Marine Ecological Governance Under New Media Environment: Tripartite Evolutionary Game and Simulation Analysis

Abstract

Based on the general reality that new media with massive information and strong interactivity play an increasingly prominent role in marine ecological governance, this study introduces the coastal public participation mechanism under the new media environment. Furthermore, based on the assumption of limited rationality, an evolutionary game model among local governments, marine enterprises, and the coastal public is constructed to explore the changes in game strategies among the three participating subjects over time. Then, we used MATLAB to simulate and analyze the evolutionary stabilization strategies under different parameters by combining our research data on governments at all levels, marine enterprises, and the coastal public in 14 cities in coastal areas of China. The study shows that: 1) an objective and a fair new media environment exert a positive guiding effect on marine ecological governance, whereas a false and distorted one will lead to chaos in marine ecological governance. 2) Considering the high accuracy of new media reports, the higher the sensitivity of the local governments and marine enterprises to media reports, the more inclined they are toward strong regulation and active governance. 3) The local governments can effectively restrain the marine hazard behavior of the marine enterprises by increasing penalties and environmental protection taxes, and it is equally important to guide marine enterprises to fully utilize high and new technology in the marine industry for improving economic benefits and reducing governance costs. 4) Coastal public participation can effectively compensate for the local governments’ regulatory loopholes and can reduce the cost of government regulation. Therefore, for ensuring objective reports of new media by establishing reward and punishment mechanisms and regularly selecting excellent new media, using new media to enhance the level of marine publicity and education to encourage the coastal public to widely and fully participate in marine ecological governance is an effective means.