Are social embeddedness associated with food risk perception under media coverage?

作     者：YAN Zhen HUANG Zu-hui WANG Yu ZHOU Jie-hong 

作者机构：Center of Agricultural and Rural Development School of Public Affairs Zhejiang University 

出 版 物：《Journal of Integrative Agriculture》 (农业科学学报（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2019年第18卷第8期

页      面：1804-1819页

核心收录：

学科分类：09[农学] 

基　　金：support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71773109, 71703150 and 71633002) the support from the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China 

主　　题：food safety social relationship risk perception media coverage embeddedness 

摘      要：Traceability system has received wide attention in solving food safety issues, via which food information could be tracked back to producer/farmers. Consumers need to obtain this information from producers or social networks, trust in the information,and consequently assess perceived risks, especially when food scandals are exposed to the media. In this study, we introduce the social embeddedness theory to understand how consumers’ social activities affect their risk perceptions on traceable food. Specifically, we investigate how risk perceptions are predicted by the interpersonal relationships, organizational level and social-level relationships. Results show that the interpersonal relationships were associated with lower levels of risk perceptions, while organizational and social relationships impacted consumer’s risk perceptions at middle and higher levels,respectively. Results also show that the ripple effect extended to effect of risk events with negative information, however,did not exist for the group exposed to positive information. Potential food safety implications have been proposed to identify for effective risk mitigation under media coverages.