Why support nuclear energy? The roles of citizen knowledge, trust, media use, and perceptions across five Southeast Asian countries

Abstract

Public support is important for countries that are at nascent stages of nuclear energy development. This study seeks to examine factors shaping public support for nuclear energy development in five Southeast Asian countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Using surveys (with n = 1,000 in each country), results show that the public indicates generally low levels of support for nuclear energy development across the five countries. This reflects the possible lingering impact of the Fukushima nuclear incident on public opinion. We further show that factors, such as trust in various stakeholders, media frames, and risk and benefit perceptions, are associated with public support for nuclear energy. More importantly, people use trust, and risk and benefit perceptions as perceptual filters to interpret the relationship between nuclear knowledge and their support for nuclear energy. The findings imply that policymakers should take these perceptual filters into consideration when communicating messages about nuclear energy development to the public.