When Knowledge Is a Double-Edged Sword: Contact, Media Exposure, and American China Policy Preferences

Globalization affords greater opportunities to learn about foreign peoples than in the past. What impacts do interpersonal contact, media exposure to and knowledge about China have on the American people’s China policy preferences? Two large surveys of U.S. citizens were conducted in the summers of 2008 and 2009 to explore whether knowledge about China and prejudice against the Chinese people and the Chinese government would mediate the relationship between contact and media exposure on the one hand, and U.S. China policy preferences on the other. Results show that while knowledge played the expected mediating roles between contact and media exposure on the one hand, and prejudice against the Chinese people on the other, greater knowledge of China was actually associated with greater negativity toward the Chinese government, which in turn contributed to desires for tougher China policies. Both media exposure and interpersonal contact thus had mixed effects on China policy preferences.