When Censorship Works: Exploring the Resilience of News Websites to Online Censorship

Lutscher, Philipp M.

doi:10.1017/s0007123422000722

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 36 publications

(54 reference statements)

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“…2 This strategy 1 Empirical evidence suggests that at least 5-10% of internet users have at some point used circumvention softwares to bypass the firewall in China (Chen and Yang, 2019;Hobbs and Roberts, 2018;Shen and Zhang, 2018;Mou, Wu, and Atkin, 2016). Similar evidence has been provided in Iran (Dal and Nisbet, 2022), Russia (Fung, 2022;Xue et al, 2022), Egypt (Lutscher, 2023) or Turkmenistan (Nourin et al, 2023). Further, the very observation of online censorship may reinforce the citizens' incentives to bypass firewalls (Hobbs and Roberts, 2018) and organize political movements (Boxell and Steinert-Threlkeld, 2019;Pan and Siegel, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Segment and Rule: Modern Censorship in Authoritarian Regimes

Heo,

Zerbini

2023

Preprint

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The internet provides citizens with a large range of foreign outlets to choose from. To discourage access to foreign outlets, authoritarian regimes appear to rely primarily on the firewall, which millions bypass everyday. Crucially, in equilibrium, the regime ensures that only a specific segment of the population self-selects into bypassing the firewall: regime opponents. In turn, opponents are occasionally swayed to comply by positive reporting about the regime of banned foreign outlets. Supporters exclusively consume content from domestic outlets; their compliance is secured via the regime propaganda. We label such a strategy one of segment-and-rule and show how it maximizes compliance. We also explain how authoritarian regimes can engineer segment-and-rule by making local outlets parrot the party line, investing in domestic entertainment or strategically banning foreign entertainment.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Segment and Rule: Modern Censorship in Authoritarian Regimes

Heo,

Zerbini

2023

Preprint

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“…The literature on authoritarian politics examines how autocratic regimes use censorship, propaganda, and other means of information control for a variety of reasons (e.g., Edmond, 2013;Roberts, 2018;Lutscher, 2023b;Wintrobe, 2000). Early work on propaganda describes how totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union used mass media to indoctrinate the whole population (Friedrich & Brzezinski, 1965).…”

Section: Propaganda In Autocraciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Difficult Test for Hard Propaganda: Evidence from a Choice Experiment in Venezuela

Lutscher,

Donnay

2023

Preprint

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Propaganda plays a key role in maintaining power in authoritarian regimes. Previous research finds that overt, crude, and heavy-handed messaging, so-called hard propaganda, can be used to effectively convey government strength and deter citizens from joining anti-regime protests in relatively stable autocratic regimes like China. Yet, it is unclear if this is also true in more contested and unstable autocratic contexts. In these settings, citizens are more likely to question such messaging and prior beliefs of government strength vary more widely. We explore the perception of hard propaganda in one such difficult test case for hard propaganda: the crisis-ridden Maduro regime in Venezuela. We measure perceptions of hard propaganda among the public using an online survey that featured a choice experiment in which respondents chose between and rated different propaganda images against more neutral political communication. Our results show that respondents perceived hard propaganda images as stronger compared to neutral political communication. This holds true---contrary to our pre-registered expectations---regardless of whether respondents overall perceived the government as strong or weak. Moreover, respondents reported a lower willingness to join anti-government protests but, at the same time, had a greater motivation to challenge the regime. These results support and extend prior findings on the effectiveness of hard propaganda in deterring anti-regime activities to the case of contested and unstable autocracies. But they also suggest that this kind of messaging erodes regime legitimacy providing the first evidence outside of the Chinese case of the pathology of hard propaganda.

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A difficult test for hard propaganda: Evidence from a choice experiment in Venezuela

Lutscher,

Donnay

2024

Journal of Peace Research

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Propaganda plays a key role in maintaining power in authoritarian regimes. Previous research finds that overt, crude, and heavy-handed messaging, so-called hard propaganda, can be used to effectively convey government strength and deter citizens from joining anti-regime protests in relatively stable autocratic regimes like China. Yet, it is unclear if this is also true in more contested and unstable autocratic contexts. In these settings, citizens are more likely to question such messaging and prior beliefs of government strength vary more widely. We explore the perception of hard propaganda in one such difficult test case for hard propaganda: the crisis-ridden Maduro regime in Venezuela. We measure perceptions of hard propaganda among the public using an online survey that featured a choice experiment in which respondents chose between and rated different propaganda images against more neutral political communication. Our results show that respondents perceived hard propaganda images as stronger compared to neutral political communication. This holds true – contrary to our pre-registered expectations – regardless of whether respondents overall perceived the government as strong or weak. Moreover, respondents reported a lower willingness to join anti-government protests but, at the same time, had a greater motivation to challenge the regime. These results support and extend prior findings on the effectiveness of hard propaganda in deterring anti-regime activities to the case of contested and unstable autocracies. But they also suggest that this kind of messaging erodes regime legitimacy providing the first evidence outside of the Chinese case of the pathology of hard propaganda.

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When Censorship Works: Exploring the Resilience of News Websites to Online Censorship

Cited by 4 publications

References 36 publications

Segment and Rule: Modern Censorship in Authoritarian Regimes

Segment and Rule: Modern Censorship in Authoritarian Regimes

A Difficult Test for Hard Propaganda: Evidence from a Choice Experiment in Venezuela

A difficult test for hard propaganda: Evidence from a choice experiment in Venezuela

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