Political Marketing under Authoritarianism: Media's Scorekeeping Role in China

• In Event: Central-Local Relations in China

Abstract

Existing studies of political communication under authoritarianism have mainly considered mass media as a tool for powerful political actors to shape public opinion or display loyalty. This paper provides a new perspective by explaining why and how politicians appear in the media beyond their control in closed autocracies, where public officials are not elected through the ballot box. We argue that mass media function as scorekeepers for officials trying to impress their superiors. We analyzed a unique dataset tracking the appearance of 2,751 Chinese prefectural leaders in major central and provincial party newspapers, including 6,332 authored articles and 212,059 news reports over the period from 2000 to 2018, content typically featuring local practices or interpretations of central policies. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we found that local leaders with stronger career incentives increased their press appearances to signal competence in policy implementation. Additionally, well-connected leaders enjoyed the advantage of signaling competence with fewer costs compared to their unconnected counterparts. Further analyses indicated that local leaders with more frequent official press appearances experienced quicker promotions to the higher rank. The understudied scorekeeping role of the official press in China suggests that political marketing is a prevalent phenomenon under authoritarianism, revealing important dynamics in hierarchical power relations.

Our study fills a gap in the literature of political selection by presenting one of the first studies that theorizes and systematically tests overt connection-building through media appearance. Scholars have assumed that shared birthplace or workplace helps build connections when ties based on ethnicity, religion, or partisanship cannot clearly signal loyalty. But simply sharing work experience or birthplace does not necessarily indicate strong political bonds; as such, more recent studies have measured connections by coding appointments under the watch of higher authorities. Still, appointment-based connection measures provide limited insight into how appointment decisions are made in the first place. We show that promotions are partly based on the media coverage of politicians' actual governing performance because such media appearances serve superiors' interests in selecting loyal and capable subordinates.

In addition to highlighting a general mechanism that shapes political selection, our research also speaks to a large literature on authoritarian resilience that emphasizes meritocratic considerations in the promotion of political elites. Research in comparative politics and political economy has primarily treated governing performance as economic growth, but this perspective is difficult to be reconciled with local agents' multi-dimensional goals. While economic growth is convenient for superiors to extract information on subordinates' competence, this indicator does not quantify certain important tasks of governance. An emerging body of research has, thus, begun to challenge the meritocratic basis of political selection. But we argue that media exposure may complement economic growth as a measure of governing performance because news articles reveal valuable information about local agents' capabilities, ideas, and networks. Such information helps local agents signal competence to the powerful selectorate and build reputations among their peers. Our analysis demonstrates the credibility of these media signals, as local agents bear three distinct signaling costs, including sunk cost, audience cost, and operational cost, when engaging in political marketing under authoritarianism.

Author

• Yu Zeng, Peking University