Media Report And Environment Risk Perception Of College Students Research

In modern society, people are facing with a wide variety of environmental risk, such as new technology risk(e.g. GMF, Genetically Modified Food,etc.), hazardous substances(e.g. dioxin contamination, haze, etc.), natural disasters or geophysical phenomena(e.g. earthquakes, flood, Mudslides, etc.). It's very essential and important for the government and businesses to grasp the public's perception of risk accurately, and use media for risk communication effective when facing diverse environmental risks which happened frequently.This study use samples of college students and choose three specific risk— GMF, haze, earthquakes as representatives of new technology risk, hazardous substances risk and natural disasters. Measure the individual risk perception of different type of environment risk by the psychometric paradigm, and extracted the risk perception structure of college student by using factor analysis, and by multivariate statistical methods such as multiple regression analysis, analysis the impact on risk perception of media, effect and risk characteristics.The results found that the perception of risk from college students is different with different types of environment risk. In addition to demographic variables, individual risk background(risk experience, risks knowledge and risk concerns), the media exposure, media evaluation and the the framework of media coverage will also have a direct impact on one's risk perception, and the emotion triggered by the media will also affect people's perception, from which we can see that the media has a direct and indirect impact on risk perception.Besides, studies show that emotion triggered by the media has a significant coeerlation with one's risk experience, risk concerns and so on.The results suggest that media report is an important factor affecting individual risk perception, rational and effective use of media for risk communication, enabling more efficient dissemination of risk information, and divert negative emotion of public toward the environment risk, which could help the government and companies manage risk better.