Communicating sustainable development in the digital age: The relationship between citizens' storytelling and engagement intention

Although there are ample resources about government strategies and stakeholders on sustainable urban development, citizens' views have been relatively rare in the sustainability literature. This study examines how citizens' daily communication practices through storytelling agents are related to the intention of sustainable development behaviors that can affect public and environmental policies. The first survey of 110 citizens in the United States was used to confirm storytelling agents and sustainable urban development indicators. The second survey of 352 respondents found that local networks and online communication significantly predicted citizens' intention to participate in the behaviors of effective land use, pollution management, access to public services, and energy conservation. The results showed that citizens did not use social media such as Twitter and YouTube for the intention of sustainable urban development behaviors. The news media did not meet citizens' sustainable urban development information seeking needs. The role that Internet news, Facebook, and local meetings played in drawing citizens' social engagement in communities was emphasized. Implications of the results for the government's public and environmental policymaking were discussed.