Mask on while Asian: how media use, hostile media perceptions, and alienation influence U.S.-Dwelling Chinese’s protective behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic

As the coronavirus spreads across the globe, xenophobia and racism against Chinese and Asians at large are also surging. In a two-wave survey, we focused on U.S.-dwelling Chinese (N = 1,256), a minority group that was targeted by racial discrimination during the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigated the relationships among a number of media and perceptual factors related to this group at Wave 1 and how these factors predicted the adoption of a wide range of protective behaviors (i.e., disease prevention, safety enhancement, donation, and going back to China) at Wave 2. Overall, our proposed model depicting the relationships among host country and country of origin media use, hostile media perceptions and alienation was largely supported by the data. Our results also showed how these factors predicted actual behaviors. The findings provide important contributions to both theory and practice in multiple ways.