Understanding residents’ risk information seeking, processing and sharing regarding waste incineration power projects

Jing Zeng, Hongyu Duan, Weiwei Zhu and Jingyan Song

Energy, 2024, vol. 304, issue C

Abstract: Waste incineration power projects (WIPP) may face suspicion and resistance due to potential environmental and health risks. Information behavior has become a crucial way for residents to manage the risks. By integrating the risk information seeking and processing (RISP) model with the protective action decision model (PADM), the study develops a four-stage model that incorporates information acquisition and perceived benefits to understand the determinants of residents’ information behaviors regarding WIPP. A total of 1726 respondents were interviewed. The results indicate that 77.5 % respondents frequently use social media. Of the twenty-five hypothesized paths, twenty-one were found to be significant. Information acquisition from social media plays a larger predictive role than that from official media. Perceived risks, benefits, and knowledge positively predict information sharing, systematic processing, and information seeking, respectively. Perceived knowledge has the strongest direct influence on information insufficiency (β = 0.24, p < 0.001) with the explained variance of systematic processing being the highest (R2 = 0.51). Interesting, the relationship between information insufficiency and information sharing, as well as between relevant channel beliefs and information sharing, are negative. Theoretical insights into extending the PADM and the RISP model are provided, as well as managerial implications for risk communication about WIPP.

Keywords: Waste incineration power projects; Information behaviors; Risk information seeking and processing model; Protective action decision model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:304:y:2024:i:c:s036054422401805x

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2024.132031

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