What Makes Chinese College Students Support Censorship of Pornography?

Hong Kong.
The third paper in this post-lunch session at The Internet Turning 40 is Ran Wei, and examines third-person effects on support for restrictions of Internet pornography amongst college students in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Shanghai has some 19 million residents, some 11 million of whom are Internet users; their Internet use is governed by Chinese government prohibitions of undesirable content. By contrast, Hong Kong with its seven million inhabitants has greater press freedoms, and online pornography is readily available.

Several studies have found that people tend to perceive media messages to have greater impact on others than themselves; this may also apply for Internet pornography, and the study examined what negative effects of Internet pornography Internet users in both cities perceived. Past research suggested that the magnitude of the discrepancy between perceptions of media impact on the self and others was also a predictor of a person's attitudes towards censorship, but another motivating factor may be general paternalistic attitudes or specific views on the negative impact of pornography.

The present study examined the attitudes of university students in the two cities, then (some 850 from Shanghai and 1500 from Hong Kong, 40% male and 60% female). Students were asked about their use of online pornography, their perception of negative effects of such use on their own behaviour, and their perception of the negative effects of such use on other students. It showed that there was a discrepancy: students perceived online pornography to have a more negative effect on others than on themselves; also, Hong Kong respondents perceived a greater negative effect than Shanghai respondents. However, the magnitude of this discrepancy between perceived effects on self and others did not relate clearly to their level of support for censorship measures - rather, it was simply the level of how negative perceived effecs on self and others were which was a predictor of such support for censorship.

The differences between Hong Kong and Shanghai are interesting here - and they may be related to the greater level of existing censorship in Shanghai when compared to Hong Kong. Perhaps the higher level of exposure to online pornography which Hong Kong residents had (given the lower levels of censorship) are a reason for this difference. (Or perhaps the fact that online pornography is more strongly outlawed in Shanghai makes people feel more positive about it, as a 'rebel commodity'?)

Technorati : China, Hong Kong, Internet Turning 40, Shanghai, censorship, pornography, self-perception
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