Examining Personal and Media Factors Associated with Attitude towards Genetically Modified Foods among University Students in Kunming, China

Li Li and John Robert Bautista
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Li Li: School of Journalism, Yunnan University, Kunming 650000, China
John Robert Bautista: School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78701, USA

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 23, 1-14

Abstract: Guided by the theory of reasoned action and media system dependency theory, this study examined attitude towards genetically modified foods (GMF) among university students in Kunming, China, as well as personal and media factors related to such attitude. Data were collected from an online survey with 467 university students across eight universities in Kunming. Results showed that attitude towards GMF were more negative than positive. Moreover, food neophobia and media attention were negatively associated with attitude towards GMF. In contrast, perceived benefit was positively associated with attitude towards GMF. Although the interaction between media dependency and media attention was significant, simple slope analysis confirmed that the interaction slopes were nonsignificant, suggesting that media attention did not moderate the association between media dependency and attitude towards GMF in this study. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Keywords: attitude; food neophobia; genetically modified foods; media attention; media system dependency theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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