Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The Chinese government is betting big on nuclear power. It is also confronting a domestic population that is more uncertain than ever before if the benefits of nuclear energy use outweigh the risks. Using data collected from the largest online discussion board in China- Zhihu.com, this paper explores how Chinese knowledge of nuclear power has changed in the years since the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 and how these changes are likely to affect public acceptance of nuclear power.

Data: Data from March 2011 to June 2018 was scraped on the zhihu.com platform, using the search term of “nuclear power plant”. We obtained all the 1,875 questions, among which 323 are hot topic questions. Looking at the hot topic questions which have over six answers to them, yields public interested in most discussed areas. 19,933 comments were also attached to these hot topic questions. Additionally, demographic information, such as users’ gender, location, and sector/business, etc. is also available.

Methods: We use eight indicators to classify the questions: Radiation, Nuclear energy development, Risk and security, Government/corporate responsibility, Technical attributes, Basic knowledge, Careers in the nuclear industry and Economic and climate impacts. By coding the questions, we can identify the pattern of discussion or characteristics of knowledge accumulation during the years. Besides, the sentiments in individual questions were qualitatively analyzed by sorting them into three nominal categories: positive, neutral and negative. Additionally, we conducted the Pearson Correlation to explore the correlation between the number of questions raised monthly and the occurrence of the event related to nuclear energy. Similarly, we also examine whether the questions raised differ between people of different gender, location and occupation.

Results: The number of questions that concern Nuclear energy development is the largest, which is 366 (20%). This is followed by the questions on Careers in the nuclear industry with the number of 351 (19%). Questions on Radiation also take a large proportion, which is 325 (18%). Moreover, while most of the discussions are still in the coastal provinces where there are existing nuclear power plants, since 2014, discussions expanded to inland China, especially in provinces with consideration of future construction of power plants.

We find that the intensity of discussion follows the occurrence of events, indicating that the events drive more discussion and increases the knowledge. There is evidence that people’s attitudes change after the occurrence of the events. This study also finds that there is heterogeneity among people of different gender, location and occupation with respect to their topics of interest.

Conclusion: While it is generally believed that the public doesn’t have sufficient knowledge about nuclear power, our results also show there actually is a rich discussion. The discussion that concern nuclear energy development, careers in nuclear industry and radiation is the most popular, which implies knowledge on these topics accumulate the most during the years. Our study expands traditional literature to a longer period of time frame and the results could provide suggestions for future campaign and propaganda on nuclear energy development.