How States Spread and Citizens Respond to Misinformation under Authoritarianism

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

How do authoritarian regimes determine when to spread misinformation, and to whom? What role does social media play in spreading misinformation in authoritarian contexts? What determines whether citizens will believe this misinformation? Better understanding illiberal tactics such as misinformation is crucial to analyzing the recent wave of antidemocratic tendencies around the world. This panel is composed of four papers that study the phenomenon of misinformation under authoritarianism from a variety of angles and using robust empirical methods. Together, they provide a comprehensive picture of this phenomenon, with papers addressing: (1) state supply of and citizen demand for misinformation, (2) misinformation targeting both domestic and international audiences, (3) misinformation across a variety of authoritarian regimes, from China to the countries of the Middle East, and (4) misinformation across different types of social and traditional media.

Sub Unit

• Theme Panel

Chair

• Joshua A. Tucker New York University

Discussants

• Renee DiResta Stanford Internet Observatory

• Margaret E Roberts University of California, San Diego

Individual Presentations

• The Consequences of False Government Denials in an Authoritarian Country - Chengli Wang, University of Macau; Haifeng Huang, University of California, Merced

• Russia’s Viral Use of RT to Shape Global Discourse on Syria - Megan MacDuffee Metzger, Stanford University; Alexandra Arons Siegel, University of Coloardo Boulder

• Explaining Strategy in Russian Online Disinformation about Syria - Renee DiResta, Stanford Internet Observatory; Shelby Grossman, Stanford University

• Beliefs in US-Related Conspiracy Theories in Ten Arab Countries - Amaney Jamal, Princeton University; David Alexander Romney, Brigham Young University; Dustin Halliday Tingley, Harvard University