Media, information, and networks : the young adult's overseas aspirations in Taiwan

Abstract

Global travel by the young is a fashionable trend these days. Most of the travel studies are related to the motivation of youth traveling abroad. However, to a much lesser degree, the literature discusses the mechanisms of formatting international images in traveler's minds. This paper examines the factors that are related to high aspiration for overseas living among young adults (aged 18-29) by considering the case of Taiwan. A large number of scholars in interdisciplinary research indicated that a destination image makes a place impression and perception from multiple information sources. This study hypothesizes that the following four mediators build overseas aspiration via destination images: level of media and internet use, media, internet, and network. Logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the Taiwan Social Chang Survey 2008 dataset. In addition to revealing the effect of some demographics (age, gender, marital status, education, and occupation), the analytical outcomes shed light on the significant association between overseas living aspiration and the four mediators. Furthermore, the influence of the media and internet from the West (Europe/America) is overwhelming. The results serve to verify the power of word-of-mouth interpersonal communication in creating an overseas conceptual construction as previous studies have mentioned. The abroad destination image is not only used for travel, but also to identify the location of a possible career in the future among young adults.