Poster #29 - Does netizen expressions of environmental issues affect government response in China? Evidence from Chinese e-participation platform

• In Event: Friday Poster Reception

Abstract

Over the past few decades, China’s rapid economic growth has come at a significant environmental cost, leading to severe issues such as increased pollution and resource depletion. As digital platforms become increasingly central to e-governance, understanding their role in enhancing or limiting government responsiveness to environmental concerns is both timely and significant. While previous literature often focuses on the message characteristics of online complaints, such as sentiment and text length, few discusses the situation of which actor caused the environmental issue may attract more on government attention. To fill this research gap, this study investigates the public expressions of environmental issues on local government responses in China, using data from the “Message Board for Leaders” (MBFL), one of the Chinese most prominent e-participation platforms. Specifically, this study aims to answer the research question: Does different actors (government, citizens, or private sectors) responsible for environmental issues affect government responsiveness and efficiency in addressing public complaints? This study combines manual text annotation with large language model (LLM) fine-tuning process to classify a large dataset of over millions of public messages across 31 provinces from 2011 to 2022. First, three researchers manually annotate key variables to identify which party caused the environmental issues. We then fine-tune a large language model (LLM) using the labeled data, and subsequently use the tuned model to automatically classify the remaining data. Afterward, an empirical test is conducted to explore how different actors causing the environmental issues influence two key outcomes: responsiveness (whether the government responds to a complaint) and efficiency (the speed of the response).

The potential contributions of this study are both theoretical and practical. The research aims to provide insights into how digital platforms can be leveraged to improve government responsiveness to environmental issues. By examining the role of different actors in causing environmental issues, the study contributes to a deeper theoretical understanding of e-participation and its impact on governance. Practically, the findings will offer valuable guidance for policymakers and practitioners, informing the design of more effective e-governance systems that enhance both the responsiveness and efficiency of government services in addressing environmental concerns.

Authors

• Jiaxing Wang, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)
  Presenting Author

• Yuge Wang, City University of Hong Kong
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Ruoyun Wang, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology(Guangzhou)
  Non-Presenting Co-Author

• Corey Kewei XU, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology（Guangzhou)
  Non-Presenting Co-Author