危机沟通策略对地方政府信任的影响研究

How Does a Government Crisis Communication Strategy Affect Public Trust in Local Government?Evidence Based on a Survey Experiment

公共危机事件发生后,地方政府采用何种沟通策略以满足公众需求是政府治理实践和学术界关注的重要议题,但不同导向的危机沟通策略如何以及在多大程度上影响公众的政治态度仍是一个悬而未决的问题,本文提出并探讨了“管理型”和“关切型”两种不同的政府危机沟通策略对地方政府信任的直接和间接影响,并比较了不同公共危机事件类型下危机沟通策略影响地方政府信任的异质性。研究发现:(1)公共危机事件发生后,相比于“管理型”危机沟通策略,“关切型”危机沟通策略更有助于提高公众对地方政府的信任;(2)公众情绪在政府危机沟通策略影响地方政府信任的过程中起中介作用;(3)危机沟通策略对地方政府信任的影响因不同类型的公共危机事件而表现出较大的差异性,与意外事件和缺陷事件相比,在丑闻事件中运用“关切型”危机沟通策略更能提升公众对地方政府的信任水平。研究结果拓展了已有关于危机沟通策略的概念分类框架,丰富了学术界对政府危机沟通效果及其影响路径的理解,也有助于反思不同沟通策略的应用场景。

The choice of a communication strategy adopted by the local government to meet the needs of the public after the occurrence of a public crisis is an important issue in the practice of government governance and in academia.How and to what extent do different crisis communication strategies affect the publics political attitudes remain unresolved issues.This paper proposes two different government crisis communication strategies,“management-oriented”and“concern-oriented”,and based on real public emergencies,it attempts to construct a theoretical model that includes the crisis communication strategy,public sentiment,and government trust.We further analyze the internal mechanism and heterogeneity effects of two crisis communication strategies for three different types of public service events:unexpected events,defect events,and scandals.The study finds that:(1)After the occurrence of a public crisis,compared to the“management-oriented”crisis communication strategy,the“concern-oriented”crisis communication strategy is more helpful to improve the publics trust in local government.(2)Public emotions play an important mediating role in the process through which a government crisis communication strategy may affect local government trust.The reason a“concern-oriented”communication strategy is more helpful to improve the level of local government trust is mainly because it increases positive emotions(such as happiness and arousal)and reduces negative emotions(such as sadness and anger).At the same time,the influence of a positive path is greater than that of a negative path.We also find that the mediating effect of all emotions in unexpected events is no longer significant,which means that the“concern-oriented”communication strategy may still improve public trust even if it does not rely on emotion as an intermediary.(3)There are major differences in the impact of a crisis communication strategy on local government trust due to the different types of public crisis events.Compared with unexpected events or defect events,the use of a“concern-oriented”crisis communication strategy during the period of a scandal can improve the level of public trust in local government.The paper proposes two different crisis communication strategies,“management”and“concern”,based on an integrated perspective to expand the existing conceptual framework for crisis communication strategies,and it also provides new thinking for improving the communication effects at lower costs.At the same time,this paper deepens the existing literature on the internal mechanism in crisis communication strategies that affect local government trust from the perspective of public sentiment.In particular,a more specific division of public sentiment helps to explore the different impacts of a crisis communication strategy.In addition,this papers investigation into the heterogeneity of the impact effects contributes to a reflection on the application scenarios of different communication strategies.Only by adopting differentiated communication strategies for different crisis events is it possible to achieve the best communication effects.