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Public communication is critical to policy implementation. Unsuccessful communications hinder policy implementation, even causing social upheaval and unrest. For example, in the past, when the Ma Ying-jeou government attempted to promote policies related to the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, it triggered oppositions that led to the Sunflower Student Movement. Similarly, policies introduced by the Tsai Ing-wen government, such as the amended Labor Standards Law, retirement fund reform, and the import of pork from the United States, also generated disputes in the society. Past literatures on policy communication in Taiwan, however, could only be found among teaching materials for civil servants and research reports, while existing academic research were also limited to discussions on policy marketing and crisis communication.
In order to make a close observation of how the government communicates about policies with its external publics, including the communication process and the impact factors, the case of the “Arrive in Taichung and Depart from Taichung” policy launched by the Tourism and Travel Bureau of Taichung City Government was studied. Through in-depth interviews with government personnel at different levels and external stakeholders, as well as analysis of relevant government documents, the current study examined the research, objectives, implementation, and evaluation in the communication process.
The findings showed that there were rarely standard operation procedures for policy communication in the government. The planning process and communication decisions mostly relied on personal experiences. Consequently, there might be little consensus internally among the personnel. The culture of the organization, such as the management style of the upper-level, on the other hand, played a more critical role. Additionally, the process of policy communication, in fact, was more simplified than the theoretical frameworks proposed by previous scholars. The communication goals were generally more qualitative, with limited attention to the outcome evaluation, showing a gap from what was ideally suggested in the civil servant trainings. Fortunately, situational factors were weighed into the considerations for using formal and informal communication methods, which seemed to be optimally adopted for different stakeholders. Suggestions were made at the end of the study on the communication process and use of new media, in hopes to lending insights for future research and practices in policy communication in Taiwan.
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