The Strategies of Chinese State Media on Twitter

• In Event: Comparative Research on Elite Media Strategies in Authoritarian Contexts

Abstract

The Chinese regime has significantly expanded its presence on global social media platforms and now reaches hundreds of millions of people worldwide. However, there is substantial disagreement over what to make of these efforts. This disagreement stems from conceptual and empirical gaps in our understanding of outward-oriented state-controlled media. In this paper, we provide a framework for conceptualizing such media efforts, and then use it analyze tweets produced by China’s premier, outward-facing, state-controlled media outlet, CGTN. We argue that outward-oriented government messaging often entails deception through omission, distortion, and misdirection. We find that over half of CGTN tweets cover breaking news events completely unrelated to China. Of the remaining China-related tweets, the vast majority emphasize four positive narratives of China, at the exclusion of negative portrayals, in an attempt to re-frame global perceptions of the country. The amount of CGTN content containing these re-framing narratives vastly outstrips reporting on China produced by any single international media outlet, but online engagement with re-framing content is lower than with international media coverage of China.

Authors

• Yingjie Fan

• Jennifer Pan, Stanford University

• Jaymee Sheng