Propaganda, Media Bias, and Public Opinion in China and Russia

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

How do authoritarian regimes use informational manipulation, including propaganda and media bias, to maintain the regime’s legitimacy and affect citizens’ political beliefs? This panel's collection of four papers scrutinizes diverse propaganda tactics employed in China and Russia, covering a spectrum from entertainment to news media, and from exposing the regime’s own shortcomings to authoritarian crisis management. Moreover, these papers examine how these propaganda strategies hold up against citizens' resistance and their impact when faced with competing narratives.

In the first paper, Yao investigates the appeal and effects of entertainment-based propaganda on Chinese public opinion through an online field experiment using the patriotic movie “Wolf Warrior.” In the second paper, Syunyaev and Shirikov examine how citizens perceive the bias of propagandistic media bias in Russia and whether they can be encouraged to update their beliefs about bias and media preferences. Deng’s research examines how the Chinese regime strategically exposes its institutional weaknesses to enhance the public perception of the government’s accountability. Lastly, Huang examines the impact of propaganda versus resistance narratives on political attitudes in China during the coronavirus crisis. Together, these papers explore the dynamic interaction between diverse propaganda strategies and citizen responses, offering insights into the effectiveness of these strategies and their potential limitations.

Sub Unit

• Division 38: Political Communication

Individual Presentations

• Effects of Entertainment-Based Propaganda: Experimental Evidence from China - Linan Yao, Columbia University

• Learning about Bias: An Experiment on News Consumption in Russia - Anton Shirikov, University of Kansas; Georgiy Syunyaev, Vanderbilt University

• Exposing Weaknesses and Perceptions of Accountability: Evidence from China - Rex Weiye Deng, Washington University in St. Louis

• Disaster, Propaganda, and Resistance - Haifeng Huang, The Ohio State University

• Framing Frontlines: Modeling Russian Media's Ukraine Crisis Narratives - Raushan Zhandayeva, George Washington University

Chair

• Li Shao Zhejiang University

Discussants

• Li Shao Zhejiang University

• Bryn Rosenfeld Cornell University