Knowing Is Disturbing: Emotions and Public Attitudes under Digital Autocracy

• In Event: The Limitations of Modern Democracy

Abstract

The implementation of digital control measures like surveillance and information-manipulation have often been framed by authoritarian rulers in the name of protecting public security and strengthening social order. By contrast, the surreptitious, usually repressive nature of the extensive, oftentimes unchecked digital control has been deliberately hidden away from public discourse and withheld in the absence of substantive political accountability. A consequence of this unbalanced information flow is manifest in a number of studies that suggest a relatively high level of public support of government use of different digital technologies in authoritarian countries. In other words, the statistics of high public approval of digital authoritarianism might not simply be a result of social desirability bias such as self-censorship when respondents deliberately disguise their genuine answers to the researcher; it might also be the product of internalization and adoption of government propaganda by many others, whose seemingly open and honest political attitudes may be difficult to hold once being challenged. Directly associated with this acknowledgement is an intriguing question: whether knowledges about digital control measures employed by authoritarian government affect people’s political attitudes, and if so, how do attitudes vary across different aspects of digital authoritarianism?

Engaging with the latest research in social and political psychology, political behavior, and authoritarian politics, our study focuses on the distinct as well as interactive role of knowledges and emotions in shaping public perceptions under a politically restrictive setting. Drawing upon a survey experiment in China (n=3000), we use a multifactorial design to 1) test the causal effect of knowledges about different dimensions of digital authoritarianism (i.e., surveillance versus censorship) on public political attitudes; 2) assess potential emotional states linked to knowledges about digital authoritarianism; 3) examine how public perceptions vary across different informational-emotional circumstances. Overall, our study aims to enrich current understandings of the formation and alteration of public opinion under authoritarian rule, and to unveil the informational-psychological impact of digital authoritarianism, and how the very specific knowledges about the political reality of digital authoritarianism could make a difference in public opinion.

Authors

• Danqi Guo, Freie Universität Berlin

• Genia Kostka, Freie Universität Berlin