How Autocrats Manipulate Economic News: Evidence from Russia’s State-Controlled Television

Rozenas, Arturas; Стукал, Денис

doi:10.1086/703208

Cited by 118 publications

(89 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…A recent empirical literature provides some corroborating evidence that the way that events are covered in the media in autocratic regimes may play an important role in autocratic media manipulation. These studies focus not only on information but on the valence of language or causal attributions with which events are discussed as mechanisms through which autocratic media might affect citizen dissent (Carter and Carter, 2016;Rozenas and Stukal, 2017).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Psychology of State Repression: Fear and Dissent Decisions in Zimbabwe

2018

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Many authoritarian regimes use frightening acts of repression to suppress dissent. Theory from psychology suggests that emotions should affect how citizens perceive and process information about repression risk and ultimately whether or not they dissent. I test the effects of emotions on dissent in autocracy by running a lab-in-the-field experiment with 671 opposition supporters in Zimbabwe that randomly assigns some participants to an exercise that induces a mild state of fear, whereas others complete a neutral placebo. The fear treatment significantly reduces hypothetical and behavioral measures of dissent by substantively large amounts. It also increases pessimism about parameters that enter into the dissent decision as well as risk aversion. These results show that emotions interact in important ways with strategic considerations. Fear may be a powerful component of how unpopular autocrats exclude large portions of their populations from mobilizing for regime change.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Psychology of State Repression: Fear and Dissent Decisions in Zimbabwe

2018

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“…The emphasis on economic performance leaves leaders vulnerable to downturns, the facts of which are hard to conceal from those laid off or suffering wage cuts. In Russia, rather than censoring bad economic news, Kremlin spokesmen have sought-with some success-to redirect blame onto foreign enemies (Rozenas and Stukal 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Informational Autocrats

Guriev

Treisman

2019

Journal of Economic Perspectives

244

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In recent decades, dictatorships based on mass repression have largely given way to a new model based on the manipulation of information. Instead of terrorizing citizens into submission, “informational autocrats” artificially boost their popularity by convincing the public they are competent. To do so, they use propaganda and silence informed members of the elite by co-optation or censorship. Using several sources, including a newly created dataset on authoritarian control techniques, we document a range of trends in recent autocracies consistent with this new model: a decline in violence, efforts to conceal state repression, rejection of official ideologies, imitation of democracy, a perceptions gap between the masses and the elite, and the adoption by leaders of a rhetoric of performance rather than one aimed at inspiring fear.

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“…In the persuasion framework, regimes' negative labels communicate what citizens perceive as factual information about protests. Through selectively presenting informationsuch as labeling protesters as criminals and downplaying the alternative that protests are permissible-the regime creates a narrative about ongoing events designed to denigrate opposition while building support for the regime (Rozenas and Stukal 2019). Citizens, if they lack access to alternative sources of information about protesters against which to compare the regime's negative labels, are likely to believe the information the regime provides to them is accurate.…”

Section: How Negative Labels Affect Citizen Attitudesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The study also builds a much-needed bridge between research on repression and dissent and research on authoritarian propaganda. While an older qualitative literature speaks to the connections between propaganda and social control (Wedeen 1998, Kubik 1994, Havel and Wilson 1985, more recent scholarship has tended to divide into a focus on a "hard" repression involving state use of kinetic force to contain mass threats (Svolik 2012, Gohdes 2020, Sullivan 2016) and a "soft" repression involving the use of state media and information control to shape citizen attitudes and behavior on issues unrelated to mass threat (Rozenas and Stukal 2019, Peisakhin and Rozenas 2018, Huang 2015b. The findings in this paper-consistent with Carter and Carter (2020)-return to an older perspective that "soft" repression may prevent protests parallel and complementary to "hard" repression.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Propaganda as Protest Prevention: How Regime Labeling Deters Citizens from Protesting—Without Persuading Them

Arnon

Edwards

2020

Preprint

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How do authoritarian regimes prevent protests? One strategy, which frequently accompanies the use of repression, is labeling regime opponents negatively in an attempt to discredit them. This paper considers two frameworks through which negative regime labels about protesters could affect citizens: through persuading them of protesters' illegitimacy, or through signaling the regime's disapproval of protest. We adjudicate the two frameworks with a survey experiment in China which varies regime responses to environmental protest. The results are consistent with the signaling disapproval framework: negative labels do not affect respondents' perceptions of protests but do affect their willingness to protest. Furthermore, these effects depend on respondents' support for the government, and suggest a polarization effect of negative labels. The findings connect research on authoritarian repression and propaganda, suggesting complementarities between the two strategies for regimes.

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How Autocrats Manipulate Economic News: Evidence from Russia’s State-Controlled Television

Cited by 118 publications

References 27 publications

The Psychology of State Repression: Fear and Dissent Decisions in Zimbabwe

The Psychology of State Repression: Fear and Dissent Decisions in Zimbabwe

Informational Autocrats

Propaganda as Protest Prevention: How Regime Labeling Deters Citizens from Protesting—Without Persuading Them

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