Notes from lectures and readings for the second half of Politics, Media & Communication, taught by T.N. Incerti. Including lectures 8-11, only ones needed for the final exam.
Chinese State Media Persuades a Global Audience That the “China Model” is
Superior: Evidence From a 19-Country Experiment – Incerti et al. (2023)
Summary
- Content from tens of thousands of videos from China and the United States’
foreign media arms
o China actively promotes its authoritarian model as an alternative to
democracy to foreign audiences
o The US attempts to shape public opinion in favor of democracy
- Experiments replicated across 19 countries to see how external state media
influences public opinion towards the desirability of democratic and
authoritarian political systems
o Chinese messages are successful
Viewing real Chinese state media messages doubles support for
China’s political and economic models, causing a majority to
prefer their model over the US
- Global audiences find authoritarian political systems appealing when state media
reveals credible information about competent governance by non-democratic
stats
- Randomly assign respondents to one of four arms
o A placebo group
o A Chinese messaging group
o An American messaging group
o A competition arm in which respondents receive both Chinese and
American messaging
- Findings
o Messages are effective at persuading audiences of Chinese government
performance
Not so much that the system is democratic
Sufficient exposure to Chinese media could result in shifts in
global public opinion towards China
o American messages modestly increase support for the US democratic
and economic system and for American global leadership
o Chinese messaging about the merits of the China model are more
persuasive than American messaging about the merits of democracy
Chinese messaging is effective because it persuades global
audiences of the high performance of the Chinese government
- Hypotheses:
o H1: State media from non-democratic regimes builds global support for
authoritarian political and economic models
o H2: Pro-democracy messages from democracies should persuade
audiences of the superiority of democratic systems
o H3: When exposed to competing messages, global audiences will move
towards preferring the autocratic model
1
, o H4: State media from authoritarian regimes will be more successful in
developing regions
o H5: Chinese messaging contains new information on government
performance, so it will be especially effective
- China uses a “hybrid” approach to foreign messaging, mixing traditional
broadcast media with the use of social media to amplify messages
- Stories in the political category contain three strands:
o Competent leadership
Highlight how CCP institutions lead to the selection of competent
leaders
o Responsive institutions
Focus on the legitimacy and responsiveness of CCP institutions
o Western political disfunction
Focus on protests, racism, and political violence in the US and
Europe, drawing contrast with political stability in China
- Stories in the economic category contain three strands:
o Poverty alleviation
How China has lifted people out of poverty over the last four
decades
o Trade and innovation
Focus on how China has driven global trade and economic gains
around the world
o Infrastructure
Infrastructure-building efforts at home and abroad
- American broadcasting offices alter and expand localized coverage in respond to
geopolitical events
- American Politics category
o Promotion of American diversity and immigration
o Videos promoting strong civil liberties
- American economic category
o Videos promoting entrepreneurship and innovation and education system
- Conclusion
o Chinese messaging is more persuasive
How Autocrats Manipulate Economic News: Evidence from Russia’s State Controlled
Television – Rozenas and Stukal (2019)
Summary
- Autocrats are increasingly employing information manipulation to create a
perception that they are competent economic managers who should stay in office
- The government is more likely to incentivize the media to report economic facts
as they are but frame them in a way that shifts the blame
o Woth economic news, selective attribution should dominate censorship
- Case of Russia
o Carefully crafted manipulation methods
- Two novel empirical regularities
o State media does not censor negative economic facts
Media employs selective attribution
2
, Attributes the bad news to the actions of foreign
governments and good news to the actions of Russia’s
political elites
Constructed either by invoking explicit causal narratives
or by association
o The use of selective attribution intensifies during elections and popular
protests
Also when the country’s leadership is widely supported by the
population
- Findings suggest that governments can switch between censorship and selective
attribution, depending on what’s easier and benefits the government most
- Existing literature
o Bad news can’t hurt the government unless citizens draw a causal
connection to the government’s performance
- Findings
o Moderate support for the hypothesis that the degree of manipulation
increases in time of elections or when it needs to persuade them against
participating in postelection protests
o No support for the proposition that news are manipulated more when the
leader’s support is weak
How Soft Propaganda Persuades – Mattingly & Yao (2022)
Summary
- Soft propaganda is typically disseminated in entertaining media and makes
relatively credible claims
- Experiment with Chinese soft-propaganda
o Explore the effectiveness of soft propaganda at fomenting anti-foreign
nationalist attitudes
o Show that emotionally rousing soft propaganda has long-lasting effects
on nationalist political attitudes
o Exposure to propaganda made respondents more likely to sign a petition
calling on Japan to apologize for its actions during WWII.
o Effective not only stirs up emotions but gives them a foreign source of
grievances
- Findings
o Exposure to nationalist propaganda does not reduce likelihood to protest
against the government
o No evidence that nationalist propaganda is more effective among
younger generations at fomenting anti-foreign sentiment or hawkishness
But: more effective and provoking anger
Why Botter: How Pro-Government Bots Fight Opposition in Russia – Stukal et al.
(2022)
Summary
- Two alternative theoretical frameworks for predicting the use of pro-regime bots
o Bot deployment in response to offline protest
3
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