Nationalism and preferences for domestic and foreign animation programmes in China

Since China implemented animation control policies in 2004, foreign animation programmes have almost disappeared from Chinese television. At the same time, the Chinese government has invested enormous amounts of money in developing the animation industry as a creative industry. A questionnaire survey was conducted to explore how the Chinese audience views domestic and foreign animation programmes. The results indicate that pirated Japanese animation is widely viewed via the Internet by adolescents; on the other hand, domestic animation is popular only among children. Preferences for domestic animation correlate positively with age and patriotism but negatively with Internet use, while preferences for Japanese animation correlate negatively with age and patriotism but positively with Internet use. These results show that nationalistic sentiments are associated with preferences for either domestic or foreign animation programmes. However, preferences for Japanese animation are not significantly associated with anti-government attitudes.