Credibility for Legitimacy? How China Coordinated Its Narratives

• In Event: Poster Session: Comparative Politics I & II
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Comparative Politics II

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that modern authoritarian countries maintain their legitimacy by convincing the public that they are competent, which is sometimes called information manipulation, and domestic propaganda becomes an important tool for this purpose. On the other hand, as reputation has been considered crucial even in international relations, the big authoritarian countries have invested significantly in international propaganda. Because international propaganda and domestic propaganda target different audiences, if authoritarian countries think reputation as a crucial asset, the contents of propaganda should be adjusted accordingly. Especially, as foreign propaganda targets foreign audiences, those exposed to the international discourse, the extant research suggests that excessive criticism of other countries would be counterproductive as international propaganda. However, it is said that some authoritarian regimes have shifted their international propaganda toward being more aggressive, which contradicts the theoretical expectation. Who is the actual audience of international propaganda? How do authoritarian countries manage their information strategy both domestically and internationally? To answer these questions, we analyze China’s propaganda because it is one of the typical authoritarian countries that have made a significant effort on both domestic and international propaganda. We first estimated the audience of international propaganda using Twitter data and discovered the correlation between the geographical distribution of readerships and some important demographic variables. Based on this analysis, we next investigated the difference in contents of domestic Chinese media, international media, and global discourse using machine learning algorithms. We found that Chinese international propaganda and domestic propaganda have different contents, best adjusted for their target audience. We also detected that China started to criticize the major opponents only during the crisis to deflect attention from some sensitive domestic issues. China always considers audience and timing, and seeks effective framing in maintaining its regime while maintaining the credibility of its information. Our study provides a window to an understanding of the strategic role of current authoritarian propaganda.

Authors

• Yuki Mikiya, Keio University

• Kentaro Nakamura, Harvard University