The Influence of SNS on Policy Support to Mitigate Public Health Crises: The Mediating Role of General and Personal Risk Perceptions

Abstract

Recent evidence suggests that social networking sites (SNS) motivate people, in the form of civic engagement, in times of crisis. Yet, there is a lack of empirical investigations that help to understand how SNS use increases civic judgment or participatory behavior. In this study, we examine how the use of SNS in a public health crisis is related to policy support for effective mitigation of risk, particularly focusing on the role of two distinct types of risk perceptions—general and personal risk perceptions. Using an online survey conducted on the issue of fine dust pollution in South Korea (N = 510), this study found that reliance on SNS for learning (i.e., SNS learning dependency) is positively associated with general risk perception, which, in turn, promotes policy support. Moreover, the results revealed a serial mediation process in which SNS learning dependency increases general risk perception, which ultimately increases personal risk perception and policy support. Overall, this study suggests that SNS has the potential to facilitate public engagement in a crisis and that individual motivation to engage with a crisis is not just a function of individual or societal-level risk perception but can be a simultaneous function of different levels of risk perceptions.