The impact analysis of media attention on local environmental governance based on four-party evolutionary game

Abstract

As an important external supervision force, the impact of the media on the process and effect of local environmental governance is gradually deepening and expanding. This study constructs a four-party evolutionary game model of local environmental governance with the central government, local government, pollutant-discharging enterprises and the public as the game parties. On this basis, media attention factors are introduced, and its impact on local environmental governance is verified through comparative analysis. Our aim is to build a more clear and comprehensive research framework of local environmental governance to analyze the impact of media attention on local government environmental governance behavior and results, and to explore the mechanism of its impact, and then, considering the media's attention to local government environmental governance, put forward the idea of optimizing the local environmental governance in China. The research found that: (1) Media attention reinforces the status of local governments and enterprises as key participants, and affects the stability of the equilibrium points mainly by affecting the environmental behaviors of these two parties, but has no effect on the strategic choices of the central government. (2) Negative exposure in the media will strengthen the propensity of key players to choose positive environmental strategies and show a substitution effect on public surveillance. (3) Media attention can effectively prevent and moderate negative externalities in local environmental governance. (4) The participation of the media disguised the public into its scattered elements. In the process of environmental supervision, the public acted as the organization and blood of the mainstream media to a certain extent, using public opinion to force the government and enterprises to take appropriate remedial measures to improve environmental conditions, thereby significantly improving the efficiency of public participation in local environmental governance. This study enriches the research on the role of the media in the local environmental governance, and provides new environmental governance ideas under the attention of the media, which is helpful for the exploration of improving the efficiency of local environmental governance.