How the Use of Soft Propaganda Inflates Chinese Self-Image

• In Event: Governing Information in China: Effects at Home and Abroad

Abstract

How do authoritarian regimes make propaganda persuasive? Foreign influencers become part of Chinese propaganda, telling China’s story well. It is not a new approach for Beijing to include foreign friends as part of party propaganda to promote the global reputation of China. Such a strategy contradicts existing literature, suggesting that out-group persuasion is generally unpersuasive. Why does the Chinese government still rationally choose foreigners as part of the propaganda? Do foreign voices persuade Chinese citizens? Are messages from out- group more likely to persuade Chinese citizens than messages from in-group? To answer these questions, we examine the persuasion effects of the Chinese government using soft propaganda that includes a foreign perspective to boost China’s global image among 2,400 participants in China. The participants are exposed to one of the soft propaganda videos about individuals' attitudes towards freedom in China with either an American interviewee, a Chinese interviewee or a placebo video. While video content and intensity remain the same, the interviewees’ nationalities and race varies. The findings reveal an overall inflation of the national image in China. Watching a propaganda video featuring a foreign advocate does not increase national image. However, we do find evidence of a conditional average treatment effect among those who believe the video is propaganda. Contrary to expectations, we show that propaganda videos are more persuasive when the advocate is from the in-group. This paper contributes to the wider discussion of China’s inflating global reputation among the Chinese public. While the Chinese government has frequently employed foreign advocates to enhance China's national image, our study raises critical questions about the effectiveness of this approach.

Authors

• Siyu Liang, University of California, Los Angeles

• Lachlan McNamee, Monash University