Association of Internet Use with Attitudes Toward Food Safety in China: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

A growing body of research has shown that people’s attitudes toward food safety is affected by their availability and accessibility to food risk information. In the digital era, the Internet has become the most important channel for information acquisition. However, empirical evidence related to the impact of Internet use on people’s attitudes towards food safety is inadequate. In this study, by employing the Chinese Social Survey for 2013 and 2015, we have investigated the current situation of food safety perceptions and evaluations among Chinese residents and the association between Internet use and individuals’ food safety evaluations. Empirical results indicate that there is a significant negative correlation between Internet use and people’s food safety evaluation in China. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis shows that Internet use has a stronger negative correlation with food safety evaluation for those lacking rational judgment regarding Internet information. Specifically, the negative correlation between Internet use and food safety evaluations is more obvious among rural residents, young people, and less educated residents. Finally, propensity score matching (PSM) is applied to conduct a robustness check. This paper provides new evidence for studies on the relationship between Internet use and an individuals’ food safety cognition, as well as additional policy enlightenment for food safety risk management in the digital age.

Food Safety Trust, Risk Perception, and Consumers’ Response to Company Trust Repair Actions in Food Recall Crises

“…Changes in risk perception and CAE will evoke affection responses (usually fear), motivate information demand, and further induce actual information seeking behavior. Shan [36], Zhang [37]), and Terpstra [38] have confirmed that people in risky situations demonstrate more information seeking intentions and behavior. Hovick [11] and Wei [39] demonstrated the indirect and direct effect of risk perception on the information process.…”

Does Internet Use Affect Individuals’ Medical Service Satisfaction? Evidence from China

“…For example, Zhang et al [41] found that netizens have a lower evaluation of the government's environmental protection in China. Zhang et [52] suggested a negative correlation between Internet use and public food safety perception in China. Second, the results further support several previous studies on the impact of media exposure, especially social media, on public risk perception.…”

“…In order to verify the reliability of the estimation results, several robustness checks are also conducted in this study. Generally speaking, methods used in previous studies for robustness checks mainly include: Substitution variable method, subdividing the samples and adopting different estimation methods, e.g., Zhang et al [52], Zheng et al [55]. Therefore, this paper mainly uses the following methods to conduct the robustness checks:…”

“…This survey covers a wide range of information about respondents, including family, occupation, income, consumption and attitudes, etc. Nowadays, CSS has become an important data source for the study of Chinese social development, e.g., Zhang et al [52].…”

“…Third, considering that previous studies have shown that negativity bias varies among different populations [52], this study further subdivides the samples according to gender, urban-rural and education to conduct the robustness checks. In addition, we also estimate the impact of Internet use on medical service satisfaction in different years for robustness check.…”