Rainbow over the Internet: How Internet use curtails homophobia in China

2020
China, despite its rapid economic modernization and the lack of powerful conservative institutions, is not known for embracing diverse sexual orientation. The present study investigates whether and how Internet use, a increasingly important part of contemporary people's daily life, leads to changes in people's attitudes toward homosexuality in China, and relevant policy implications. Analyzing the Chinese General Social Survey data from 2010 to 2015, this paper develops an ordered probit model to quantify the influence of Internet use on homosexuality tolerance, adopts a substitution variable method to conduct the robustness check, and utilizes instrument variables to address the potential endogeneity in the regressions. The results show that Internet use has a significant positive impact on Chinese people's homosexuality tolerance. Further studies have found that the influence of Internet use on homosexuality tolerance is also heterogeneous to different populations. Besides, compared with traditional media, the Internet has a more significant impact on homosexuality tolerance. This paper provides some explanations for the rise in China's homosexuality tolerance from 2010 to 2015, and additional impetus for the international community to push for a liberal Internet policy in China.
TECHNOLOGY IN SOCIETY
卷号:62
ISSN:0160-791X
收录类型
SSCI
发表日期
2020
学科领域
循证社会学
国家
中国
语种
英语
DOI
10.1016/j.techsoc.2020.101300
其他关键词
ONLINE SEXUAL ACTIVITIES; SOCIAL NETWORK SITES; HEALTH INFORMATION; EXPLAINING ATTITUDES; ECONOMIC-GROWTH; NEGATIVITY BIAS; UNITED-STATES; SELF-ESTEEM; HOMOSEXUALITY; MEDIA
EISSN
1879-3274
资助机构
National Social Science Foundation of China [18BJY108]
资助信息
This work was supported by National Social Science Foundation of China (18BJY108). Jiaping Zhang and Qing Yan are co-first authors to this work.
被引频次(WOS)
1
被引更新日期
2022-01
来源机构
Tongji University Rutgers State University New Brunswick Tsinghua University Shanghai University of Finance & Economics Nanjing Audit University Stanford University
关键词
Internet use Homosexuality tolerance Sexual freedom perception Digital era