Research On Food Risk Perception And Risk Communication Behaviors In Social Media Situation

With the scientific and technological progress and economic development, the influence of social media has penetrated into all aspects of society. The cosumers can widely spread food risk information through social media, thus the risk communication behavior will cause food safety incidents and cause rumors easily, may even lead to food social panic. There is a close relationship between food safety incidents and risk perception; there is also a close relationship between food safety incidents and risk communication behavior. There are many new problems of food risk in social media, which challenge the food risk management pratice. As a result, the risk scholars started to pay attention to food risk issues in social media. The main aim of this dissertation is to analyze the food safety risk perception and risk communication behaviors of consumers in social media situation by three empirical researches. First of all, the surveys were conducted to explore the relationship between risk perception and risk communication behaviors in the risk situation of pesticide residues of vegetables and fruits. Then the study analyze the food risk of rice chrome overweight in the social media environment through a control experiment between subjects, which discusses the impacts of microblog information sources and information communication ways on risk perception and risk communication behaviors. Finally the study analyzes the impacts of risk imformation channels and risk experts sources on risk perception and risk communication behaviors through a control experiment between subjects in genetically modified food risk case. The results reveal that:firstly, the consumers worry about the food safety, and try to eliminate the anxiety by risk commucation behaviors; secondly, there is a reversed optimistic bias (pessimistic bias) which affecting communication behavior in food risk situation; thirdly, there is a significantly positive relationship between the four key factors in food risk perception situation and risk communication behaviors. Specifically, there is a significantly positive relationship between risk recognition and risk communication behaviors, there is a significantly positive relationship between involvement recognition and risk communication behaviors, there is a significantly positive relationship between constraint recognition and risk communication behaviors, there is a significantly negative relationship between optimistic bias and risk communication behaviors; fourthly, the food risk communication behaviors of special groups are easy to breed and spread food rumors, the consumers whose risk information sharing behaviors are more active are more sensitive to risk information and their risk information acquisition are more active but risk information selection are less active, thus cause food rumor. The consumers with pessimistic bias are more sensitive to risk information, their risk information acpuisition behaviors and information sharing behaviors are more active but information selection are less active, thus cause food rumor; fifthly, the consumers acquise food risk information mainly through mass media and search engine, but the social media such as microblog and Wechat have more and more become the importmant risk information channels. The consumers are most likely to spread risk information by word of mouth, but consumers are more likely to spread risk information by social media such as microblog and Wechat; sixthly, the risk information sources of microblog have a significant impact on risk perception and on risk communication behaviors, and the impacts of different risk information sources of microblog are different; seventhly, the risk information spread ways of microblog have a significant impact on risk perception and risk communication behaviors, but the impacts of risk information spread ways of microblog will be affected by risk information sources; eighthly, risk information channels have a significant impact on risk perception and on risk communication behaviors, but the impacts of traditional media on risk perception and on risk communication behaviors are more obvious than social media in food risk situation; ninthly, the experts sources have a significant impacts on risk perception and on risk communication, but the impacts of scientific celebrities are more obvious than the scientists who being on work in food risk situation. The results offer both theoretical and practical implications. The research limitations and future directions are also discussed.