Understanding support for aquaculture policy: The role of information exposure, information seeking, and source credibility

Aquaculture information is omnipresent—from news media coverage, to government websites, to social media and marketing campaigns. These mediated accounts may contribute to amplifying or attenuating perceived risks or benefits, a key concern for ensuring the social acceptability of aquaculture and securing social license to operate for new development. Using survey data collected from Maine (U.S.) residents, we apply concepts from the risk information seeking and processing model (RISP) to understand the social psychological determinants of information seeking intentions about marine aquaculture. Extending the model, we also explore how such intentions influence support for aquaculture policy more broadly. Results reproduced many previously established RISP relationships, such as that believing aquaculture to be highly salient—along with judging a gap between what one knows and wants to know about this issue (i.e., information insufficiency) — motivate information seeking. Yet, contrary to expectation, beliefs about what others expect one to know about aquaculture (i.e., informational subjective norms) was not associated with information seeking. Further, we found a negative relationship between perceived ability to find relevant information (i.e., information gathering capacity) and current knowledge about aquaculture, and no significant relationship between capacity and information seeking. These unexpected findings lead to further questions about the generalizability of RISP outside of explicitly “risky” contexts and may suggest issues particular to aquaculture development in Maine. Theoretical and practical implications are presented.