interaction”, and “platform
response”. The score was calculated by the following
formula:
𝑅=5∗
𝑁
𝑁
In the formula, R stands for the score of this item,
N stands for the specific value of single data and
N
stands for the highest value of this indicator,
the score of each third-level indicator was then
calculated based on the overall weight value of Table
2.
Table 2 Weight Values for Three-level Indicators of Social Responsibility Evaluation of Guizhou Governmental WeChat
Official Accounts
First-level Indicators Second-level Indicators Third-level Indicators
Overall Weight
of Third-level
Indicators
Information
Production
0.5013
Information
Quality
0.8300
Authenticit
y
0.3653 0.152
Authorit
y
0.1038 0.0432
Timeliness 0.0942 0.0392
Com
p
rehensiveness 0.0836 0.0348
De
p
th 0.0906 0.0377
Originalit
y
0.0620 0.0258
Objectivit
y
0.2007 0.0835
Process
Management
0.1700
Information Chec
k
0.4472 0.0381
Advertisin
g
Norms 0.1890 0.0161
Infringement
Control
0.3638
0.031
Value
Guidance
0.1760
Consensus
Building
0.4193
Mainstream Value 0.5176
0.0382
Social Fashion 0.4824 0.0356
Social
Supervision
0.5801
National
Governance
0.3849
0.0393
Social Ris
k
0.3751 0.0383
Anomie of
Behavio
r
0.2400 0.0245
0.1177 0.4605 Traditional Culture 0.5277 0.0286
Quantitative Evaluation of the Fulfillment of Social Responsibility of Guizhou Governmental WeChat Official Accounts
371
Cultural
Education
Cultural
Herita
g
e
Contemporary
Culture
0.4723 0.0256
Communication
Of Science and
Education
0.3594
Communication of
Education
0.5225
0.0221
Communication of
Science
0.4752 0.0201
Entertainment 0.1810
Content Richness 0.3662
0.0078
Content Health 0.6291 0.0134
Communication
&
Coordination
0.205
Information
Coordination
0.3293
Publicity of Topics 0.7422
0.0501
Identit
y
Diversit
y
0.2578 0.0174
Communication
Effectiveness
0.6707
Public Partici
p
ation 0.3331 0.0458
Public Reco
g
nition 0.2815 0.0387
Public Interaction 0.2356 0.0324
Public Responses 0.1505 0.0207
4 RESULTS
4.1 Overall Evaluation of Social
Responsibility Fulfillment (RQ1) of
Guizhou Governmental WeChat
Official Accounts
4.1.1 Overall Social Responsibility Score of
Guizhou Governmental WeChat
Official Accounts
After evaluating the social responsibility of 10
Guizhou governmental WeChat official accounts and
calculating the overall weight of the three-level
indicators, the two-level and one-level scoring
systems are calculated according to the three-level
indicator system with reference to the weight value of
the new media social responsibility quantitative
evaluation system. The mathematical formula is
shown in Table 3.
Table 3 Calculation Formula for First-level and Second-
level indicators of Social Responsibility Evaluation System
of Guizhou Governmental WeChat Official Accounts
First-level Indicator
S
y
stem
Second-level Indicator
S
y
stem
Overall score of
social
responsibility=0.5013
*Information
Production+0.1760 *
Information
Guidance+0.1177 *
Culture
Education+0.205 *
Coordination and
Communication
Information
Production=0.830 *
Information Quality+0.170 *
Process Mana
g
ement
Value Guidance=0.4193 *
Consensus Building+0.5801
*Social Su
p
ervision
Cultural Education=0.4605 *
Cultural Heritage+0.3594 *
Communication of Science
and Education+0.1810 *
Entertainment
Communication and
Coordination=0.3293 *
Information
Coordination+0.6707 *
Communication Efficienc
y
After further processing the data, the first-level
index scores of 10 Guizhou governmental WeChat
official accounts are shown in Table 4. The ideal full
score in the quantitative index system is the weight
that is converted from the three-level index to the 5-
point system.
Table 4 Overall Social Responsibility Score of Guizhou Governmental WeChat Official Accounts
Unit: Score
Name of
Official
Account
Information
Production
Val ue
Guidance
Cultural
Education
Coordination and
Communication
Total Score Ranking
Guizhou
Provincial
People’s
Government
2.109565 0.377000 0.096396 0.970274 3.553235 1
Bijie People’s
Government
2.152383 0.281633 0.123133 0.439167 2.996317 2
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372
Zunyi People’s
Government
1.953152 0.339382 0.120785 0.370887 2.784205 3
Southwest
Guizhou
Government
Affairs
2.061122 0.310451 0.110622 0.292039 2.774234 4
South Guizhou
People’s
Government
2.028887 0.297633 0.113087 0.313340 2.752947 5
Liupanshui
People’s
Government
1.955306 0.349602 0.110571 0.335240 2.750719 6
The Voice of
Guizhou
1.993293 0.340138 0.090879 0.323655 2.747965 7
Anshun
People’s
Government
1.936754 0.304790 0.103225 0.307283 2.652051 8
Southeast
Guizhou
Government
1.959008 0.282067 0.094300 0.279261 2.614636 9
Tongren
People’s
Government
1.864608 0.290676 0.092088 0.308241 2.555613 10
In the overall evaluation of the social
responsibility of the 10 governmental WeChat official
accounts, it is unveiled in this paper that the final
score of samples falls between 2.5 and 3.5 with a
relatively small gap, and the performance of social
responsibility remains at the average level. Among
them, Guizhou Provincial People’s Government
ranks first with the highest score of 3.553235,
followed by Bijie People’s Government and Zunyi
People’s Government with a score of 2.996317 and
2.784205 respectively. At the bottom of the samples
is the Southeast Guizhou Government scoring
2.614636 and Tongren People’s Government scoring
2.555613.
It is worth noting that, except for the Guizhou
Provincial People’s Government which belongs to a
provincial unit, none of the other 9 municipal and
state-level governmental WeChat official accounts
reach a score of more than 3, demonstrating that
much remains to be improved in the social
responsibility fulfillment ability of the municipal and
state-level governmental WeChat official accounts.
In order to further understand the social
responsibility fulfillment of Guizhou governmental
WeChat official accounts, the maximum value,
minimum value, mean value, and standard deviation
of the first-level indicator scores of the sample data
were calculated. Compared to the ideal full scores of
the first-level indicators, the scoring rate of these 10
sample dates was also calculated as shown in Table 5.
On the whole, the mean value of the 10 governmental
WeChat official accounts is 2.818192 at the moderate
level.
Table 5 The Scoring Rate of the First-level Indicators of Guizhou Governmental WeChat Official Accounts
Unit: Score, %
First-level Indicator
Ideal Full
Score
Maximum
Val ue
Minimum
Val ue
Mean Value
Standard
Deviation
Scoring
Rate
Information
Production
2.507000 2.152383 1.864608 2.001408 0.082477 79.83
Value Guidance 0.879500 0.377000 0.281633 0.317337 0.030707 36.08
Cultural Education 0.588000 0.123133 0.090879 0.105509 0.011230 17.94
Communication and
Coordination
1.025500 0.970274 0.279261 0.393939 0.196979 38.41
Total Score 5 2.818192
Among all the first-level indicators, the maximum
value of the information production indicator is
2.152383, the minimum value is 1.864608, the mean
value is 2.001408, the standard deviation is 0.082477,
and the scoring rate reaches 79.83%, which indicates
that Guizhou governmental WeChat official accounts
Quantitative Evaluation of the Fulfillment of Social Responsibility of Guizhou Governmental WeChat Official Accounts
373
perform relatively well in information indicators
during the epidemic outbreak. The reason behind this
can be attributed to the public high demand for the
authenticity, authority, and timeliness of epidemic-
related information since the epidemic outbreak in
Zunyi, for which official resources such as the
governmental WeChat official accounts become the
best choice for the public. The maximum value of the
cultural education indicator is 0.123133, the
minimum value is 0.090879, the mean value is
0.105509, the standard deviation is 0.011230, and the
scoring rate is 17.94%, the lowest among the four
first-level indicators as demonstrated by poor
performance. The major reason lies in that the public
pays less attention to cultural education information
during the epidemic outbreak, which in turn affects
the coverage of cultural and educational news. The
maximum value of the value guidance indicator is
0.377000, the minimum value is 0.377000, the mean
value is 0.317337, the standard deviation is 0.030707,
and the scoring rate is 36.08%; the maximum value
of the communication and coordination indicator is
0.970274, the minimum value is 0.279261, the mean
value is 0.393939, the standard deviation is 0.196979,
and the scoring rate is 38.41%. The below-the-
standard scoring rates of these two indicators reflect
the unremarkable overall performance and the less-
than-ideal function implementation.
4.1.2 Analysis of the Social Responsibility
Scores of the Sample Governmental
WeChat Official Accounts
Menu bars are set in the home page layout in all the
sample governmental WeChat official accounts.
Guizhou People’s Government, for example, sets
three menu bars including @Provincial Government,
Micro Matrix, and Fingertip Government. Such a
measure can provide more convenient government
services for the public and display its characteristics,
thus boosting clicks. In this paper, two samples,
namely Guizhou People’s Government and Bijie
People’s Government, are selected for comparison.
And the first-level indicator scores of these two
samples rank first and second among the 10 selected
governmental WeChat official accounts.
Guizhou Provincial People’s Government (A
score of 3.553235)
Guizhou Provincial People’s Government, an
official account directly subordinate to the General
Office of Guizhou Provincial Government, serves as
one of the main windows for the provincial
government to release government information.
Ranking first in this social responsibility evaluation,
it also takes the lead in information production, value
guidance and coordination, and communication
indicators while falling behind in cultural education
indicators, highlighting its shortcomings in the
contents reported during the epidemic outbreak.
Given its weakness in anti-epidemic spirit and
content richness, the final score is affected that the
total score of first-level indicators fails to reach more
than 4, limiting it to a moderate level.
Bijie People’s Government (A score of 2.996317)
Bijie People’s Government, as a sample
government WeChat official account, ranks second in
the total score of first-level indicators, ranks first with
a slight advantage in the score of cultural education
indicator, while ranking the last in the score of value
guidance indicator. The overall score of the first-level
indicators is just above the passing line with a tiny
difference with those samples ranking after third
place. The performance can thus only be concluded
as “normal” in all aspects.
4.2 Evaluation of “Information
Production” (RQ2) of Guizhou
Governmental WeChat Official
Accounts
4.2.1 Analysis of Information Quality
Situation
As shown in Table 6 about the scores of the third-
level indicator, “information quality”, 10 sampled
governmental WeChat official accounts perform the
best in “authenticity”, “authority”, and “objectivity”.
All these sample objects score similarly in these three
aspects, among which “authenticity” and “authority”
are scored the same full mark with a score of 0 in
standard deviation. It is thus indicated that no false
information is found in the articles collected from the
10 governmental WeChat official accounts, which is
related to the positioning and attributes of
governmental WeChat official accounts. However,
there is still room for improvement in terms of
“depth” and “originality”. Specifically speaking,
governmental WeChat official accounts fail to
publish enough in-depth reports of relevant
governmental affairs and news information only with
those dominated by repetitive contents of leadership
speeches and conferences. When it comes to
“originality” responsibility, original articles, sharing
a small proportion, are nowhere near the number of
articles from other sources in all the 10 governmental
WeChat official accounts.
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Table 6 The Scores of the Third-level Indicator, “Information Quality”
Unit: Score
Name of
Official
Account
Authenticity Authority Timeliness Coverage Depth Originality Objectivity
Guizhou
Provincial
People’s
Government
0.760000 0.216000 0.105670 0.113478 0.054091 0.016826 0.417500
Zunyi
People’s
Government
0.760000 0.216000 0.133042 0.147636 0.041127 0.002345 0.417500
The Voice of
Guizhou
0.760000 0.216000 0.175724 0.150000 0.026000 0.010379 0.417500
Bijie
People’s
Government
0.760000 0.216000 0.148633 0.133400 0.028275 0.022575 0.417500
Liupanshui
People’s
Government
0.760000 0.216000 0.128000 0.134939 0.055781 0.011847 0.413240
Southeast
Guizhou
Government
0.760000 0.216000 0.124133 0.147900 0.037700 0.010750 0.417500
South
Guizhou
People’s
Government
0.760000 0.216000 0.182933 0.155440 0.047753 0.013760 0.417500
Southwest
Guizhou
Government
Affairs
0.760000 0.216000 0.181659 0.148537 0.055171 0.018878 0.417500
Tongren
People’s
Government
0.760000 0.216000 0.079459 0.134027 0.020378 0.001743 0.417500
Anshun
People’s
Government
0.760000 0.216000 0.119304 0.138696 0.027319 0.022435 0.417500
Mean Value 0.760000 0.216000 0.137856 0.140405 0.039360 0.013154 0.417074
Standard
Deviation
0.000000 0.000000 0.032557 0.011577 0.012726 0.006955 0.001278
4.2.2 Analysis of Process Management
Situation
It can be seen from Table 7 that the 10 sample WeChat
official accounts are commendable in regulating
advertisements and controlling infringement liability.
As all the sample objects score the full mark with a
score of 0 in standard deviation, it demonstrates that
there are no advertising implants or pushes when
publishing articles, which is related to the political
attributes of governmental WeChat official accounts
themselves. In terms of controlling infringement, all
sample subjects pay attention to the intellectual
property protection of the content when quoting and
reprinting the contents from other platforms and
websites with the author, unit, source, and other
related information prominently marked at the
beginning or end of the article. The responsibility of
information check refers to whether the audit unit and
auditor are marked at the end of the article. Great
differences exist in the scores among the sample
subjects, except for the full mark achieved by
Guizhou Provincial People’s Government and Bijie
People’s Government, Zunyi People’s Government,
Liupanshui People’s Government, South Guizhou
People’s Government, Tongren People’s
Government, Anshun People’s Government even
obtain a score of 0. To conclude, the sample objects
differ greatly in the scores of the “information check”
indicator with a standard deviation of 0.074675.
Quantitative Evaluation of the Fulfillment of Social Responsibility of Guizhou Governmental WeChat Official Accounts
375
Table 7 The Scores of the Third-level Indicator, “Process Management”
Unit: Score
Name of Official Account Information Chec
k
Advertising Regulation Infringement Control
Guizhou Provincial
Peo
p
le’s Government
0.190500 0.080500 0.155000
Zunyi People’s
Government
0.000000 0.080500 0.155000
The Voice of Guizhou 0.002190 0.080500 0.155000
Bi
j
ie Peo
p
le’s Government 0.190500 0.080500 0.155000
Liupanshui People’s
Government
0.000000 0.080500 0.155000
Southeast Guizhou
Government
0.009525 0.080500 0.155000
South Guizhou People’s
Government
0.000000 0.080500 0.155000
Southwest Guizhou
Government Affairs
0.027878 0.080500 0.155000
Tongren People’s
Government
0.000000 0.080500 0.155000
Anshun People’s
Government
0.000000 0.080500 0.155000
Mean Value 0.042059 0.080500 0.155000
Standard Deviation 0.074675 0.000000 0.000000
4.3 Evaluation of “Value Guidance”
(RQ3) of Guizhou Governmental
WeChat Official Accounts
4.3.1 Analysis of Consensus Building
Situation
“Consensus shaping” stands as an important purpose
of disseminating information on governmental
WeChat official accounts. It can be seen from Table 8
that 10 sampled governmental WeChat official
accounts perform well in mainstream value
responsibility with a small difference in scores. A
column named ‘Study Hard’ has also been set up in
the official accounts of Guizhou Provincial People’s
Government and The Voice of Guizhou to facilitate
the public in-depth learning of Xi Jinping’s socialist
thoughts on Chinese characteristics in the new era. In
terms of social morality responsibility, Zunyi
People’s Government scores the highest, which is
mainly related to the epidemic outbreak in Zunyi on
October 19
th
. Other samples seem to report fewer
touching deeds and moving events, presenting their
own regional characteristics.
Table 8 The Scores of the Third-level Indicator, “Value Guidance”
Unit: Score
Name of Official
Account
Consensus Building Social Monitoring
Mainstream Value Social Ethics
National
Governance
Social Risks
Behavior
Anomie
Guizhou
Provincial
People’s
Government
0.191000 0.000000 0.111065 0.074935 0.000000
Zunyi People’s
Government
0.191000 0.035600 0.053591 0.059191 0.000000
The Voice of
Guizhou
0.191000 0.006138 0.083569 0.059431 0.000000
Bijie People’s
Government
0.184633 0.000000 0.049125 0.047875 0.000000
Liupanshui
People’s
Government
0.183204 0.007265 0.110281 0.048852 0.000000
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Southeast Guizhou
Government
0.178267 0.000000 0.065500 0.038300 0.000000
South Guizhou
People’s
Government
0.185907 0.000000 0.075980 0.035747 0.000000
Southwest
Guizhou
Government
Affairs
0.191000 0.000000 0.105439 0.014012 0.000000
Tongren People’s
Government
0.185838 0.004811 0.066385 0.033642 0.000000
Anshun People’s
Government
0.182696 0.000000 0.108217 0.013877 0.000000
Mean Value 0.186454 0.005381 0.082915 0.042586 0.000000
Standard
Deviation
0.004223 0.010447 0.023056 0.018598 0.000000
4.3.2 Analysis of Social Monitoring
Situation
The research exposes the common poor performance
with a score of 0 in “behavior anomie” of 10
governmental WeChat official accounts, manifested
as no reports on issues concerning social and ethical
misbehavior. Meanwhile, national governance and
social risk responsibility perform at an average level
with standard deviations of 0.023056 and 0.018598
respectively.
4.4 Evaluation of “Cultural
Education” (RQ4) of Guizhou
Governmental WeChat Official
Accounts
4.4.1 Analysis of Cultural Inheritance
Situation
As shown in Table 9, Zunyi People’s Government
achieves the highest score in terms of cultural
inheritance responsibility while the other sample
governmental WeChat official accounts have
relatively low scores with a mean value of 0.004430.
A score of 0 even exists in Guizhou Provincial
People’s Government, Voice of Guizhou, Southeast
Guizhou Government, South Guizhou People’s
Government, and Southwest Guizhou Government.
What Zunyi People’s Government mainly did during
the epidemic outbreak was to publicize the local anti-
epidemic deeds and encourage the public to fight
against the epidemic.
4.4.2 Analysis of Science and Education
Communication Situation
It is found that the scores of the 10 sample subjects in
educational communication and science and
technology communication responsibilities are not
high, with mean values of 0.011761 and 0.021908,
respectively. And the gap between each sample object
is small with standard deviations of 0.00673 and
0.005752, indicating the weakening of each sample
governmental WeChat official account in educational
communication and science and technology
communication during the epidemic.
4.4.3 Analysis of Entertainment Situation
As shown in Table 7, the official nature of
governmental WeChat official accounts earns
themselves full marks in the content healthiness
indicators. While the serious and authoritative
attributes limit the contents concerning tourism, food,
exhibitions, movies, and other entertainment
information, for which the scores of each sample are
generally low with 6 out of 10 samples achieving
scores of 0.
Table 9 The Scores of the Third-level Indicator, “Cultural Education”
Unit: Score
Name of
Official
Account
Cultural
Inheritance
Science and Education Communication Entertainment
Propaganda of
Contemporary
Culture and Anti-
epidemic Spirit
Educational
Communication
Science and
Technology
Communication
Content
Richness
Content
Healthiness
Quantitative Evaluation of the Fulfillment of Social Responsibility of Guizhou Governmental WeChat Official Accounts
377
Guizhou
Provincial
People’s
Government
0.000000 0.006726 0.020974 0.001696 0.067000
Zunyi People’s
Government
0.033358 0.004018 0.015227 0.001182 0.067000
The Voice of
Guizhou
0.000000 0.011431 0.011552 0.000897 0.067000
Bijie People’s
Government
0.002133 0.019338 0.034338 0.000325 0.067000
Liupanshui
People’s
Government
0.005224 0.015786 0.022561 0.000000 0.067000
Southeast
Guizhou
Government
0.000000 0.005525 0.021775 0.000000 0.067000
South Guizhou
People’s
Government
0.000000 0.020627 0.025460 0.000000 0.067000
Southwest
Guizhou
Government
Affairs
0.000000 0.021561 0.022061 0.000000 0.067000
Tongren
People’s
Government
0.001730 0.002986 0.020372 0.000000 0.067000
Anshun
People’s
Government
0.001855 0.009609 0.024761 0.000000 0.067000
Mean Value 0.004430 0.011761 0.021908 0.000410 0.067000
Standard
Deviation
0.009771 0.006739 0.005752 0.000592 0.000000
4.5 Evaluation of “Coordination and
Communication” (RQ5) of
Guizhou Governmental WeChat
Official Accounts
4.5.1 Analysis of Information Coordination
Situation
The research unveils that these 10 governmental
WeChat official accounts perform well in the
publicity of topics with full marks in general. And the
small difference between each sample with a standard
deviation of 0.000911 indicates that the 10 samples
report more content on epidemic information, social
life, governmental affairs, and other convenient
information. However, there are fewer reports
involving multiple targets in the content. Given the
failure to endow multiple parties with more discourse
space, the scores for identity diversity are generally
low.
4.5.2 Analysis of Communication
Effectiveness Situation
As shown in Table 10, the overall scores in public
participation, public recognition, platform
interaction, and platform response are low, and there
are large differences among the samples with
standard deviations of 0.066596, 0.055982,
0.047953, and 0.031050 respectively. Among them,
Guizhou Provincial People’s Government scores the
highest, with scores of 0.229000, 0.193500,
0.162000, and 0.103500 respectively. Governmental
WeChat official accounts, though hosted and
established by the local governments, feature
interactive quality of new media of their information
production platforms rather than simple propaganda
and informing. The frequent 0 scores in platform
interaction and platform response of these 10 samples
show that the public has no or fewer comments on the
articles viewed during the epidemic. Even the sample
governmental WeChat official accounts themselves
fail to reply to the public comments in time.
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Table 10 The Scores of the Third-level Indicator, “Communication and Coordination”
Unit: Score
Name of
Official
Account
Information Coordination Communication Effectiveness
Publicity of
To
p
ics
Identity
Diversit
y
Public
Partici
p
ation
Public
Reco
g
nition
Platform
Interaction
Platform
Res
p
onse
Guizhou
Provincial
People’s
Government
0.250500 0.031774 0.229000 0.193500 0.162000 0.103500
Zunyi People’s
Government
0.247464 0.037436 0.045608 0.040379 0.000000 0.000000
The Voice of
Guizhou
0.250500 0.026000 0.017941 0.011670 0.017543 0.000000
Bijie People’s
Government
0.250500 0.044225 0.062445 0.056779 0.025218 0.000000
Liupanshui
People’s
Government
0.250500 0.056816 0.013154 0.014769 0.000000 0.000000
Southeast
Guizhou
Government
0.250500 0.026100 0.001312 0.001349 0.000000 0.000000
South Guizhou
People’s
Government
0.250500 0.053360 0.005224 0.004256 0.000000 0.000000
Southwest
Guizhou
Government
Affairs
0.250500 0.038195 0.001416 0.001928 0.000000 0.000000
Tongren
People’s
Government
0.250500 0.047027 0.003137 0.007577 0.000000 0.000000
Anshun
People’s
Government
0.250500 0.047913 0.003057 0.005813 0.000000 0.000000
Mean Value 0.250196 0.040885 0.038229 0.033802 0.020476 0.010350
Standard
Deviation
0.000911 0.010247 0.066596 0.055982 0.047953 0.031050
5 CONCLUSIONS AND
SUGGESTIONS
5.1 Conclusions
The rapid development of the Internet has enabled the
government to use various types of governmental
new media to connect more closely with the public
and better serve them. This paper empirically
analyzes the social responsibility of 10 Guizhou
governmental WeChat official accounts through the
new media social responsibility evaluation indicator
system. The research results prove Guizhou
governmental WeChat official accounts operate
normally during the epidemic outbreak, well
fulfilling social responsibility and performing well in
information dissemination. However, some
shortcomings still emerge in the process of fulfilling
responsibilities.
To begin with, in the overall evaluation of the
social responsibility of Guizhou governmental
WeChat official accounts, Guizhou Provincial
People’s Government has the highest total score,
followed by Bijie People’s Government and Zunyi
People’s Government respectively, and Southeast
Guizhou Government and Tongren People’s
Government are in the bottom two places
respectively.
Secondly, compared with municipal and state-
level governmental WeChat official accounts, the
social responsibility fulfillment ability of Guizhou
provincial-level governmental WeChat official
accounts proves to be higher. Much remains to be
Quantitative Evaluation of the Fulfillment of Social Responsibility of Guizhou Governmental WeChat Official Accounts
379
improved for municipal and state-level government
WeChat official accounts.
Finally, from the first-level indicators of social
responsibility, there is also variability among
Guizhou governmental WeChat official accounts.
Specifically speaking, in “information production”,
there is a lack of originality in information quality and
a lack of interpretation of in-depth reports; in process
management, the overall social responsibility is
fulfilled well but with a deficiency in information
check in particular governmental WeChat official
accounts. In “value guidance”, the mainstream social
values in the reports of Guizhou governmental
WeChat official accounts highlight themselves, but
the guidance in social morality remains insufficient.
The same goes for the social supervision of behavior
anomie. In “cultural education”, shortcomings exist
in the propagation of the anti-epidemic spirit,
communication of education and science and
technology, and also the entertainment richness. In
“coordination and communication”, Guizhou
governmental WeChat official accounts have a strong
public nature in coordinating information but lack
diversity in reporting identity; the overall score of
communication effectiveness is low, and the gaps
between various governmental WeChat official
accounts are large.
5.2 Suggestions
5.2.1 To Improve the Originality and Depth
of Content
It is found that Guizhou governmental WeChat
official accounts score low in the indicator of
“originality” with most of the published articles
reprinted and quoted from other media or platforms.
At the same time, Guizhou governmental WeChat
official accounts don’t have enough interpretation of
in-depth reports, making it extremely important to
strengthen the originality and depth of the reports. As
Guizhou governmental WeChat official accounts
have the absolute right to speak about the epidemic,
they can use their advantages of authenticity,
authority, and objectivity to make in-depth
interpretation of the epidemic information
supplemented by pictures, audio, and video to form
original articles with both pictures and contents, thus
helping the government to quickly seize the high
ground of public opinion and enhance the credibility
of government information dissemination.
5.2.2 To Strengthen Social Supervision and
Lead Social Ethics
The research unveils the poor performance of
Guizhou governmental WeChat official accounts in
the first-level indicator of “value guidance”,
especially in the third-level indicator of “behavior
anomie” with a score of 0. There is still much room
for improvement. The fact that the new government
media has both government and media attributes
means that the government should also monitor the
society when disseminating information, and should
constantly update the reports on corruption, social
moral and ethical misconduct, and other issues. At the
same time, the attributes of the media also require it
to promote touching deeds and moving events in the
epidemic to lead the social trend.
5.2.3 To Vigorously Consolidate the
Richness of the Form and Content of
Science and Education
Communication
In the first-level indicator of “cultural education”,
Guizhou governmental WeChat official accounts
achieve low scores in the third-level indicators of
science and technology communication, educational
communication, and content richness with poor
performance. 0 scores even exist in content richness
in six samples such as Liupanshui People’s
Government. What Guizhou governmental WeChat
official accounts focus more during the epidemic
outbreak are specific epidemic situations rather than
tourism, food, exhibition, movies, and other
entertainment information. Therefore, the
combination of the form of science and education
communication content with entertainment
information content is conducive to public
acceptance of information. Meanwhile, in the face of
the rumors that emerged during the epidemic,
Guizhou governmental WeChat official accounts
should make use of their own advantages and
influence to promote science and education on the
progress of the COVID-19 vaccine research, new
technologies, epidemic prevention knowledge, and
other information, and integrate the anti-epidemic
spirit into the anti-epidemic communication to deeply
fulfill the social responsibilities of the new
governmental media.
5.2.4 To Increase the Strength and Depth of
Platform Responses
It is found that the low score of the third-level
indicators of “platform participation” and “public
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participation” under “communication effectiveness”
further affected the third-level indicators of “public
recognition” and “platform response”. The original
purpose of setting up a public governmental WeChat
official account is to better connect the government
with the public, to spread a strong government voice,
and to listen to the public’s voice. Therefore, it is
imperative to reply to the public’s messages in a
timely manner, use manual answers as much as
possible, and avoid a perfunctory attitude. Answers
should hit the mark to effectively solve problems for
the public.
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