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 postmateri-alist 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.