온라인 위험에 대한 상황 인식과 사전 지식 수준이 커뮤니케이션 행동에 미치는 영향: 개인정보 유출을 중심으로

The purpose of the current study is to understand the public’s communication behavior regarding an online risk issue. More specifically, the study examines the influence of prior knowledge on the public’s perception of the issue (problem recognition,constraint recognition, level of involvement) and their subsequent communication behavior. Furthermore, the study attempts to expand the theoretical frame of the situational theory of publics as it includes communication behaviors on a social level. The survey results of 211 participants revealed that the level of problem recognition and the level of involvement had significant positive influence on the public’s communication behavior. Also, the public’s information acquisition behavior and information giving behavior differed depending on the level of their prior knowledge. The interaction effect between the independent variables of the Situational Theory and the level of the public’s prior knowledge was found partial. Lastly, there appeared high correlation among the I the four dimensions of communication behavior: information seeking, information processing, information forwarding, and information sharing.