The Impact of Perceptual and Situational Factors on Environmental Communication: A Study of Citizen Engagement in China |
| |
| Authors: | Hua Jiang Jeong-Nam Kim Yi Luo |
| |
| Institution: | 1. S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA;2. The Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA;3. School of Communication and Media, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, USA |
| |
| Abstract: | This study applied a situational approach to understanding an environmental problem: PM2.5 (its resulted haze and smog air pollution) in China. Based on a national sample of 374 citizens living in China, it tested a situational model of problem solving and extended it by adding citizens’ environmental engagement behaviour as an immediate consequence of their communicative action. Results of a structural equation modelling analysis supported all the causal links in the conceptual model. Moreover, communicative action significantly mediated the relationship between referent criterion and environmental engagement. Problem recognition, constraint recognition, and involvement recognition did not influence environmental engagement directly, but exerted their significant indirect impact via two key mediators in the model: situational motivation in problem solving and communicative action in problem solving. Theoretical and practical implications of the present study were discussed. |
| |
| Keywords: | The perceptual and situational factors that influence environmental communication PM2 5 air pollution environmental engagement China |
|
|
