Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T08:13:05.987Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Parsing the Effect of the Internet on Regime Support in China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2018

Min Tang
Affiliation:
Min Tang is Associate Professor in the School of Public Economics and Administration at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics
Narisong Huhe*
Affiliation:
Narisong Huhe is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Strathclyde
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Although the internet is severely censored in China, negative reporting and critical deliberations of political institutions and policy issues, especially low-profile ones, have been abundant in cyberspace. Given such a mixed pattern of online information, this study explores the complexity of the effect of the internet on regime support by parsing it into direct effect and indirect effect. It argues that the internet indirectly erodes its viewers’ overall support for the authoritarian regime by decreasing their evaluation of government performance. The findings from a mediation analysis of a Beijing sample support this argument. The result of one analysis also indicates that the direct effect of internet use on regime support can be positive. Such findings about the effect of the internet in China help advance our understanding of both political and theoretical implications of the spread of the internet in authoritarian countries.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2018. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boas, TC (2006) Weaving the Authoritarian Web: The Control of Internet Use in Nondemocratic Regimes. In Zysman J and Newman A (eds), How Revolutionary was the Digital Revolution? National Responses, Market Transitions, and Global Technology. Stanford, CA: Business Books: 373390.Google Scholar
Brady, AM (2008) Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Brehm, J Rahn, W (1997) Individual-level Evidence for the Causes and Consequences of Social Capital. American Journal of Political Science 41(3), 9991923.Google Scholar
Chen, J (2004) Popular Political Support in Urban China. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.Google Scholar
Chen, J Dickson, B (2008) Allies of the State: Democratic Support and Regime Support Among China’s Private Entrepreneurs. China Quarterly 196(4), 780804.Google Scholar
Chen, J Zhong, Y (1998) Defining the Political System of Post-Deng China: Emerging Public Support for a Democratic Political System. Problems of Post-Communism 45(1), 3042.Google Scholar
Chen, J, Zhong, Y, Hillard, J Scheb, J (1997) Assessing Political Support in China: Citizens’ Evaluations of Governmental Effectiveness and Legitimacy. Journal of Contemporary China 6(16), 551566.Google Scholar
Creemers, R (2017) Cyber China: Upgrading Propaganda, Public Opinion Work and Social Management for the Twenty-First Century. Journal of Contemporary China 26(103), 85100.Google Scholar
Diamond, L (2010) Liberation Technology. Journal of Democracy 21(3), 6983.Google Scholar
Easton, D (1975) A Re-assessment of the Concept of Political Support. British Journal of Political Science 5(4), 435457.Google Scholar
Farrell, H (2012) The Consequences of the Internet for Politics. Annual Review of Political Science 15, 3552.Google Scholar
Gibson, JL Caldeira, GA (1992) Blacks and the Supreme Court: Models of Diffuse Support. Journal of Politics 54(3), 11201145.Google Scholar
Gilley, B (2006) The Meaning and Measure of State Legitimacy: Results for 72 Countries. European Journal of Political Research 45(3), 499525.Google Scholar
Gunitsky, S (2015) Corrupting the Cyber-commons: Social Media as a Tool of Autocratic Stability. Perspectives on Politics 13(1), 4254.Google Scholar
Guo, Y Chen, P (2011) Digital Divide and Social Cleavage: Case Studies of ICT Usage among Peasants in Contemporary China. China Quarterly 207(3), 580599.Google Scholar
Han, R (2015) Defending the Authoritarian Regime Online: China’s ‘Voluntary Fifty-cent Army’. China Quarterly 224(4), 10061025.Google Scholar
Harwit, E Clark, D (2001) Shaping the Internet in China: Evolution of Political Control over Network Infrastructure and Content. Asian Survey 41(3), 377408.Google Scholar
Hassid, J (2008) Controlling the Chinese Media: An Uncertain Business. Asian Survey 48(3), 414430.Google Scholar
Herold, D Marolt, P (2011), Online Society in China: Creating, Celebrating and Instrumentalising the Online Carnival. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Howard, PN Hussain, MH (2011) The Role of Digital Media. Journal of Democracy 22(3), 3548.Google Scholar
Imai, K, Keele, L, Tingley, D Yamamoto, T (2011) Unpacking the Black Box of Causality: Learning about Causal Mechanisms from Experimental and Observational Studies. American Political Science Review 105(4), 765789.Google Scholar
Kalathil, S Boas, TC (2003), Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
King, G, Pan, J Roberts, M (2013) How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression. American Political Science Review 107(2), 326343.Google Scholar
Lei, Y-W (2011) The Political Consequences of the Rise of the Internet: Political Beliefs and Practices of Chinese Netizens. Political Communication 28(3), 291322.Google Scholar
Liebman, BL (2011) The Media and the Courts: Towards Competitive Supervision? China Quarterly 208(4), 833850.Google Scholar
Lorentzen, P (2014) China’s Strategic Censorship. American Journal of Political Science 58(2), 402414.Google Scholar
Lynch, M (2011) After Egypt: The Limits and Promise of Online Challenges to the Authoritarian Arab State. Perspectives on Politics 9(2), 301310.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, R (2008) Flatter World and Thicker Walls? Blogs, Censorship and Civic Discourse in China. Public Choice 134(1), 3146.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, R (2011) China’s ‘Networked Authoritarianism’. Journal of Democracy 22(2), 3246.Google Scholar
Mishler, W Rose, M (2001) What are the Origins of Political Trust? Testing Institutional and Cultural Theories in Post-Communist Societies. Comparative Political Studies 34(1), 3062.Google Scholar
O’Brien, K Stern, R (2008) Studying Contention in Contemporary China. In O’Brien K (ed.), Popular Protest in China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press: 2050.Google Scholar
Rød, EG Weidmann, NB (2017) Empowering Activists or Autocrats? The Internet in Authoritarian Regimes. Journal of Peace Research 52(3), 338351.Google Scholar
Rodan, G (1998) The Internet and Political Control in Singapore. Political Science Quarterly 113(1), 6389.Google Scholar
Seligson, MA Muller, EN (1987) Democratic Stability and Economic Crisis: Costa Rica, 1978–1983. International Studies Quarterly 31(3), 301326.Google Scholar
Shi, T (2001) Cultural Values and Political Trust. Comparative Politics 33(4), 401419.Google Scholar
Shirk, SL (2010), Changing Media, Changing China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shirky, C (2011) The Political Power of Social Media. Foreign Affairs 90(1), 2841.Google Scholar
Stockmann, D (2011) Race to the Bottom: Media Marketization and Increasing Negativity toward the United States in China. Political Communication 28(3), 268290.Google Scholar
Sullivan, J (2012) A Tale of Two Microblogs in China. Media, Culture and Society 34(6), 773783.Google Scholar
Sullivan, J (2014) China’s Weibo: Is Faster Different? New Media and Society 16(1), 2437.Google Scholar
Tang, L Yang, P (2011) Symbolic Power and the Internet: The Power of a ‘Horse’. Media, Culture and Society 33(5), 675691.Google Scholar
Tang, M Huhe, N (2014) Alternative Framing: The Effect of the Internet on Political Support in Authoritarian China. International Political Science Review 35(5), 559576.Google Scholar
Tang, M, Jorba, L Jensen, MJ (2012) Digital Media and Political Attitudes in China. In Anduiza E, Jensen MJ and Jorba L (eds), Digital Media and Political Engagement Worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 221239.Google Scholar
Taubman, G (1998) A Not-so World Wide Web: The Internet, China, and the Challenges to Nondemocratic Rule. Political Communication 15(2), 255272.Google Scholar
Tong, Y Lei, S (2013) War of Position and Microblogging in China. Journal of Contemporary China 22(80), 292311.Google Scholar
Wang, Z (2005) Before the Emergence of Critical Citizens: Economic Development and Political Trust in China. International Review of Sociology: Revue Internationale de Sociologies 15(1), 155171.Google Scholar
Xiao, Q (2011) The Rise of Public Opinion and its Online Impact. In Shirk S (ed.), Changing Media, Changing China. New York: Oxford University Press: 202224.Google Scholar
Yang, G (2009) The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Yang, Q Tang, W (2010) Exploring the Sources of Institutional Trust in China: Culture, Mobilization, or Performance? Asian Politics and Policy 2(3), 415436.Google Scholar
Yang, Y, Tang, M, Zhou, W Huhe, N (2014) The Effect of Media Use on Institutional Trust in China. Problems of Post-Communism 61(3), 4556.Google Scholar
Zhao, Y (2000) Watchdogs on Party Leashes? Contexts and Limitations of Investigative Reporting in Post-Deng China. Journalism Studies 1(4), 577597.Google Scholar
Zhou, X (2009) The Political Blogosphere in China: A Content Analysis of the Blogs Regarding the Dismissal of Shanghai Leader Chen Liangyu. New Media and Society 11(6), 10031022.Google Scholar
Zhou, Y Moy, P (2007) Parsing Framing Processes: The Interplay Between Online Public Opinion and Media Coverage. Journal of Communication 57(1), 7998.Google Scholar