Media Choice and Political Behavior

Abstract

Government-sponsored sources of information are the main source of news for many Chinese citizens due to the strict government control of news and information. In a democratic country such as The Netherlands, there are public and private options for news sources that are all freely available. This makes the private news sources have to compete for viewership and customers by selling negative stories that are sensational, which could affect the readers’ inclination to participate in politics negatively, while those living in China do not have the same level of access to commercial sources. Because of this, it is expected that only those who have a desire to do the work to seek out private sources of information will do so due to the fact that they are harder to find in that country.