Media exposure and individuals' emergency preparedness behaviors for coping with natural and human-made disasters

摘要

Emergency preparedness among individuals, families, and communities is essential to increase emergency management resilience. The present study aimed to analyze the role of media exposure in changing emergency preparedness behaviors for natural and human-made disasters. We checked the adequacy of measurements using confirmatory factor analysis and tested the hypotheses with hierarchical regression analysis based on 688 questionnaires in Hangzhou, China. The Johnson Neyman technique was used to test the conditional effect of media exposure on risk perception and emergency preparedness behaviors. The results indicated that (1) media exposure had a positive effect on emergency preparedness behaviors and risk perception; (2) risk perception played a mediating role between media exposure and emergency preparedness cooperation behaviors; (3) disaster experiences had a moderating role between media exposure and risk perception; (4) disaster experiences moderated the relationship between media exposure and emergency preparedness cooperation behaviors; and (5) risk perception mediated the effect of the interaction between media exposure and disaster experiences on emergency preparedness cooperation behaviors.