China’s Youth View Their Own Country: A New Survey

A new set of surveys shows how people born after 1990 and those born after 2000 see China today. The first group, called post‑90s, was asked in 2019 and included 357 respondents. The second group, post‑00s, was surveyed in 2025 and had 1, 672 participants. Both surveys measured how people feel about China’s image inside the country and also asked about the media they use. The researchers defined “domestic image” as how citizens think about their own country across five areas: society, politics, economy, culture, and the environment. Each of these areas was broken down into specific questions that used a Likert scale, so respondents could rate how strongly they agree or disagree. The surveys also collected detailed data on media habits, such as which social platforms are most popular or how often people watch news shows. By linking the image questions with media‑use data, scientists can study whether certain types of media influence how young people view China.Before publishing the data, the team checked its quality. They tested whether the questions were internally consistent and looked at how different items related to each other. Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were carried out, giving confidence that the survey measures what it intends to measure. Because the surveys were run at different times and under different circumstances, comparisons between the two age groups must be made carefully. The measurement tools were largely the same, but changes in politics or technology over six years can affect responses. The dataset is now available for other researchers to use. It offers a clear, repeatable way to study national image and media influence in China, especially how these ideas change across generations.