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Article

China’s Domestic Image and Media Use: A Case Study and Empirical Analysis of China’s Post-90s Generation

by
Boyan Zhu
1,
Hong Cheng
2,*,
Wayne Wanta
3 and
Liang Zhu
4
1
School of Journalism & Communication, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200072, China
2
Department of Film and Television, Shanghai Publishing and Printing College, Shanghai 200093, China
3
Department of Journalism, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
4
School of Cyber Security and Computer Science, Hebei University, Baoding 071002, China
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2022, 14(9), 5553; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095553
Submission received: 21 March 2022 / Revised: 28 April 2022 / Accepted: 29 April 2022 / Published: 5 May 2022
Versions Notes

Abstract

:
A study of the relationships between the image of a country and media use is one of the most appropriate methods to gain knowledge on various stakeholders’ different perceptions of the country’s sustainability. Through an online survey of China’s post-90s generation, this paper first studies the respondents’ domestic image of China (including social, political, economic, and cultural images), second, their media use behaviors, and third, the relationships between their perceptions of China’s image and their behaviors. Based on the CFA model, with 16 items obtained from the survey data, the results of the empirical analysis indicated that China’s domestic image, as well as its political, economic, and cultural images, were generally neutral for the respondents, while they tended to disagree with the social image. Furthermore, neither traditional media use time nor new media use time of the respondents had any statistically significant influence on their perceptions of China’s image, where the latter was significantly more than the former. However, the type of media contact had a significant influence on their perceptions of political image and on their perception of some items concerning economic and cultural images.

1. Introduction

The national image is a subjective impression of a country held by individuals based on their insights and experiences with the country. Moreover, the national image is a vital component of a country’s soft power [1,2,3], and plays a crucial role in its own development and the cooperation in international systems, which present new opportunities and challenges.
“If the change in an international system makes for greater compatibility the system may move to an equilibrium. … The record of history, however, suggests that, in the past at least, international systems have usually been unstable” [4]. International systems are still unstable, and mankind is faced with many common global challenges, such as environmental destruction, climate change, economic crisis, disease, poverty, crime, conflict, and war. It is a heavy responsibility to address these challenging problems for people all over the world including China’s post-90s generation.
In the following discussion, the term “post-90s” refers to the generation of China’s citizens born between 1 January 1990 and 31 December 1999, ranging in age from 22 to 31 currently (i.e., in 2021) and from 51 to 60 by the mid-21st century. In 2016, the population of the post-90s was about 202.1 million people, constituting about 14.7% of China’s total population (1.37 billion people), according to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2017 [5]. The post-90s generation will become the backbone of China’s sustainable development in the next 30 years.
In many ways, the post-90s in China are similar to millennials in the U.S. As Guo et al. note: “The post-90s are keen on ‘arming themselves to the teeth’ with high-tech electronic products” [6]. Prensky labeled this group as “Digital Natives” or “Internet Natives”, growing up entirely within the era of digital technology, including computers, video games and the Internet [7]. “The post-90s have gained more educational resources and opportunities, [and] almost all of them have received good and comprehensive education” [8]. “In the Chinese socioeconomic context, the post-90s generation is China’s first truly globalized generation and the first generation of Digital Natives who have greater exposure to global cultures than in the past, and they have grown up in a China that has overcome its half-century of ideological struggle” [9]. It is now clear that, Digital Natives think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors, and these differences go far further and deeper than most educators suspect or realize [7].
According to the generational cohort (or age cohort) theory introduced by Inglehart, the values, beliefs, attitudes, ideas, and behaviors of the same generation are influenced by the social, economic, political, and cultural environments where they grow up [10]. Furthermore, after more than 35 years, Inglehart argued that “with the broader survival/self-expression values dimension, large intergenerational value differences are still present” [11]. “We now have a new generation with a very different blend of cognitive skills than its predecessors—the Digital Natives” [7].
“Most China’s post-90s are the only child in their family; as such, they represent a generation of young adults whose lifestyle is quite different from the previous generations. They are technologically connected to the global marketplace. They highly regard the power of economic freedom, even social freedom, and are aware of emerging global issues” [5]. The post-90s are high-quality workers with strong “self-awareness”, have gradually become the main force in the labor market, and play a decisive role in the development of China now and in the future [8].
The issues of national (or country) image have been studied since the 1950s in many fields by researchers from various perspectives, and they have attracted much more attention in recent years. The national image also includes international image and domestic image [12,13]. There is well-documented research on China’s international image, e.g., Hartig [1] and Schmidt [14] investigated Confucius Institutes (CIs) and the international image of China, respectively, Luo and Suacamram studied the influence of the product-country image of China and product innovation on the purchase of eight products marketed for Thai people [15], Huan and Deng explored China’s image in South Africa’s mainstream English-language newspapers [16], and Eichenauer et al. investigated the effects of trade, aid, and investment on China’s image within 18 Latin American countries [17], while there is limited research on China’s domestic image. The reviews on China’s image can be found in [2,18]. This paper attempts to study China’s domestic image for the post-90s, their behaviors related to media use, and the relationships between their perceptions of China’s image and their behaviors, as this topic has not been studied before, to the best of our knowledge.

2. Literature Review and Hypotheses

Boulding argued that “the [national] image must be thought of as the total cognitive, affective, and evaluative structure of the behavior unit, or its internal view of itself and its universe, [and it] is a highly structured piece of information-capital, developed partly by its inputs and outputs of information and partly by internal messages and its own laws of growth and stability” [4]. In Martin and Eroglu’s paper, “country image was defined as the total of all descriptive, inferential and informational beliefs one has about a particular country” [19]. Kotler and Gertner described that “country image can be understood as the sum of beliefs and impressions people hold about places. Images represent a simplification of a large number of associations and pieces of information connected with a place. They are a product of the mind trying to process and pick out essential information from huge amounts of data about a place” [20].
Some researchers employed empirical analysis to study the national image. For instance, Han used a telephone interview to evaluate national image and brand image, in which the data came from 116 respondents [21]. White discussed the relationship between brand image and national image using the samples with 488 undergraduate students from a university in the southeast area of the United States [22]. In the research on national image building and stereotype, Castano et al. used the samples of 162 undergraduates from a private university in the United States [23].
The relationship between the media (especially mass media) and the national image of a country has been an important issue of study. For example, Wanta et al. studied whether agenda setting influences public perceptions of foreign nations using a national poll and a content analysis of network newscasts [24]. Employing both first-level and second-level agenda setting, content analysis, and Pearson’s correlation, Zhang and Meadows III investigated how media salience, public opinion, and policy agendas influence the perceptions of foreign countries in the United States [25]. Yuan and Xu et al. studied the media reporting framework and media influence on American audience’s attitudes or perceptions of China’s image [3,26]. Fung et al. examined Chinese citizens’ use of foreign news from domestic media sources and preexisting schema to form an image of the United States [27]. Previous studies, however, have not focused on a generational cohort.
Some researchers studied the relationships among the national image, sustainability, and/or media (e.g., [28,29,30]). In general, sustainability is defined through the following interconnected domains or dimensions: environmental, economic, and social [28,31]. A study of the relationships between the image of a country and media is one of the most appropriate methods to gain knowledge on various stakeholders’ different perceptions of the country’s sustainability [28]. Meanwhile, there was a significant impact of the country images on consumer perception of sustainability [29]. Moreover, the results in [30] showed the importance of image crises in the formation of consumers’ perceived risk in terms of sustainability factors such as environmental, social, quality/safety, and economic elements, and, ultimately, in the definition of the product-country image. “Social psychology also provides strong evidence that one’s thinking patterns change depending on one’s experiences. … people who grow up in different cultures do not just think about different things, they actually think differently. The environment and culture in which people are raised affects and even determines many of their thought processes” [7]. As mentioned in the Introduction above, the post-90s are labeled as “Digital Natives” or “Internet Natives”. Prensky suggested that “Digital Natives’ brains are likely physically different as a result of the digital input they received growing up” [7].
Being highly controversial from elementary and secondary schools to colleges, the post-90s have become the subject of studies, which now include their education [6], consumption [5], marriage (lesbian subjects) [9], employment [8], etc. However, there is no previous work to study the post-90s’ perspectives of China’s image. As such, understanding their perceptions of China’s image will offer valuable insights into China’s image. The present study focuses on “the post-90s” as the objects under investigation. For the post-90s respondents, we try to test how positive or negative China’s domestic image will be, and then to examine the relationships between their behaviors related to media use and their perceptions of China’s image. Based on both theoretical and empirical perspectives, the hypotheses for our study are:
Hypothesis 1 (H1).
The national image of China tends to be neutral or positive.
This hypothesis can be divided into four sub-hypotheses, as follows:
Hypothesis 1a (H1a).
The social image of China tends to be neutral or positive.
Hypothesis 1b (H1b).
The political image of China tends to be neutral or positive.
Hypothesis 1c (H1c).
The economic image of China tends to be neutral or positive.
Hypothesis 1d (H1d).
The cultural image of China tends to be neutral or positive.
Contact with the media could have a strong impact on the perceptions of national image. Thus, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 2 (H2).
The post-90s’ media contact behaviors influence their perceptions of China’s image.
This hypothesis can be divided into the following two sub-hypotheses:
Hypothesis 2a (H2a).
The more media consumed by post-90s individuals, the more positive their perceptions of China’s image.
Hypothesis 2b (H2b).
The type of media contact influences their perceptions of China’s image.

3. Methods

3.1. Questionnaire Design

The study of national image involves a number of different dimensions, variables and elements. For example, Boulding proposed three dimensions including geographical space, hostility or friendliness, and the nation-state’s strength or weakness [4]. A variety of essays in [32] studied the images of Canadianness, including the political, cultural, and economic features. Martin and Eroglu utilized four dimensions (political, economic, technological, and social desirability) to define the construct’s domain of the country image [19].
Referring to the relevant research on national image, the content of the questionnaire included features of society, politics, economy, and culture, in which a Likert scale with 21 terms was designed to measure the positive, neutral, or negative aspects of China’s image for H1 and its four sub-hypotheses; meanwhile, the other 4 terms are designed to measure respondents’ behaviors regarding media contact including media type, use time, and degree of trust for H2 and its two sub-hypotheses. In the process of questionnaire design, moreover, we followed the relevant principles, standards, ethics, and taboos [33].

3.2. CFA Model

Using the questionnaire website (http://www.wenjuan.com, accessed on 16 January 2020), we conducted an online survey and collected 357 valid questionnaires between 6 October 2019 and 7 November 2019 from two universities in the southeast and north of China, respectively, and several enterprises or organizations in China. The distributions of 357 sample members are as follows. (1) Gender: male (38.94%) and female (61.06%); (2) Education: high school or lower (2.52%), junior college (1.12%), undergraduate or bachelor’s degree (61.34%), graduate or master’s degree (34.17%), and doctoral candidate or PhD (0.84%); (3) Employment: unemployed (0.84%), on-campus student (90.20%), and employed (8.96%). Clearly, the majority of the respondents were on-campus undergraduate or graduate students.
The CFA (confirmatory factor analysis) model will be created via reliability analysis, feasibility test of factor analysis, and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using IBM SPSS22, and confirmatory factor analysis by IBM AMOS22.
First, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was α = 0.852 > 0.8; therefore, the Likert scale has “very good” reliability [34]. Next, the value of KMO = 0.895 > 0.8, the Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity with Chi-Square value = 3792.615 and Sig = 0.000 < 0.05 indicate that factor analysis is feasible. Then, in EFA, 16 items {item1, …, item16} are extracted from the 21 items via principal component analysis, and the 16 items are divided into four principal components that explain a total of 62.695 percent of the variance (i.e., cumulative % = 62.695% > 60%).
The above four principal components will be the four latent variables of the CFA model, grouping the 16 items into four categories as follows:
(1)
Social image (S for short)—five items: (s1) China’s society is one of stability and harmony, (s2) China’s emergency rescue measures to deal with major disasters and accidents are perfect, (s3) Chinese people attach importance to sincerity and honesty, (s4) China’s national defense and military strength (including the level of science and technology, military expenditure, etc.) are relatively strong, and (s5) China pursues a firm and assertive foreign policy.
(2)
Political image (P)—four items: (p1) government departments perform their functions both efficiently and effectively, (p2) government officials are honest, (p3) China’s citizens and enterprises respect intellectual property, and (p4) China’s citizens are civilized and polite when traveling abroad.
(3)
Economic image (E)—three items: (e1) China’s employment status is likely to be optimistic, (e2) the wage level in China can meet the demands of daily consumption, and (e3) China’s public infrastructure (such as bridges, roads and schools, as well as health, legal, and emergency service systems, etc.) is complete.
(4)
Cultural image (C)—four items: (c1) China’s people are well-educated, (c2) China’s people are conscientious in their work, (c3) China pays great attention to the protection of the natural environment and wildlife, and (c4) you are very satisfied with your living and social environment.
Furthermore, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of four latent variables are 0.867 for social image, 0.832 for political image, 0.762 for economic image, and 0.799 for cultural image. The overall alpha for the four types of images combined is 0.900, indicating “excellent” reliability [34].
For the latent variables S, P, E, and C, we use IBM AMOS22 to create the CFA model by estimating and testing its parameters and measures. Table 1 lists the partial results of the CFA model, where all factor loadings are “excellent” (>0.71) or “very good” (>0.63), except for the loading of p3, which is “good” (>0.55) [35]. Meanwhile, CRs (>0.7) and AVEs (>0.5), as well as other measures, e.g., GFI = 0.931, NFI = 0.932, IFI = 0.955, TLI = 0.926, CFI = 0.954 (> 0.90 for all of them), CMIN/DF = 2.844 < 3, and RMSEA = 0.072 < 0.08, fulfill the recommended cut-off values [36,37]. Therefore, our CFA model with 16 items fits reasonably well.

3.3. t-Test and ANOVA

The questionnaire asked respondents if they “Strongly Agreed, Agreed, were Neutral, Disagreed, or Strongly Disagreed” with each item in the Likert scale, and the five cases were assigned “1, 2, 3, 4, 5,” respectively, meaning the higher the score, the more disagreement with the statement.
We use the one-sample t-test to test the first set of hypotheses for China’s image, in which the test value is “Neutral = 3.0”, with “95% confidence interval of the difference”. In general, the one-sample t-test requires the data to follow a normal distribution.
Parametric methods (especially the t-test and F-test) for Likert data are robust for even small sample sizes with nonnormal distributions [38,39]. In order to further verify the accuracy and reliability of the Likert scale used in this paper, however, we use the skew and kurtosis to detect the normality of a univariate distribution [34], and the Mardia coefficient [40] to detect multivariate normality. The test results show that the univariate distribution can be thought to be (approximately) normal, and the scale data have multivariate normality.
“The media consumption patterns among Internet users may change dramatically as use of computer technologies becomes more widespread in the general population” [41]. “(For digital media), the relatively little research on civil society compared with election campaigns means we know little about how these effects have evolved over time for these forms of participation” [42]. Does or how does the media (China’s media, foreign media, new media, or traditional media) have any relationship with or influence on China’s image? To address the relevant issues regarding media use, four question items Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4, are designed in the questionnaire to analyze the relationships between the post-90s’ use time (Q1 or Q2) or type (Q3 or Q4) of media and China’s image. Each question item Qi (1 ≤ i ≤ 4) has four single-choice answers (A, B, C, D), and the respondents are partitioned into four groups with labels QiA, QiB, QiC, or QiD, respectively, according to their single-choice answers.
We use one-way ANOVA to evaluate the relationship between media contact time or type and China’s image, in which the data need to satisfy three assumptions: homoscedasticity, normality, and independence [43]. The independence is clear according to the process of our questionnaire survey, and the normality can be detected in the same way as described above for the one-sample t-test.
As an example, we test homoscedasticity for Q1. Using SPSS, let Q1 be the “Factor”, and the latent variables S, P, E, and C be dependent variables. We obtain the Sigs of testing homoscedasticity. All Sigs are greater than 0.05, except for the two items e1 and c1. Let Fmax be the ratio of the largest sample variance to the smallest sample variance, then Fmax = 1.787 < 3.0 for e1, and Fmax = 1.603 < 3.0 for c1. The homoscedasticity is verified [44,45].
As a result, Q3 does not satisfy the homoscedasticity, while all of Q1, Q2, and Q4 satisfy the three assumptions. Thus, one-way ANOVA will be implemented for Q1, Q2, and Q4, described as follows.
The item Q1 is “How long do you use traditional media (e.g., newspaper, magazine, TV, radio, etc.) recently?”, and Q2 is “How long do you use new media (e.g., portal Web, blog, Weibo, WeChat, various Apps, etc.) recently?” Both Q1 and Q2 have four single-choice answers: “(A) larger than three hours a day; (B) smaller than three hours a day; (C) smaller than three hours a week; (D) rarely use”.
The item Q4 is “In the reports of domestic media or foreign media on China’s current political news, which one do you think is more objective and credible?” Its four single-choice answers are “(A) domestic media; (B) foreign media; (C) both of them; (D) none of them”.
The distributions of 357 sample members are as follows: Q1A (20.17%), Q1B (23.25%), Q1C (23.25%), and Q1D (33.33%) for Q1; Q2A (67.51%), Q2B (29.41%), Q2C (3.08%), and Q2D (0.00%) for Q2; Q4A (28.57%), Q4B (15.13%), Q4C (18.49%), and Q4D (37.81%) for Q4.

4. Results

Table 1 lists the factor loadings, composite reliabilities (CRs), and average variances extracted (AVEs) for the CFA model, as well as partial results of the one-sample t-test. Notice that SAVG, PAVG, EAVG, and CAVG in Table 1 are the average values of the corresponding items (or observed variables), e.g., SAVG = Average(s1, …, s5), and are only used to conduct the one-sample t-test, but not for the CFA model.

4.1. Statistical Results for China’s Image

(1)
The social image (S) for H1a. In Table 1, “Sig = 0.011 < 0.05” and the overall mean score “Mean = 3.136” for SAVG indicated that the respondents tended toward “Disagreeing” with China’s social image. A t-test comparing the difference between this mean and 3.0 was statistically significant. Thus, the H1a is not supported. The reason for it is due to the statistical results of items s1 and s4, where s1 deals with the stability and harmony of China’s society and s4 deals with China’s national defense and military strength, both of which were statistically more negative than neutral.
(2)
The political image (P) for H1b. According to Table 1, the mean score for the political image index was 2.946 (i.e., Mean for PAVG), or slightly more positive than the 3.0 neutral response; while the difference between the mean and 3.0 was not statistically significant, since the Sig = 0.275 > 0.05. From Table 1, the all four items (p1, p2, p3, and p4) dealing with the performance, honesty, and civilization of government departments, government officials, China’s citizens, and enterprises also showed no statistically significant differences between the Means and Neutral; as a result, the H1b is accepted.
(3)
The economic image (E) for H1c. As seen in Table 1, the mean score for the economic image index was 3.053, being slightly more negative than the 3.0 neutral score; while the difference between this mean and 3.0 was not statistically significant, since the Sig > 0.05. In addition, the three items (e1, e2, and e3) about China’s employment status, wage level, and public infrastructure showed no significant differences between the Means and Neutral. Therefore, the H1c is accepted.
(4)
The cultural image (C) for H1d. Table 1 shows that the mean score for the cultural image variable was 3.066, again, slightly above the 3.0 neutral score, again indicating slightly more disagreement with the cultural image items, while the difference between this mean and 3.0 was not statistically significant. Thus, the H1d is accepted.
Overall, three means of the four image indexes were higher than the 3.0 neutral score, indicating disagreement with the image items. Only the political image variable did not exceed 3.0, indicating higher agreement with the positive statements. Meanwhile, only the mean of social image variable was different at the Sig < 0.05 level from 3.0. Furthermore, of the 16 individual items in the indexes, 11 items had means above 3.0. Only four of these means were different at the Sig < 0.05 level from 3.0. Of the five items that fell below the neutral average, three dealt with political image.
Two methods are used to conduct the one-sample t-test for H1: one employs the average value TAVG1 = Average(SAVG, PAVG, EAVG, CAVG), obtaining Mean = 3.050 and Sig = 0.186. The other utilizes the average value TAVG2 = Average(item1, …, item16), obtaining Mean = 3.055 and Sig = 0.151. The two Sigs are all larger than 0.05, indicating no significant differences between the two Means and Neutral; consequently, the H1 is accepted.

4.2. Influence of Media Contact Behaviors on China’s Image

We test H2a and H2b by using one-way ANOVA. For both Q1 and Q2 (i.e., “How long do you use traditional/new media recently?”), all of Sigs are greater than 0.05; therefore, there is no significant difference between the means of the groups QiA, QiB, QiC, and QiD, for i is 1 or 2, and the single-choice answers: “(A) larger than three hours a day; (B) smaller than three hours a day; (C) smaller than three hours a week; (D) rarely use”. Thus, both traditional media use time and new media use time have no significant effect on the social image, political image, economic image, and cultural image. The results of Q1 and Q2 indicate that the H2a is not supported.
For Q4 (i.e., which type of media do respondents think is more objective and credible), the Sigs for p2, p4, e2, c4, and PAVG are smaller than 0.05, showing that there are significant differences between the groups Q4A, Q4B, Q4C, and Q4D based on the four single-choice answers “(A) domestic media; (B) foreign media; (C) both of them; (D) none of them”. Thus, the type of media contact has a significant influence on the items regarding the honesty of government officials (p2), civilization of the citizens (p4), the wage level (e2), living and social environment of respondents (c4), and political image (PAVG). The results of Q4 indicate that the H2b is supported.
Moreover, the results for H2a and H2b will be discussed from various perspectives in the following section.
After confirming the significant differences for Q4, LSD multiple comparisons are performed to make comparisons between the pairs of Means. The results with “Sig < 0.05” are illustrated in Table 2, in which the symbols A, B, C, and D indicate the groups Q4A, Q4B, Q4C, and Q4D with the above single-choice answers “(A); (B); (C); (D)” for the question item Q4. Furthermore, Table 3 depicts the Means corresponding to Table 2.
For p2 dealing with the honesty of government officials, p4 with civilization of the citizens, and PAVG with political image, from Table 3, the Means of groups Q4B and Q4D were all smaller than that of group Q4A and Q4C, i.e., the group Q4B and Q4D were more in Agreement with the items p2, p4 and political image P than Q4A and Q4C.
The largest “Mean Difference” (=0.4858) in Table 2 is between Q4A and Q4B for the item p2. Since November 2012, China has been stepping up efforts to combat corruption, and China’s media have reported many anti-corruption news items and a variety of corruption scandals in governments at all levels. The respondents in group Q4A had received a lot of anti-corruption information, having a negative impact on the political image as well as a positive impact on their hopes for the government image at present and in the future, which caused that the “Mean(Q4A) = 3.078” was near to “Neutral = 3” for p2. Generally, foreign media (e.g., BBC, CBC, NHK and CNN) tended to be more neutral in reporting a number of different types of China’s news and achievements, although there might be some stereotyping or balancing of style, e.g., 282 media stories for China contained 0 positive, 245 neutral, and 37 negative stories on ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN [24]. Thus, the respondents in Q4B recognized China’s government image from international perspectives, and then “Mean(Q4B) = 2.593” indicated that they “Agreed” with the item p2.
For the item e2 dealing with the wage level, in Table 2, there were significant differences between the Means of pairs (A, C), (A, D), (B, C), and (B, D). From Table 3, “Mean(Q4A) = 2.814” and “Mean(Q4B) = 2.722” showed that groups Q4A and Q4B tended to Agree with e2; while “Mean(Q4C) = 3.242”and “Mean(Q4D) = 3.104” indicated that groups Q4C and Q4D tended to Disagree with e2. Therefore, the “sameness” or “diversity” of information sources can influence the perceptions of respondents.
For the item c4 about the living and social environment of respondents, there were significant differences between the Means of pairs (A, C) and (B, C) in Table 2. Moreover, “Mean(Q4A) = 3.039” and “Mean(Q4B) = 2.926” in Table 3 showed that groups Q4A and Q4B tended to take a Neutral stance on or Agree with c4; however, “Mean(Q4C) = 3.439” indicated that groups Q4C tended to Disagree with c4. Given the similarity between the reasons for the item e2 above, and for c4, the media use types can influence the perceptions of the respondents.

5. Discussion

5.1. Positive, Neutral or Negative Aspects of China’s Image

The hypotheses dealing with China’s image were tested by the one-sample t-test on the four latent variables of the CFA model; as a result, the H1 and its sub-hypotheses H1b, H1c, and H1d are accepted; moreover, China’s domestic image, as well as its political, economic, and cultural images, were neutral for the post-90s respondents. However, the H1a is rejected, i.e., the post-90s respondents tended toward disagreeing with the social image because of disagreement with item s1, dealing with the stability and harmony of China’s society, and with item s4, concerning China’s national defense and military strength. These results are in accord with the fundamental condition of China’s national context, namely, that China is the world’s largest developing country, the development of China is unbalanced and inadequate, the ability to innovate is not strong enough, and there are certain social elements and problems of instability and disharmony in China; meanwhile, China’s national defense and military strength are not strong enough, and thus, China’s territorial waters, airspace, and territorial integrity are often threatened.
In modern society, there are three constitutive elements of the concept of the state/country: territory, people, and office of government, being dialectical relationships coming together to form the state/country [46]. “Now image commonly means a fabrication or public impression created to appeal to the audience rather than to reproduce reality: it implies a degree of falseness in so far as the reality rarely matches up to the image” [47]. “Unfortunately, strong brands of positive national images are relatively rare. A challenge many countries face is how to transform their negative image into a positive one” [3].
First, the perspective of a structural-functional approach sees society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and stability [48]. Next, politics refers to the actions and practices by which people conduct their public affairs and manage their collective lives together; from the perspective of functionalism, the political system remains relatively stable over time, but must manage disturbances that arise in the different regions of the environment by administrative decrees, legal statutes and the like, where political structures may be various [49]. Finally, the term “culture” has at least 313 definitions [50]; moreover, Lizardo utilized the cultural tree and triangle to illustrate “culture”, including public culture and personal culture, with declarative culture and nondeclarative culture [51] distinctions and relations among them. It is thus clear that the framework of China’s domestic image (including social, political, economic, and cultural images) is complex; meanwhile, as “Internet natives”, the post-90s respondents’ perceptions of China’s domestic image are related to their characteristics.

5.2. Relationship of Respondents’ Media Use and Perceptions of China’s Image

Using one-way ANOVA for Q1 regarding the respondents’ traditional media use time, Q2 about their new media use time, and Q4 involving their perspectives of media objectivity and credibility in the questionnaire, we obtain that H2 is accepted, since its sub-hypothesis H2b is supported, although H2a is rejected.
The H2a is rejected, because both traditional media use time and new media use time of the respondents had no statistically significant influence on their perceptions of China’s image. “One resource for which all media compete is consumer time and attention. All media use requires an expenditure of time” [52]. In this paper, 33.33% of all 357 respondents rarely used traditional media, while all respondents used new media, and the new media use time of 241 (i.e., 67.51% of 357) respondents was larger than three hours a day, accounting for the majority of their media use time. There may be complex factors behind the use time of Internet as opposed to traditional media. For example, “the more time Internet users spend on the Internet, the less time they will spend on traditional media” [53]. For the time displacement effects of new media on traditional media, there is a significant difference between adults and children, as assessed using one-way ANOVA, and children report a higher displacement effects than adults [54]. Several studies found support for a complementary relationship (increase-increase) between new and traditional media [54]. Furthermore, the influences of the new media use time (represented by the Internet) on the respondents’ environmental awareness [55] and on the American respondents’ perceptions of China’s image [26] are not significant. For the post-90s respondents in this paper, similarly, the effect of new media use time on their perceptions is not significant.
Entertainment, or leisure, is one of the five needs (i.e., information, entertainment, escapism, identification, and social interaction) within the U&G theory or Cowdry’s seven communication needs (i.e., economic, ethnic, political, recognition, belief, social and leisure needs) [56]. “Mass communication is the practice and product of providing leisure entertainment and information to an unknown audience by means of corporately financed, industrially produced, state-regulated, high technology, privately consumed commodities in the modern print, screen, audio and broadcast media” [47]. “The majority of the media audiences fall under the categories of the entertainment, relaxation, or escapism users; for most of them, their leisure and the mass media use are practically synonymous” [57]. By comparing the media use of college students in the United States and China, being the two largest markets for media and entertainment products, the results indicated that (1) American students spent more time per week on entertainment, but less time on news compared to the China’s counterparts, and (2) China’s students reported a higher percentage of international news and entertainment than their American counterparts among the total media consumption [58].
In many countries, Internet or new media is widely used, especially by young people. For example, “in 2005, the Pew Internet and American Life Project reported that of the 87 percent of U.S. teens who used the Internet, more than half (55 percent) used online social networking sites, and that 55 percent had created a personal profile online” [59].
For the post-90s respondents, there are various needs met by their media use, especially new media use, including entertainment or leisure, professional learning and development, social interaction, etc., which may lead to the fact that their media use time has no significant influence on their perceptions of China’s image.
The H2b is accepted, because the media contact types had a significant influence on political image, on item e2 (concerning wage level) regarding economic image, and on item c4 (regarding the living and social environment of respondents) in relation to cultural image. One reason is that the types of media use can be consequential for audiences’ emotional and cognitive development. In the discussion of mass media use, Katz et al. suggested that “integration into the sociopolitical order is best served by newspaper; while ‘knowing oneself’ is best served by books” [60]. “Media use is selective and motivated by rational self-awareness of the individual’s own needs and an expectation that those needs will be satisfied by particular types of media and content” [61].
Furthermore, according to the dual-process theories in social, personality, and cognitive psychology, when the audiences use media to obtain news and think about information, generally, they are more likely to use the intuitive system [62,63], and they are not willing to distinguish news critically, but rely on their own intuition [64]. If there is no contradiction between news and the basic cognition of (some or all) respondents, they will use their intuitive system to think about the news and information; otherwise, they will use the rational system. When the reports of “an objective and credible media” conflict with the basic cognition acquired by the respondents for many years, the rational system of (some of) them will analyze and reason about the truth of the reports and discriminate the stereotype, fake, or negative news stories. Therefore, (some or all) respondents of the Q4B group (who thought foreign media is more objective and credible) in Table 3 tended to Agree with China’s image when the foreign media stories about China’s national image conflict with their perceptions.
However, not all of audiences can effectively distinguish the veracity of reports in the new media environment. For American respondents, Yuan showed that “variation of media source or positive/negative valence of story frames did not significantly change audience perceptions of another country’s image” [3]. Thus, the relationships between audiences’ use of new media and their perceptions of national image are likely to be hidden in the distorted information environment, and the transformations and changes of the perceptions of new media users become more complex than traditional media users. The respondents already had a certain degree of cognition of China based on their knowledge and experiences accumulated for years, and the push mode of new media could make them focus on the news according to their own viewing habits or interests; thus, they were more likely to pay attention to the news conforming to their own opinions, which might strengthen their existing perceptions of China’s image. The respondents’ use time of new media was significantly more than that of traditional media, but the influence of new media on their perceptions might be hidden and difficult to observe and detect.
In terms of political image, if the information sources were similar (e.g., groups Q4A and Q4B), the perceptions of the audiences were affected by their media contact types. However, in the new media environment, especially regarding “black swan” incidents, the influence of the information source has become less powerful than that of the information itself, which will impact on the narrative framework of traditional media. The empirical study of agenda setting showed that “the more negative coverage a nation received, the more likely respondents were to think negatively about the nation, positive coverage of a nation had no influence on public perceptions” [24]. According to our results, the respondents of the Q4A group (who thought domestic media is more objective and credible) in Table 3 had the negative perceptions of China’s political image. Although the respondents trust the authoritative media, the characteristics of new media, with rapidly forming hot spots of public opinion, causes that the coverage presenting a positive image often cannot make up for the coverage including negative and concealed information, or fake news.
Based on dominant, subordinate, or radical reading, i.e., three supposed readings or interpretations applied to a media text, the audiences accept, accept by and large, or reject the meanings, values, and viewpoints built into the information by its producers [65]. Every individual of the post-90s may apply any of the three readings, depending on his/her characteristics.

6. Conclusions

The CFA model in this paper contains the four latent variables of society, politics, economy, and culture using 16 items that involve the three dimensions of sustainability (i.e., society, economy, and environment). For China’s post-90s respondents, as shown in the results of our empirical analysis, China’s domestic image, as well as its political, economic, and cultural images, were generally neutral for the respondents, while they tended to disagree with the social image. Furthermore, neither the traditional media use time nor the new media use time of the respondents had any statistically significant influence on their perceptions of China’s image, where the latter was significantly more than the former. However, the media contact types had a significant influence on their perceptions of political image and on that of some other items, e.g., item (e2) “the wage level in China can meet the demands of daily consumption” in economic image and the item (c4) “you are very satisfied with your living and social environment” in cultural image.
The relationship between national image and the media is complex, according to the results of our empirical analysis, and the way in which the existing media framework theories influence audience perceptions in the new media environment is still not certain. For the post-90s respondents, however, it is undeniable that their use time of new media is significantly more than that of traditional media, and their media use types can influence partly their perceptions of China’s image.
The limitations of this study are as follows: First, the majority of respondents were undergraduate or graduate students from two universities in the southeast and north of China, respectively; therefore, the results of this study are limited to the respondents in this paper, and may not be generally applicable for all demographic levels of China’s post-90s. Second, the regional limitations of the samples may have a specific influence on the results of the study, because China has a vast territory and the development of China is unbalanced. Finally, the perceptions of respondents may change over time, since China is the world’s largest developing country and is rapidly changing.
An interesting issue for future consideration is the relationship between China’s domestic image, sustainability, and/or media use regarding the total population. In the future, we plan to study this issue and compare the results of generational groups.

Author Contributions

B.Z.—designing a questionnaire and conducting its online survey, conceptualization, methodology, writing—original draft, data curation; H.C.—writing/reviewing and editing, formal analysis, and investigation; W.W.—validation, improvement, writing/reviewing, and editing: L.Z.—resources, software, data processing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by national social science foundation of China, grant number 16ZDA219 and Shanghai education development foundation, grant number 21CGB11.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

Acknowledgments

Not applicable.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Table
Table 1. Partial results of confirmatory factor analysis and one-sample t-test.
Table 1. Partial results of confirmatory factor analysis and one-sample t-test.
Latent VariableItemCFAt-Test
Factor LoadingCRAVEMeanSig.
Ss10.7150.8400.5143.1760.005
s20.7563.1060.120
s30.7953.0700.255
s40.6573.2440.001
s50.6493.0810.210
(SAVG)———3.1360.011
Pp10.8830.8470.5862.9300.284
p20.8022.9080.136
p30.5783.0080.891
p40.7652.9380.247
(PAVG)———2.9460.275
Ee10.7150.7710.5283.0760.230
e20.7522.9890.848
e30.7133.0950.089
(EAVG)———3.0530.275
Cc10.6900.8010.5022.9750.597
c20.7083.1200.045
c30.7533.0340.584
c40.6813.1340.014
(CAVG)———3.0660.138
Table
Table 2. Partial results of LSD multiple comparisons for Q4.
Table 2. Partial results of LSD multiple comparisons for Q4.
Dependent Variable(I)Q4(J)Q4Mean Difference(I–J)Standard Error95% Confidence Interval
Lower BoundUpper Bound
p2AB0.4858 *0.19530.1020.87
BC−0.4680 *0.2129−0.887−0.049
p4AB0.3791 *0.16750.050.709
D0.3495 *0.13060.0930.606
PAVGAB0.3761 *0.15540.070.682
D0.2603 *0.12110.0220.499
BC−0.3678 *0.1694−0.701−0.035
e2AC−0.4287 *0.1729−0.769−0.089
D−0.2900 *0.1436−0.572−0.008
BC−0.5202 *0.2009−0.915−0.125
D−0.3815 *0.1763−0.728−0.035
c4AC−0.4002 *0.1604−0.716−0.085
BC−0.5135 *0.1864−0.88−0.147
Note. * p < 0.05
Table
Table 3. Partial results of the means of the four groups for Q4.
Table 3. Partial results of the means of the four groups for Q4.
Dependent VariableMean
Q4AQ4BQ4CQ4D
p23.0782.5933.0612.830
p43.1572.7783.0002.807
PAVG3.1032.7273.0952.843
e22.8142.7223.2423.104
c43.0392.9263.4393.141
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Zhu, B.; Cheng, H.; Wanta, W.; Zhu, L. China’s Domestic Image and Media Use: A Case Study and Empirical Analysis of China’s Post-90s Generation. Sustainability 2022, 14, 5553. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095553

AMA Style

Zhu B, Cheng H, Wanta W, Zhu L. China’s Domestic Image and Media Use: A Case Study and Empirical Analysis of China’s Post-90s Generation. Sustainability. 2022; 14(9):5553. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095553

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Zhu, Boyan, Hong Cheng, Wayne Wanta, and Liang Zhu. 2022. "China’s Domestic Image and Media Use: A Case Study and Empirical Analysis of China’s Post-90s Generation" Sustainability 14, no. 9: 5553. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14095553

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