The Effect of Indirect Contact with Immigrant through Media on Youth's Multicultural Acceptance : Mediation Effect of Global Citizenship

The purpose of this study is to verify the effect of indirect media contact and global citizenship on improving multicultural acceptance among Korean youths. This research aims to provide evidence for enhancing multicultural acceptance and to discuss various approaches to social welfare policies and social services. This study followed the steps suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986) to identify the relationships between indirect media contact, global citizenship, and multicultural acceptance. Subsequently, a Bootstrap analysis using the SPSS process macro was performed to verify the mediator model proposed by Hayes (2013). As a result, the effect of global citizenship was confirmed in the relationship between indirect contact with immigrants through media and multicultural acceptance, and the indirect effect of each sub-factor was validated. The findings revealed a positive correlation between the independent variables of media indirect contact, global citizenship, and multicultural acceptance, indicating that higher frequencies of media indirect contact are associated with higher levels of global citizenship and multicultural acceptance. Furthermore, hierarchical regression analysis confirmed that adolescents' global citizenship significantly impacts the relationship between media indirect contact and multicultural acceptance. The Process Macro analysis further supported these findings, demonstrating that global citizenship serves as a partial mediator, positively influencing adolescents' global citizenship through indirect contact with immigrants via media. This study has implications that delineate the role of indirect contact through media in improving global citizenship among Korean youths, as Korean society is becoming not only globalized and multicultural but also “untact” (untact: un+contact). Based on the results of this study, suggestions were made regarding social services and policies to promote multicultural acceptance among Korean youths.