With the experiments on 160 college students, this study attempts to explore how contemporary Chinese youth who grow up with dominant nationalism discourse would react to China’s image represented in American TV series. Albeit Chinese youth understand that the China-related story represented in American TV series is unreasonable, they are still willingly to accept the positive Chinese government image. On the other hand, when Chinese government is represented a negative image, although Chinese youth are aware of the truthfulness of the story, they are not willingly to accept such a negative image. The viewing frequency and viewing time cannot explain their attitude difference. Therefore, the dominant nationalism discourse affects their acceptance of American TV series. Under the background of transnational information flow, the ‘active audience’ approach needs more reconsideration.