What Drives Chinese Internet Users to Watch State-Media Broadcasts? An Audience Analysis

Abstract

This study investigates the audience of state-media broadcasts (SMBs) among Chinese Internet users-a missing link for understanding political communications in the high-choice media environment of modern countries. Using a "least likely case" strategy and a nationwide online survey, we created an audience profile of contemporary viewers among Chinese Internet users of Xinwen Lianbo (XWLB), the primary SMB program in China. We further examined the motivations driving viewers to watch the program, finding that external factors, such as media inequality, historical inertia, and family bundling, do not greatly alter people's watching behaviors. Instead, internal motivations, such as the pursuit of authentic information and psychological gratification, significantly increase the frequency with which viewers watch XWLB. These effects remain robust even after controlling for potential model biases and political desirability. Keywords State Media • Active Audience • Political Communication • Xinwen Lianbo • ChinaState-media broadcasts (SMBs), i.e., public news programs produced by government-owned media companies, play an indispensable role in government-to-citizen communications in modern countries. SMBs are the mouthpiece of the government and the primary platform for rulers to exhibit their achievements and promote the * Zijie Shao

Political trust and public support for propaganda in China

“…On the one hand, they are fairly empty rhetoric without concrete and persuasive content. On the other hand, their celebratory, mobilizational, and laudatory style can be emotionally arousing and provide citizens a sense of stability and psychological gratification (Hu and Shao, 2021; Mattingly and Yao, 2022). In contrast, hard propaganda tends to be overly fawning, threatening, or using obviously fabricated data (Huang, 2018), which can cause alienation.…”

Investigating the Supply and Demand Bias between Media and Audience in the Information Technology Era: Evidence from Data Analysis of Chinese Outreach

“…e paper revolves around the coordination of supply and demand in the international communication of Chinese media based on the case study of Jiangsu province of China, a southeast province with highly developed economy and active exchange, highlighting on the deviation of supply and demand of external publicity in Jiangsu media [6][7][8], especially the gap in the content and channels of communication issued by Chinese media and interested by foreign residents in China, so as to match the core content and channels of foreign propaganda reports precisely, improving the e ectiveness of Jiangsu's external publicity as well as serving as a reference for other provinces in China [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13].…”