Media use, postmaterialist values, and political interest: the making of Chinese environmentalists and their views on their social environment

Abstract

Using the Chinese part (N=1000) of the fourth-wave (2001) World Values Survey data, this research finds a positive association between news media use and willingness to be a Chinese environmentalist. However, this association disappears when political interest, a stronger and more consistent moderator of being a Chinese environmentalist, is put together in one model. The study also finds a positive association between postmaterialist values and being a Chinese environmentalist, and Chinese environmentalists tend to be more skeptical of the media and the government than non-environmentalists. While Chinese environmentalists prefer a triumph of environmental protection over economic development, they have no preference between statements of human beings mastering nature and human beings coexisting with nature, compared with non-environmentalist respondents.

Keywords:

• Chinese environmentalists
• media use
• postmaterialist values
• political interest
• confidence in social institutions

Notes

1. European Values Study Group and World Values Survey Association. European and World Values Surveys Four-wave Integrated Data File, 1981–2004, v. 20060423, 2006. Aggregae File Producers: Análisis Sociológicos Económicosy Políticos (ASEP) and JD Systems (JDS), Madrid, Spain/ Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands. Data Files Suppliers and Distributors: Análisis Sociológicos Económicos y Políticos (ASEP) and JD Systems (JDS), Madrid, Spain/Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands/Zentralarchiv für Empirische Sozialforschung (ZA), Cologne, Germany.