From concerned citizens to activists: a case study of 2015 South Korean MERS outbreak and the role of dialogic government communication and citizens’ emotions on public activism

ABSTRACT

This study investigated the cognitive-affective-behavioral sequence of public activism by examining the role of citizens’ perception of government dialogic communication during a national pandemic crisis. Through a case study of the 2015 Middle-East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak in South Korea, the results of a survey of 400 South Korean citizens showed that distrust in government and a high level of situational uncertainty were significantly mitigated by citizens’ perceptions of government efforts for dialogic communication during the crisis. Conversely, when the perception of dialogic government communication was low, high distrust in government increased cynicism, anger, and anxiety among citizens; high situational uncertainty led to higher levels of anger and anxiety, but not cynicism. Consequently, the findings showed that anger, anxiety, and cynicism significantly motivated citizens’ intentions to take actions against the government. Direct and positive effects of anger, anxiety, and cynicism on activism participation were not found and were mediated by the citizens’ activism intentions.

本研究通过审查公民在在国家大流行危机期间对政府对话沟通的看法立场， 研究了公共行动主义的认知 - 情感 - 行为顺序 。通过对韩国2015年中东呼吸综合征（MERS）爆发的案例研究，对400名韩国公民的调查结果表明，公民对政府的不信任和高水平的情境不确定性，因政府在危机期间进行对话沟通的努力，而大大减轻了。相反，当对政府沟通的认知很低时，对政府的高度不信任增加了公民的愤世嫉俗、愤怒和焦虑；高情境的不确定导致更高的愤怒和焦虑，但不是愤世嫉俗。因此，研究结果表明，愤怒、焦虑和愤世嫉俗极大地激发了公民对政府采取行动的意图。愤怒、焦虑和愤世嫉俗对激进主义参与的直接和积极影响没有被发现，并且是由公民的激进主义意图所调和的 。

Este estudio investigó la secuencia cognitiva-afectiva-conductual del activismo público al examinar el papel de la percepción de los ciudadanos en la comunicación dialógica del gobierno durante una crisis pandémica nacional. A través de un estudio de caso del brote del síndrome respiratorio del Medio Oriente (MERS, por sus siglas en inglés) de 2015 en Corea del Sur, los resultados de una encuesta a 400 ciudadanos surcoreanos mostraron que la desconfianza en el gobierno y un alto nivel de incertidumbre de la situación se mitigaron significativamente por la percepción de los ciudadanos sobre los esfuerzos del gobierno por la comunicación dialógica durante la crisis. Por el contrario, cuando la percepción de la comunicación del gobierno dialógica fue baja, la desconfianza en el gobierno aumentó el cinismo, la ira y la ansiedad entre los ciudadanos; la alta incertidumbre situacional llevó a niveles más altos de enojo y ansiedad, pero no de cinismo. En consecuencia, los hallazgos mostraron que la ira, la ansiedad y el cinismo motivaron significativamente las intenciones de los ciudadanos a tomar medidas contra el gobierno. Los efectos directos y positivos de la ira, la ansiedad y el cinismo en la participación del activismo no se encontraron y fueron mediados por las intenciones del activismo de los ciudadanos.

KEYWORDS:

• Activist publics
• anger
• anxiety
• cynicism
• dialogic government communication
• distrust in government
• and situational uncertainty

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. J. Kim’s (2018) study of motivations of street protesters demonstrated that the motivations for activists are not driven by problem-solving motivation, but driven by participatory and expressive desires.

2. It is pertinent to note that low trust in government is not to be equated with high distrust (Abramson, 1983; Cook & Gronke, 2005). If trust is based on optimistic expectations regarding the benevolence of the motives, intentions, and possible actions of others (i.e., giving the benefit of the doubt), distrust is based on expectations regarding the malevolent perspectives of the others (Lewicki et al., 1998). In other words, it is conceptually inaccurate to treat low trust the same as high distrust, despite a strong correlation between the two concepts (Kang & Park, 2017; Shen, 2017). In situations in which certain expectations regarding the harmful actions or intentions of others exist, relationships are best understood by markers of distrust, rather than by markers of low trust (Kang & Park, 2017; Lewicki et al., 1998), which is consistent with political scholars’ increasing attention to distrust as different from the absence of trust.

3. SARS began in Hong Kong and eventually spread to 37 countries worldwide. It infected more than 8,000 individuals and caused 774 deaths (World Health Organization, 2004).

4. Among the reasons for the negative evaluation, the administration’s lack of So-Tong (dialogic communication) with the publics was reported as the most important at 17% for negative evaluation of the government, followed by tax reform and tax increase (15%); economic policies (13%), and lack of welfare support (9%), not committing to the election agenda (9%), change of political position (8%), and human resource conflicts (8%; Yonhap News, 2015).

5. Several studies that examined activists’ motivation to engage in communicative actions about a situation failed to find support for any significant association between constraint recognition and situational motivation (e.g., Krishna, 2017; K. A. Shin & Han, 2016).

6. λ = Loadings for all measured variables in the measurement model by CFA.

7. Statistics Korea (2016). 2015 Population and Housing Census of South Korea. Retrieved from Retrieved from http://kosis.kr/.