Research On Information Asymmetry Communication Issues In Food Safety Management

This thesis at first fully analyzes and disentangles the concept, the origin and thedevelopment of the information asymmetry theory, as well as the specificperformance of different entities such as the producer, the proprietor, the consumerand the government which the food security involves in a communication approachcombine with discipline theory of economics, sociology and law. We also analyze theinfluence of information asymmetry to food security supervision.And then this thesis discusses the information disclose mechanism in thecommunicate process of food security information in our country, and we also studythe diversity of ways through which the consumer gain and occupy the informationabout the food security from these three aspects: communication mechanism,communication model and communication effect. We analyze the cause ofinformation asymmetry in different entities through research the food securitysupervise mechanism, the media ecology of food security information communicationand the diversity of the consumer with different economic condition, differenteducational level and different ways to gain the information.Thirdly, on the basis of the above analysis, we get our hypotheses usingempirical approach and analyze the information asymmetry of food security viacommunication means, communication channels and communication effect,combined with ways of questionnaire survey, interview and statistical analysis due tothe groupment difference between the urban consumers and the country consumers.The hypotheses are as follow:Ι: The impact factor of information asymmetry of food security includesinstitutional factor, media ecology, and economic condition of different consumers,population structure (age and sex structure) and educational level. Ⅱ: There is a difference on the issue of food security between urban consumersand country consumers, and the perceive quality of the former is better than the latter.Ⅲ: The confidence level of the consumer to government and media affects theachievement of communication effect.Ⅳ: There is structure imbalance in the communication process of food securityinformation; the public communication plays a critical role compared to organizationcommunication which has not make sense sufficiently.The results show that our government s food safety information disseminationmechanism which is top-down step by step along with bottom-up feedback can noteffectively play due to the impact of the region and level of dissemination of themain,and the imperfect communication mechanism become one of the factors ofinformation asymmetry spread; urban consumer awareness of food safety informationthan rural consumers, and this difference is mainly affected by economic conditions,educational level, and the impact of media usage of consumers; compared with themedia and NGO, consumers prefer to get the accurate information from thegovernment due to the impact of government s credibility;In food safety informationdissemination, mass communication plays an important role of urban consumers andrural consumers mainly through the means of organization communication to get foodsafetymessage.