风险感知与防疫行为:新冠疫情背景下社交媒体与权威媒体的多元作用对比

Risk perception and preventive behaviors:A comparison of the multifaceted effects of social media and authoritative media during the outbreak of COVID-19

在新冠疫情背景下,综合传播效果研究与健康行为理论,本研究同时将社交媒体、权威媒体、恐惧、感知严重性以及预防行为纳入分析框架,对比了不同媒介使用影响人们预防行为的机制。通过使用结构方程模型对收集的446名武汉大学生的数据进行分析,研究发现权威媒体与社交媒体发挥了互补性作用。两者在不同程度上影响人们的预防行为,其背后的机制呈现分野:权威媒体使用不仅能够直接正向影响预防行为,还通过感知严重性对其产生间接影响;而社交媒体使用仅间接作用于预防行为,恐惧和感知严重性在其中起着链式中介作用。总体来看,权威媒体对预防行为的促进效果显著强于社交媒体。在舆论多元化情境下,本文从经验层面证实了不同的媒介在风险治理中的差异性角色,为风险治理者和决策者定位与思考风险治理中媒介的作用提供参考。

Based on the communication effects studies and health behavior theories,the study incorporates social media,authoritative media,fear,perceived severity,and preventive behaviors in one analytical framework,and compares the underlying mechanisms of how different types of media use influence preventive behaviors for COVID-19.By using the structural equation model to analyze the data of 446 college students in Wuhan,the study found that the effects of social and authoritative media were complementary.Specifically,both of them could facilitate public’s preventive behaviors,but the mechanisms varied markedly;authoritative media use influenced COVID-19 preventive behaviors both directly and indirectly via perceived severity,whereas social media use only indirectly increased preventive behaviors,with fear and perceived severity serving as serial mediators.Generally,authoritative media had a stronger effect on the promotion of preventive behaviors than social media.Given the dynamic and diversification of today’s media landscape,this paper provides empirical evidence regarding the different roles of different media in risk governance in China.