Research On Consumers' Information Sharing Behavior And Influencing Factors In Food Safety Risk Communicatio

Food safety has always been a concern for the public.Today,China still has severe and complex food-safety issues,affecting public health and national public health security.Administrative supervision from the government over food risk is an urgent need.With the rapid development of the new media era,information centered risk communication,as the main way of food safety risk management,has become an effective means to avoid food safety risks.During the risk communication process,consumers take advantage of social media and new media to actively participate in risk communication in food safety,becoming information sharers and producers.Their information sharing behaviors in risk communication are critical factors in food safety risk management of government.The study on consumers’ information sharing behaviors in food safety risk communication and the analysis of influencing factors are significant for the government to carry out effective food safety risk communication work and improve the efficiency of food safety risk management.In the first part,the thesis defines and elaborates on the concepts and literature on consumers’ information sharing behaviors in food safety risk communication.It finds that Chinese researchers have not pay enough attention to consumers’ information sharing in food safety risk communication.Also,this thesis finds that differences exist between research on consumer’ information sharing behaviors in risk communication and research on information sharing behavior in other areas.In the second part,the thesis combines the practical experiences of developed countries in the West and China in food safety risk communication practices.Moreover,the thesis designs a characteristic conceptual model of information sharing for China and provides several research hypotheses through combining theories,including information sharing theory,consumer behavior theory,and theory of risk perception and risk communication.In the third part,this thesis uses multivariate correlation analysis to investigate the influence of demographic characteristics on information behaviors,and uses structural equation model to estimate the effect of other factors and analyze the intermediary effects,and validates the research hypotheses in the conceptual model with the help of questionnaire design,data reliability,and data validity.In the last part,based on the study’s findings.this thesis proposes possible countermeasure suggestions of effective food safety risk communication for the government’s regulatory agencies.The findings of this thesis are as follows.Firstly,the influencing factors of consumers’ information sharing behaviors in food safety risk communication in China include demographic variables,risk perception,benefits of altruistic risk protection,benefits of information feedback,subjective norms,perceived behavioral control,information source credibility,and information content quality.Secondly,at an individual level,demographic variables,such as gender,income and marital status,have an impact on consumers’ information sharing behaviors.In addition,risk perception and perceived behavioral control have a direct impact on information sharing behaviors,and perceived behavioral control is a more potent influencing factor than risk perception.Furthermore,risk perception indirectly influences information sharing behaviors through altruistic risk protection benefits and benefits of information feedback.The mediated effects of altruistic risk protection benefits between risk perception and information sharing behaviors are higher than that of benefits of information feedback,indicating that consumers will actively participate in the information sharing process in order to avoid risks and obtain more helpful information.Thirdly,in terms of information quality,information source credibility and content quality have a direct positive impact on information sharing,and source credibility is a more potent influencing factor compared with content quality.Thus,consumers who lack food safety knowledge tend to give a higher priority to the source of information while obtaining risk information.Lastly,with regards to the social environment,subjective norms have a direct positive influence on information sharing behaviors,suggesting that surrounding people and social opinions can possible have an influence on consumers to share information.