Making a Statistics Netherlands (CBS) Dashboard: How a Communication Platform reflects an Ideological Stance

Abstract

Statistics Netherlands (CBS), the Dutch National Statistical Institute (NSI), disseminates Official Statistics. Its statistics have significant societal relevance as its statistics form the basis for policy making. CBS has an indirect influence on societal decision-making: if its indicators are misunderstood, groups in society may make misinformed and potentially harmful decisions. This thesis explains why and how institutionalised OS disseminations are ideologically value-loaded. On the basis of that, this thesis examines how ideological values in CBS are being communicated to the audience through dissemination design of a dashboard. In order to identify these ideological stances, an audit has been made of influencers on CBS’s statistical production process. Through mapping the various influences on the work of CBS, an organisationally shared ideological values are identified, and these influences are critically assessed as to how they influence final disseminations such as the dashboard. I have also looked at a specific type of dissemination and study which affordances have been included in the dashboard design, to identify representations of various different actor aims and how these representations may affect the dashboard design. By relating to the design, I describe the ideological beliefs that are incorporated in that CBS dashboard.