The influence mechanism of internet use on the participating willingness of “private river leaders” among the general public

It is of great practical significance to perfect the public environmental participation system. Based on the micro survey data of the Tuojiang River basin (Neijiang section), the Ordered Logistics model is used to explore the impact of new media on the participating willingness of "private river leaders" among the public and its effect mechanism. The results show that the use of new media is significantly positive to the public’s participating willingness of "private river leaders", and environmental perception, group communication, and environmental knowledge also play a positive role in promoting the public's willingness to participate as"private river leaders"; the use of new media can indirectly affect the participating willingness as "folk river leaders" through some intermediary effects of environmental perception, group communication and environmental knowledge, and the intermediary effects of environmental quality perception and environmental cultural knowledge are greater than the intermediary effects of group interaction and communication. Therefore, local governments should make full use of various new media resources to popularize and publicize environmental quality, environmental knowledge, environmental events and environmental protection concepts, so as to provide effective information support for the public's pro- environmental behavior.