How government-controlled media shifts policy attitudes through framing

Abstract

Research shows that government-controlled media is an effective tool for authoritarian regimes to shape public opinion. Does government-controlled media remain effective when it is required to support changes in positions that autocrats take on issues? Existing theories do not provide a clear answer to this question, but we often observe authoritarian governments using government media to frame policies in new ways when significant changes in policy positions are required. By conducting an experiment that exposes respondents to government-controlled media—in the form of TV news segments—on issues where the regime substantially changed its policy positions, we find that by framing the same issue differently, government-controlled media moves respondents to adopt policy positions closer to the ones espoused by the regime regardless of individual predisposition. This result holds for domestic and foreign policy issues, for direct and composite measures of attitudes, and persists up to 48 hours after exposure.

How Soft Propaganda Persuades

“…To date, the literature on the role of emotions in sustaining authoritarianism has largely focused on the role of fear in repression (Carter & Carter, 2021b; Nugent, 2017; Rozenas & Zhukov, 2019; Young, 2019). Our findings build on recent studies highlighting the persuasive power of propaganda in Russia (Peisakhin & Rozenas, 2018; Rozenas & Stukal, 2019; Treisman, 2011), Germany (Adena et al, 2015; Barber & Miller, 2019), Rwanda (Yanagizawa-Drott, 2014), China (Pan et al, 2021), and Mali (Bleck & Michelitch, 2017). In contrast to these studies, our findings suggest that slickly produced soft propaganda produced by authoritarian regimes in the form of television dramas, glossy advertisements, and social media content are especially effective at pushing nationalist messages, but not necessarily building regime support, underscoring the importance of examining the wider universe of regime propaganda.…”

How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru

“…Transcripts of some of the videotapes and audiotapes, covering 66 of Montesinos's meetings, are on the Congress's website. 7 From a Peruvian journalist we obtained some of Montesinos's bribe receipts, such as those in Figure 2. The political and judicial processes against Montesinos and Fujimori have yielded further data.…”

“…Since data coming from the participants' testimony are open to question, wherever possible we used multiple sources for such data. Investigative journalists have uncovered a great deal of information, presented in richly detailed articles in 7 Congress website: ͗http://200.37.159.14/SICR/diariodebates/audiovideos.NSF/indice͘. newspapers like La Repu ´blica, magazines like Caretas, and in books such as Bowen and Holligan (2003).…”

Message or Messenger? Source and Labeling Effects in Authoritarian Response to Protest

“…It also shows that manipulating the views about an existing protest may also prevent future protest. Moreover, while literature on propaganda focuses on effects of messages from state media (Adena et al 2015, Pan, Shao and Xu 2021, Peisakhin and Rozenas 2018, Yanagizawa-Drott 2014, we compare the content of the message between governmental and non-governmental sources in an autocracy and find the content plays a more important role in shaping citizens' perceptions.…”