Czechs' Perception Of China:Media Exposure VS Personal Experience

As China rises and becomes a global power,its soft power also increases.However,despite the increasing number of cultural activities to promote Chinese culture,or the number of youth exchanges or the Czech leadership's efforts to propagate economic benefits of good relations with China,the image of China in the Czech Republic remains rather negative.Research conducted by the Czech Public Opinion Research Center in the period from 1997 to 2017 reveals that on average only 18 % of people found China “likeable”.Similar to many Western countries,the main credit for the negative perception of China in the Czech Republic goes to media,which remain the main source of information about contemporary China for the majority of people.Three questions that I raise and want to answer in my thesis are 1)how Czech media describe China 2)if and how such descriptions affect Czechs? view of China,and 3)if,how and under what conditions visiting China can change Czechs? previous view of China.In order to answer the last question,I have created a questionnaire allowing me to compare the image of China in two different groups of people – those who have visited China and those who have not.My hypotheses are that Czech people who have visited China are less influenced by negative media exposure about China and will have overall better views of China,and that the perception of China changes positively after the visit.As all three hypotheses are supported,the main conclusion of the thesis is that visiting China contributes to greater understanding and hence to greater sympathy towards China.