活動手冊 - 開南大學

The Effects of Internet Upon Chinese Immigrants’ Attributional
Confidence: taking Chinese immigrants from China and Hong Kong in
Austin, TX as an example
Wei-wei Vivian Huang, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Radio and Television,
National Chengchi University
Abstract
America is a nation of immigrants. More and more immigrants have entered
America and begun a complex process of interaction with the dominant society and
culture. The immigrant experience is a dynamic process that unfolds over several
generations and is a major key to understanding the nature of modern American society
and culture. It is important for both the immigrants and host people to understand the
process of adaptation.
With the higher birth rate and immigration of ethnic groups, as well as increasing
economic and political participation of the “minority” has provided a forum for
immigrants to express their opinions and struggle for their rights. More than 50% of the
new immigrants are from Asia (http://chinesecensus.com/content.asp
-category_id=5699.htm, 2003). The status of ethnic and “minority” group in America
is changing. Compared with earlier immigrants, contemporary immigrants or the
offspring of earlier immigrants usually have different adaptive experience.
When immigrants feel insecure about their old environment, they may use several
ways to overcome that insecurity. Migrating to a new environment that seems full of
hope and security is one option, and one of the main motivation for immigration.
However, after entering a new environment, it is possible and reasonable for immigrants
to feel insecure in the process of adaptation to American mainstream. In other words,
the degree of certainty or confidence is related to that of adaptation.
Research on attributional confidence theory, one approach to the study of certainty
in interpersonal communication, has paid little attention to the roles of mass media and
internet in the process. Further, this literature has rarely explored the relationship
between adaptation and attributional confidence.
In adaptation studies, the literature has examined both mass media and
interpersonal communication, however, is usually conceptualized in terms of frequency
of contact and number of friends. It lacks attention to such things as the strategies
individuals use to interact with each other and to reduce their uncertainty in unfamiliar
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