Coverage of eGovernment Security Issues in Mass Media

Public administrations have introduced eGovernment systems for many years. However, citizens’ willingness to use these applications is still rather small. As proved by surveys, one major reason for this lacking acceptance is security concerns. In this paper, we investigate the role of mass media in this process of creating mistrust towards eGovernment. In doing so, we analyse three different newspapers concerning their way of reporting on IT risks and security issues in eGovernment systems using the method of content analysis. It shows that their news coverage is indeed quite biased and emotional possibly influencing the readers’ attitudes towards eGovernment systems. Different media effect theories predict various models of affecting the recipients’ stance, some of which are applied in our analysis. The outcome of this research is a set of assumptions stating in which way the communication of security issues in eGovernment systems in mass media influences the audience’s attitudes.