Risk Communication:Social Media's Perceptional And Behavioral Influence On Prospective Overseas Student

As one of the most significant sociological theories in the past few decades,risk society thesis,coined by Ulrich Beck in 1986,pointed the so-called man-made risks in modern society,and also triggered lots of confrontations and discussions in contemporary sociology and social scenarios.News agenda like terrorism,cultural conflict and artificial intelligence,along with environmental disaster and nuclear issue,have dominated the mass media for the last few decades.The rapid update of information and communication technology made our fear of the oncoming and prospective danger much stronger than it in the past.Moreover,the continuously expansion of cognition of the world we live in,also brought psychological uneasiness and fear of the unknown.In the same context,modernization and globalization generated,our understanding of culture and society deepened.This article focused on a demographic and sociological phenomenon,the so-called study abroad fever in China.Confronting cultural,social and environmental difference between their home and their target studying territories,prospective overseas students,unlike the ones who have already started their overseas life,could only absorb second-handed information via media etc.,especially social media.The group characteristic is the reason why prospective overseas Chinese students were chosen as the target research object.Blocked all the first-hand experiences out,they could be tested and analyzed to find out whether,how and in which condition,pseudo-environment,constructed by social media specifically,affects their risk perception.This article applied quantitative methodology,using questionnaire survey,regression and correlation analysis,to test and quantize prospective overseas students' social media use,credibility and information satisfaction in order to track their influences on risk perception and behavioral choices.Following conclusions are drawn: A positive correlation was found between the three independent variables and risk perception.Moreover,information satisfaction has a strong positive correlation with prospective overseas students' initiative to adopt measures to face risks directly.