The Impact of Perceptual and Situational Factors on Environmental Communication: A Study of Citizen Engagement in China

Hua Jiang, Jeong Nam Kim, Beibei Liu, Yi Luo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

29 Scopus citations

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.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)582-602
Number of pages21
JournalEnvironmental Communication
Volume13
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 4 2019

Keywords

  • China
  • PM2.5 air pollution
  • The perceptual and situational factors that influence environmental communication
  • environmental engagement

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Environmental Science (miscellaneous)
  • Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

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