| Summary: | 碩士 === 世新大學 === 廣播電視電影學研究所(含碩專班) === 95 === Previous research in the area of new energy technology mainly focused on the technological perspectives, and only a few studies paid attention to the social science perspective. The present research seek to investigate the hot issue of energy from the social science and communication perspective. Moreover, the researcher also explored the relationship between the knowledge of consumption and the behavior of consumption, diffusion of innovations and population, and how they affected each other. In terms of all-expense of the study, the fees were shared by Mei-Ying Tsai Ph.D. and UNIDO-ICHET.
Since the shortage of energy is serious increasingly and hydrogen energy becomes the alternative energy source, the motivation of the present research aimed to understand the degree of the acceptance of new energy. Therefore, the purpose of the study is three-fold. First, the researcher wanted to know how the innovators of new energy responded to online issue of energy. Second, the researcher investigated how knowledge affected the attitude and behavior of the innovators of new energy.Third, the researcher explored how the characteristic of population, creativity, and online usage affected the acceptance of the innovators of new energy.
This study was conducted using online survey. The questionnaire was available on the website of UNIDO-ICHET. Moreover, the researcher sent the questionnaire to the experts in the field of new energy via e-mail. This research started from August 11, 2005 to January 11, 2006, totally lasted for five months. The return surveys were 1464 copies, but 338 copies were invalid, so 1126 copies were valid and used in the study.
The results of this study showed that the male had a better knowledge of hydrogen energy due to the frequent exposure to it. Such consequences were because the male were in the majority of most energy technology companies, and these people were considered early innovators; therefore, most of them had a master or PHD. degree.With regard to age, people whose age was above 41 years old knew much more about hydrogen energy. The reason would be that hydrogen energy is a kind of technological profession and needs people who have a higher level to engage in this field, so the technicians’ age are in the high side. About family income, people who were able to afford technical products needed to have a better income because energy technology is a high-tech industry. In terms of the media contact, the participants of this study were experts in this field, so they are often engaged in the activities of environmental protection as well as the new energy. Furthermore, these experts mainly used the Internet to obtain energy information, and they frequently surfed the net and posted articles online.
Regarding to the population varieties of diffusion of innovations, it was found that the users of hydrogen energy were mainly male, and they had master or a PHD.degree. Moreover, their income was about 60000 US dollars, which is very high. Besides, most users were in their middle age because hydrogen energy was hard to be understood by youngsters. Such results were also in line with the process of different diffusion of innovations, and the characteristic of innovative population was different. In terms of media usage, this study investigated the relations between the Internet and the innovators. It was found that the information of new energy technology was mainly obtained through the new media—internet, yet the traditional media were seldom used. The characteristic of internet users were similar with the users of hydrogen energy. They surfed a lot on the Internet and posted more articles than others so that they could understand more of the related knowledge in the new energy field.
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