Research On The Impact Of Media Attention And Investor Attention On The Quality Of Corporate Environmental Information Disclosure

With the government’s emphasis on the construction of ecological civilization,China’s environmental management has significantly enforced.Enterprises are important pollution producers and responsible subjects for pollution control.Strengthening the responsibilities of polluters and allowing them to disclose environmental information on their own will help them consciously fulfill their environmental responsibilities.As an important external governance force,the media can play a certain role in monitoring the fulfillment of corporate environmental responsibilities,prompting enterprises to improve the quality of disclosure.A large number of researches have been carried out in academia,but the existing researches are mainly carried out from the perspective of traditional newspaper media.Nowadays,the prevalence of the Internet has changed the original media pattern,and the traditional newspaper media has been greatly affected.Compared with traditional newspaper media,online media has better timeliness,faster spreading speed and good interactivity,making information explosive growth.Facing the massive information environment,investors’ attention to information is particularly important.Therefore,from the perspective of online media,this thesis analyzes how media can promote companies to disclose environmental information.At the same time,this thesis also introduces investor attention,analyzes whether investor attention is affected by the media’s agenda setting in the Internet environment,and studies whether it is conducive to companies to improve environmental information disclosure.This thesis builds a theoretical framework of media attention,investor attention,and corporate environmental information disclosure based on legitimacy theory,agenda setting theory,stakeholder theory,and limited attention theory.Focusing on enterprises in heavily polluting industries,this thesis selects 2013-2017 Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies for empirical research.Taking Yiqiu Resources(601388)as a typical case,this thesis discusses its media attention from three aspects: the number of coverages,the tendency of coverages,and the content of coverages.Further,this thesis explores the group characteristics behind the investor attention of Yiqiu Resources,and makes an in-depth analysis of how media and investor attention affect its environmental information disclosure.This thesis establishes an environmental information disclosure quality evaluation system from two aspects of soft indicators and hard indicators,and sets a total of ten specific types of disclosure projects.Among them,soft indicators refer to items that cannot be disclosed through monetary information,and hard indicators refer to items that can be disclosed through monetary information.The content analysis method is used to obtain environment-related information from the annual reports of listed companies,and the ten evaluation items are assigned one by one.The research conclusions are as follows:(1)Compared with hard disclosure that can be presented in monetary information,companies are more willing to improve the quality of environmental information disclosure through soft disclosure in the form of textual descriptions,and there are certain phenomena that companies adjust the quality of environmental information disclosure through soft indicators.(2)The increased attention of online media to companies can effectively increase their willingness to disclose environmental information.Negative coverages have a positive impact on corporate environmental information disclosure.Coverages that are not related to environmental protection also promote corporate environmental information disclosure.(3)Investor attention has certain regional characteristics and group attributes,showing a higher environmental awareness and a better environmental attitude.Investor attention is conducive to companies to disclose environmental information.(4)Investor attention is significantly influenced by the setting of the media agenda in the Internet environment,and shows a significant partial intermediary effect in the impact of media on the quality of corporate environmental information disclosure.Based on the above conclusions,this thesis puts forward relevant suggestions from the perspective of media,investors,enterprises,and government:(1)Online media and traditional media should make use of their respective advantages and pay attention to the fulfillment of corporate environmental responsibility to effectively play the role of media governance.(2)Investors should pay attention to the long-term value of the enterprise,eliminate reading inertia and improve the ability to screen and discern information.(3)Enterprises should pay attention to the concept of green environmental protection and enhance the awareness of environmental information disclosure.(4)The government should accelerate the improvement of environmental information disclosure system,and strengthen environmental supervision and punishment for environmental violations.