The Utility of Social Media as Information Platforms for Public Food Safety Assurance - the Perspectives of Users

Food is the daily necessity. People must absorb nutrients from healthy food to be alive. Consumers' awareness regards to food safety is rising. Therefore, reliable food safety information is desirable nowadays. Social media can be used as platforms to deliver important food safety information and knowledge to the public effectively. A food safety promotion group named the Food Safety Youth Army (FSYA) was founded by Taichung Hygiene Bureau in order to deliver important food safety information to the public. Popular social medias such as Facebook, Line were used to deliver food safety information to the public. The major objective of this study is to understand the uses' perceptions regards to the utilities of these food safety information platforms. The results show that users have high appraisals about these E-platforms. It was found that people did learn food safety knowledge through these E- platforms. Users are satisfied with the convenience and instantaneity of the food safety information E-platforms especially when major food safety issues happened. Based on the research findings, we suggest that the public sectors can take advantage of features of social medias to deliver important information to the public