Perceptions of food safety, access to information, and political trust in China

Abstract

Food safety is a major concern among the Chinese public, with far-reaching political implications. In this study, we developed a theoretical framework to examine the effects of food safety problems on diffuse and specific political trust from the perspective of information in an authoritarian censorship context. Using the latest national survey data, we established an interactive process between the government, information environment, and Chinese public. Our results showed that exposure to Internet and information obtained via the grapevine were positively correlated with public concern about food safety, while information obtained via the mass media did not have a significant effect. A similar pattern emerged for the effects of access to different information sources on trust in the political system and central government. Political trust in the central government in China appeared to be pseudo diffuse trust. Our findings indicate that the complex information environment in authoritarian China affects public perceptions of food safety problems and multilevel political trust.

Keywords:

• censorship
• food safety problems
• hierarchical trust
• mass media
• political trust
• pseudo-diffuse trust
• the Internet

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the anonymous referees for their constructive comments in improving the quality of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 This is the theoretical distinction between diffuse and specific political trust. In reality, government performance in different policy domains has differentiated the effects of diffuse and specific trust. The type of political regime also influences the effects. For further reading, see Huhe and Tang (2017) and Zhai (2020).

2 The data analyzed in this article were collected by the Asian Barometer Project (2013–2016), which was codirected by Professors Fu Hu and Yun-han Chu and received major funding support from Taiwan’s Ministry of Education, Academia Sinica, and National Taiwan University. The Asian Barometer Project Office (www.asianbarometer.org) is solely responsible for the data distribution. The authors appreciate the assistance provided by the aforementioned institutes and individuals in the provision of the data. The views expressed herein are those of the authors alone.

3 Public concern about food safety comprised country-specific items that were designed by the Chinese survey team.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71874109, 71871105, 71632008, and 71974128), the Humanities and Social Science Fund of Ministry of Education of China (20YJC630033), the Philosophy and Social Sciences Foundation of Shanghai (2019BGL022), and the National Social Science Foundation of China (21BGL219).

Notes on contributors

Guanghua Han

Guanghua Han is an associate professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Before joining the university, he worked for the National University of Singapore as a research fellow. His research interests include food safety regulation, risk analysis, and risk communication.

Yida Zhai

Yida Zhai is an associate professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He received his PhD from the University of Tokyo. His research interests include political psychology, public opinion, and East Asian comparative politics.