Information Control and Public Support

• In Event: Chinese Politics Mini-Conference: Information Politics: Collection, Communication, and Processing

Abstract

State surveillance can be an effective tool to enforce social contracts. But it also empowers the government to repress a society. This paper explores sources of public support for state surveillance in dictatorships by focusing on China's new social credit system (SCS)- a surveillance system that rewards and punishes citizens far beyond that of their financial credit scores. We argue that to amass public support, government information control promotes state surveillance via SCS as a tool for maintaining social order. In contrast, revealing surveillance's repressive potential to citizens reduces popular support for SCS. Empirically, we first analyze a nationwide survey of over 2,200 Chinese netizens and show that state media positively alters individuals' beliefs and behaviors towards the SCS. Next, using a survey experiment with a sample of over 750 students in three universities in East, North, and West China, we show that revealing information on the SCS's role in social order maintenance does not further increase its public support; revealing information on its repressive potential, on the other hand, significantly reduces its support. This suggests that the relatively high level of support of social credit system in China might be a function of its citizens' lack information regarding the repressive nature of state surveillance.

Authors

• Xun Cao, Penn State University

• Genia Kostka, Freie Universität Berlin

• Xu Xu, Princeton University