The Influence Of Social Media Use On College Students’ Risk Perceptions And Online Public Participation Of Campus Sexual Harassment

In recent years,many cases of campus sexual harassment have been exposed in social media,triggering a public outcry.They not only harm the physical and mental health of the victimized college students,but also pose a threat to the trust in higher education and the safety of other college students.Many studies on campus sexual harassment come from health and legal fields while few from risk communication to explore whether social media enable college students to know,prevent and engage in public participation about the risk.Using a questionnaire-based survey supplemented by in-depth interviews,the purpose of this paper is to explore college students’ social media use,risk perceptions,online public participation concerning campus sexual harassment and the relationship of the three.Also,the influence of demographic factors is considered.First,social media use in the study includes exposure,trust and satisfaction of the information on campus sexual harassment.Among them,official and unofficial social media accounts are differentiated in terms of exposure and trust.Then the measurement of risk perceptions includes two dimensions,namely,the social-level which refers to how individuals perceive the impact of the risk on society,and the personal-level which refers to how individuals perceive the impact of the risk on themselves.Finally,online public participation means students’ participation in public events of campus sexual harassment on social media,such as forwarding,discussing and voting.In this research,348 valid questionnaires are collected to first explore the overall situation of social media use,risk perceptions,and online public participation concerning campus sexual harassment;then to explore the effects of demographic variables on the three;and finally to explore the effects of social media use on risk perceptions and online public participation by correlation analysis and regression analysis,and to test the mediating role of personal-level risk perception.Furthermore,in-depth interviews with nine college students provide an insight into the research questions.Firstly,in terms of social media use,the main channels where college students are exposed to campus sexual harassment information are not only news media but also various we-media.However,their trust in official channels is significantly higher than that of unofficial channels.Secondly,in terms of risk perceptions,college students generally believe the risk of campus sexual harassment is higher to society than to themselves.Thirdly,in terms of online public participation,college students’participation is mostly in the form of interpersonal discussion or as bystanders,and hardly rises to taking action,and the overall participation is low.Next,this paper finds that only trust in information from official channels is not correlated with personal-level risk perception and online public participation,while all other social media use variables are positively correlated with risk perceptions and online participation.That is,social media use improves risk perceptions and online public participation of college sexual harassment.But there are several points worth noting.One is that social media use is more strongly correlated with and predictive of personal-level risk perception than social-level risk perception.This suggests that social media enable college students to perceive the risk closely related to themselves.Second,among the social media use variables,unofficial channel information exposure has the strongest correlation with risk perceptions and online participation,which shows the strong influence of we-media and interpersonal channels.Third,the correlation between social-level risk perception and online public participation is very weak and the former cannot predict the latter,while individual-level risk perception plays a partially mediating role between social media use and online public participation,suggesting that to increase college students’ participation in the public event,they should be aware that the risk is closely related to themselves.Finally,among the demographic variables,gender has a significant effect on college students’ social media use,risk perceptions and online public participation concerning campus sexual harassment.Female college students score higher than male college students on almost all of them,especially personal-level risk perception,which shows the gender imbalance behind the risk of campus sexual harassment.The second factor is student’ major:the exposure to campus sexual harassment information through unofficial channels and the personal-level risk perception are both significantly higher among arts and business students than among science and technology students.To sum up,social media do enable college students to know,prevent,and engage in participation about the risk of campus sexual harassment.However,there is still much room for improvement in the risk communication.In terms of information provision,there is a great lack of relevant risk knowledge,which should be strengthened to enhance college students’ prevention of this risk.Meanwhile,relevant departments should give timely responses and not avoid important issues.And both official social media and self-media should enhance their credibility to ensure the authenticity and integrity of information.Only when all parties in society attach importance to the risk of campus sexual harassment and use social media to act as a good communicator of the risk,can we manage and resolve the risk well.