Digital First? Citizen-Government Interactions in Benefit Application Processes

After more than a decade of intense digitalization and automation of public service delivery in Scandinavia, aiming to provide citizens with self-service opportunities, scholars and public organizations alike wonder why many citizens still prefer to use traditional communication channels to interact with government. In this paper, we build on previous research on public encounters (Bartels, 2013; Goodsell, 1981), digital public encounters (Lindgren et al., 2019), public service logic (Osborne et al., 2013), and citizens’ channel-choice (Madsen et al., 2019). The aim is to develop an analytical framework for mapping and explaining citizens’ continuous channel behaviour throughout the process of applying for public benefits, and how these behaviours shape the public encounter. More specifically, we combine and further develop (1) an existing model for analysing digital public encounters (Lindgren and Madsen, 2022) and (2) a typology for describing typical communication needs that arise when citizens apply for benefits (Madsen et al., 2019). The result is an analytical framework that can be used to break down the application process into separate actions and illustrate why citizens use various communication channels throughout this process. We illustrate how digitalization influences these encounters, using empirical examples from an ongoing qualitative and interpretive research project conducted in Scandinavia, financed by the Norwegian Agency for Work and Welfare (NAV) and the Norwegian Research Council. Data collection is conducted as part of engaged scholarship, meaning that we collaborate closely with public servants in multiple public organizations. For this paper, we focus on empirical examples and descriptions of how citizens’ benefit application processes can play out in different ways and cause different channel behaviours during the application process. Using the analytical framework as a structure, we illustrate how citizens’ interactions with the public organizations are shaped by the communication channels provided and how digital self-service can serve both as an enabler and hindrance for successful encounters between citizens and public servants. We are especially concerned with problems and situations that cause citizens to turn from digital channels towards direct contact with government employees. Our paper offers contributions to research on public encounters by presenting an analytical framework that can be applied empirically to capture and analyse citizens’ interactions with public organizations throughout a benefit application process. Further, the framework can be used for theory building by proposing relationships between e.g., service complexity, communication channels, and citizen characteristics. Frameworks and analyses of this kind are important to build a deeper understanding of how digitalization of public welfare service provision affects the public encounter. Knowledge on this is needed to, in turn, find tools and methods for enhancing citizens’ ability to successfully co-produce public service.