Framing Smart Nation: A moderated mediation analysis of frame-focus effects

ABSTRACT

The rise of smart cities has emerged as a key policy thread that unites various government agencies in pursuit of a common objective: to become a digital city. However, these smart initiatives generate tradeoffs between economic growth and privacy concerns, with emphasis placed on data sharing for innovation, and surveillance for cybersecurity purposes. This study examines media framing in Singapore’s Smart Nation initiatives. A between-subject experiment investigated the effect of news frames (gain versus loss) and regulatory focus (prevention versus promotion) on respondents’ (N = 157) opinions toward the Smart Nation. Gain frames were more effective when coupled with a promotion focus, and loss frames had a more impact when combined with a prevention focus. A moderated mediation analysis demonstrated support, attitudes, and perceived vulnerability mediated an interaction effect between gain/loss frames and regulatory focus, on the intention to participate in Smart Nation initiatives.

KEYWORDS:

• Smart cities
• media framing
• privacy
• regulatory focus theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Joan Kai-Lin Mak is a Marketing professional at Amazon Web Services. She graduated with a Double Major in Communicationsand New Media (Hons.) and Sociology from the National University of Singapore in 2017, with her thesisexploring the framing effect on privacy behaviours in the context of Singapore’s Smart Nation. Following which, she had the opportunity to present her research at the 2018 International Communication Association (ICA) Voices conference in Prague. Her current interest lies in gaining insight and being technically proficient in the growing Cloud Computing industry.

Hichang Cho is an Associate Professor and Deputy Head in the Department of Communications and New Media at National University of Singapore. His research centers on human interactions with new communication technologies through which communication behaviors are shaped and expressed. More specifically, his research interests focus on privacy in a networked environment, social influence on technology adoption and utilization, collaboration in distributed teams, and social network analysis. His research has been published in Communication Research, Information, Communication and Society, Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), and other venues.