Nuclear energy is one of issues about international interest. In particular, nuclear power energy explains 7.2% of the world's energy consumption . However, there is a fear of social/economic risks and still unknown risks from nuclear power. The worry has increased after Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident and Fukushima nuclear disaster. In Korea, conflicts over nuclear power generation have increased because of the Fukushima accident and the conflict over facility citing for nuclear waste. Moreover, with the development of IT, people in modern society exchange a lot of information about nuclear power energy through cyberspace. Therefore, it is important to know whether or not people trust in the information on internet about nuclear power energy. Our study examine which factors influence the trust in information about nuclear power energy in cyberspace.
Based on 1572 survey data, we analyze in which way a kind of the risk information about the nuclear power in cyberspace was trusted. The information in trust was divided into two types: trust in information provided by the public and one in information provided by the government. We assumed that trust in information will depends on different causal factors.
To know the determinants for trust, we consider socio-demographic variables such as age, gender, education, and income as independent variables. Next we examine the explanatory power of psychometric paradigm(P. slovic, B. Fischoff, S. Lichtenstein, E. peters, J. Flynn, etc.) in which the perceived risk/benefit, trust, stigma and knowledge have been analyzed. Moreover, we will analyze the role of variables in cyberspace such as conformity to risk information, usefulness of information, identity, and anonymity.
This study will contribute to finding out the causal factor to influence the trust in information about nuclear power energy in cyberspace.