Understanding of the second-capital concept by online survey experiment

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore what kind of information given to citizens would increase their understanding in the second-capital concept. The experimental design of this study was an online survey experiment using crowdsourcing for the control, centralized, foreign comparison, and decentralized conditions. The analysis of variance revealed that there were differences in the level of understanding and interest in the second-capital concept depending on each condition. The level of understanding increased in the order of the centralized, the foreign comparison, the decentralized, and the control condition. This suggests that explanations emphasizing centralization most likely deepen the level of understanding of the second-capital concept. Textual analysis of the responses revealed that words such as "risk" and "earthquake" appeared more frequently in the centralized condition than in the control condition. In the foreign comparison condition, words such as "city" and "Japan" appeared more frequently than in the control condition.