The Role of Social Media in Promoting Information Disclosure on Environmental Incidents: An Evolutionary Game Theory Perspective

Shan Gao,Wenhui Liu,Shuang Ling

doi:10.3390/su10124372

Abstract

In recent years, social media has had a crucial role in promoting governments to act more responsibly. However, few studies have investigated whether social media use actually leads to increased disclosure during environmental incidents, or how social media influences regional governments’ information disclosure, even though delayed and insufficient disclosure on relevant incidents is often widespread in China. In this article, we model information disclosure during environmental incidents as an evolutionary game process between the central government and local governments, and examine the role of social media on game participants’ strategy selections in the information disclosure game. The results indicate that social media plays an active role in promoting the regional government to proactively disclose information during environmental incidents through two mechanisms: the top–down intervention mechanism, and the bottom–up reputation mechanism. More specifically, social media can provide efficient information channels for the central government to supervise local officials’ limited disclosure during environmental incidents, essentially sharing the central government’s supervision costs, and thus improving its supervision and intervention efficiency. Social media helps focus the public’s attention on the limited disclosure of local officials in environmental incidents, and actively mobilizes citizens to protest to maintain their interests, placing considerable pressure on the reputation of local governments.

Highlights

China has witnessed numerous environmental incidents that have caused huge challenges for social stability and economic development
We modeled information disclosure during environmental incidents as an evolutionary game process between the central and local governments, and examined the role of social media on game participants’
The research findings indicate that the limited disclosure of local governments during environmental incidents is essentially rooted in the information asymmetry between local governments and the central government

Summary

Introduction

China has witnessed numerous environmental incidents that have caused huge challenges for social stability and economic development. In the face of frequent environmental incidents, empirical research has shown that the extent of information disclosure during the stages of accident investigation, handing, response, and disposal can determine the quality and results of an environmental emergency to a large extent [2,3] This means that government agencies at all levels should take the initiative to disclose information to the public during environmental incidents under the Environmental Protection Law (EPL), but the practice of information disclosure by the government is still severely limited [4,5]. The pollutants drifted to Russia and caused a diplomatic conflict [6,7] Such limited information disclosure occurred in the “8/12 Tianjin explosion” and the “4/11 Lanzhou drinking water incident” [8,9]. We think that it is important to examine the internal mechanisms of the government’s information disclosure during the progress of environmental incidents

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Discussion

Conclusion