How Does Public Emotional Expression Affect Government Responsiveness? Evidence from Shanghai Public Service Hotline

The 12345 Public Service Hotline has gradually become an important way for government civilian interaction in recent years. This paper addresses the impact of public emotional expression on government responsiveness in Public Service Hotline. Using datasets collected from Shanghai Public Service Hotline, we conduct sentiment analysis on the original demand text in problem descriptions with Python's SnowNLP natural language processing library. Multiple sets of linear regression analysis are used to test whether public emotional expression significantly affects government responsiveness, and whether such a kind of effect varies over different types of public demands. Results show that public emotional expression and the government responsiveness is significantly correlated, that is, the more negative the expression of public emotional demands, the more words the government responds, but the lower the level of government response. The above effect exists in complaint reporting and seeking help services, but is only partially presented in consulting and suggestion services.