The civic engagement of social media users in air quality issues in Beijing, China

Abstract

<p>This research examined the level of civic engagement in environmental issues in China, especially focused on the air quality issues in Beijing. To measure the severity of air quality issues and people's environmental awareness and response, an online survey was designed and distributed through social media in 2013 summer. After the data analysis process, air pollution in Beijing was proved to be the most serious problem resulted from industrialization and modernization. Three sets of regress models were created and analyzed to test the significance of possible predictors of the frequency of engagement in general discussion/online participation/offline participation of air quality issues. Social media use has proved to be important for environmental communication and education, which raised the participatory frequency of local citizens. Based on the impacts of social media on environmental engagement, strategies can be better developed by environmental groups and other stakeholders for civic engagement in environmental issues in countries like China in the future.</p>