新闻媒体披露与公众的食品安全感:中国大城市的实证研究

Media Coverage and Public Perceptions of Food Safety: An Empirical Study of Chinese Municipalities

新闻媒体在塑造公众对食品安全状况的认知方面发挥着至关重要的作用,但有关媒体披露与公众食品安全感之间关系的经验研究却不多见。利用中国38个大城市的多源数据,本文实证分析了新闻媒体有关食品安全事件的报道对公众食品安全感的影响。研究显示,在控制了其他因素的情况下,新闻媒体披露的食品安全事件越多,公众感知的食品安全水平就越低,表明媒体披露是消费者食品风险认知的关键影响因素。本文还发现媒体披露的网络放大效应,即公众对新闻媒体的关注度显著增强了新闻媒体披露对食品安全感的负向影响。本文对上述研究发现的理论意义和政策启示进行了讨论,并指出了未来研究方向。

News media plays a key role in framing public cognition of food safety, but empirical studies on their correlation are rare. Using multisource data on 38 municipalities in China, this paper empirically examines the influences of media coverage of food safety incidents on public perceptions of food safety. The results show that media cov- erage on food safety issues is negatively and significantly associated with public perceptions of food safety, sug- gesting media exposure is one of the key antecedents of consumers＇ concerns of food - related risk. We also re- veal the social amplification effect of media coverage, in that public attention to media disclosure moderates the relationship between media coverage and food safety perception. The paper discusses the theoretical and policy implications of these findings, and finally concludes with suggestions on future research avenues.