Survey on Comparative Awareness between Media and Industry on Occurrence of Food Safety Incident

To describe the comparative awareness between media and industry, we conducted a survey with a professional group including 28 food safety managers at food corporations and 17 food journalists to find out the differences in perception of reporting terms and correspondence terms when food safety incident occurs. We surveyed by questionnaire methods and did the statistical analysis by SPSS. The results showed that 70.6% of the journalists and 92.9% of the corporation workers answered yes indeed about the question whether the media has a great influence when food safety incident occurs. In the perception that use of the stimulating terms of the media was the cause of company damage, 83% of the corporate workers answered yes indeed, and 70.6% of the journalists answered yes. It means that both groups agreed on stimulating terms causing company damage. In the question whether the reporting terms of the media and the correspondence terms of the government and academia made a difference in the consumers perception and the spread of the incident, 92.9% of the corporate workers and 35.3% of the journalists answered yes indeed. It means that both groups showed a common opinion that the difference in choice of words expanded the perception of consumers, and the spread of the incident. However, the corporate workers agreed with this in a more serious manner than the journalist group. In standardization of reporting terms and restricting use, corporate workers were overall at a positive stand while journalists showed a big difference in opinion within the group. In conclusion, it is necessary to establish a measure to standardize the terms used by corporations, journalists, and professionals in order to decrease the differences of terms and the damage of consumers and the company when food safety incident occurs.