國立虎尾科技大學 |

Essays on Censorship and Public Opinion in Authoritarian Regimes.

Record Type:	Language materials, manuscript : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Essays on Censorship and Public Opinion in Authoritarian Regimes./
Author:	Yang, Zirui.
Description:	1 online resource (192 pages)
Notes:	Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-11, Section: A.
Contained By:	Dissertations Abstracts International85-11A.
Subject:	Political science. -
Online resource:	click for full text (PQDT)
ISBN:	9798382445106

Essays on Censorship and Public Opinion in Authoritarian Regimes.
Yang, Zirui.

Essays on Censorship and Public Opinion in Authoritarian Regimes. - 1 online resource (192 pages)

Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-11, Section: A.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Washington University in St. Louis, 2024.

Includes bibliographical references

Conventional wisdom has long regarded censorship as a top-down, repressive tool for authoritarian governments to suppress political criticism and maintain regime stability, and therefore unpopular among the public. This dissertation proposes a novel normalization theory and presents various pieces of empirical evidence to challenge these conventional understandings of censorship and public opinion in authoritarian regimes. In the first chapter, I introduce the normalization theory and claim that the Chinese public does not necessarily perceive online censorship as repressive but as a normal part of Internet governance. Drawing from around 28 million censored posts on social media and two survey experiments, I demonstrate that, in addition to politically threatening content, non-political content is also censored on a substantial scale, which subsequently increases public support for censorship. In the second chapter, I further investigate why the public perceives censorship as normal by analyzing public participation in the censorship process. I propose a novel bottom-up perspective on censorship and demonstrate that censorship participation leads to higher public support for the censorship apparatus. In the third chapter, I challenge the conventional wisdom that authoritarian censorship tends to target positive exposure of foreign liberal democracies. Using a novel dataset of Chinese social media articles about liberal democracies from 2018 to 2022, I show that impeding mass exposure to democratic institutions rather than defaming the West is the primary strategy of Chinese censorship. This study underscores the Chinese regime's lingering insecurity about public knowledge of liberal democratic systems. Taken together, this dissertation highlights how the normalization of censorship, ordinary citizens' participation, and strategic censorship of information about democracy contribute to maintaining public support and sustaining regime survival in autocracies.

Electronic reproduction.
Ann Arbor, Mich. :
ProQuest,
2024

Mode of access: World Wide Web

ISBN: 9798382445106Subjects--Topical Terms:

558774
Political science.
Subjects--Index Terms:

Authoritarian regimesIndex Terms--Genre/Form:

554714
Electronic books.

Essays on Censorship and Public Opinion in Authoritarian Regimes.
LDR:03379ntm a22004097 4500 001 1152766
005 20241213095555.5
006 m o d
007 cr mn ---uuuuu
008 250605s2024 xx obm 000 0 eng d
020 $a 9798382445106
035 $a (MiAaPQ)AAI31295168
035 $a AAI31295168
040 $a MiAaPQ $b eng $c MiAaPQ $d NTU
100 1 $a Yang, Zirui. $3 1479850
245 1 0 $a Essays on Censorship and Public Opinion in Authoritarian Regimes.
264 0 $c 2024
300 $a 1 online resource (192 pages)
336 $a text $b txt $2 rdacontent
337 $a computer $b c $2 rdamedia
338 $a online resource $b cr $2 rdacarrier
500 $a Source: Dissertations Abstracts International, Volume: 85-11, Section: A.
500 $a Advisor: Tavits, Margit.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--Washington University in St. Louis, 2024.
504 $a Includes bibliographical references
520 $a Conventional wisdom has long regarded censorship as a top-down, repressive tool for authoritarian governments to suppress political criticism and maintain regime stability, and therefore unpopular among the public. This dissertation proposes a novel normalization theory and presents various pieces of empirical evidence to challenge these conventional understandings of censorship and public opinion in authoritarian regimes. In the first chapter, I introduce the normalization theory and claim that the Chinese public does not necessarily perceive online censorship as repressive but as a normal part of Internet governance. Drawing from around 28 million censored posts on social media and two survey experiments, I demonstrate that, in addition to politically threatening content, non-political content is also censored on a substantial scale, which subsequently increases public support for censorship. In the second chapter, I further investigate why the public perceives censorship as normal by analyzing public participation in the censorship process. I propose a novel bottom-up perspective on censorship and demonstrate that censorship participation leads to higher public support for the censorship apparatus. In the third chapter, I challenge the conventional wisdom that authoritarian censorship tends to target positive exposure of foreign liberal democracies. Using a novel dataset of Chinese social media articles about liberal democracies from 2018 to 2022, I show that impeding mass exposure to democratic institutions rather than defaming the West is the primary strategy of Chinese censorship. This study underscores the Chinese regime's lingering insecurity about public knowledge of liberal democratic systems. Taken together, this dissertation highlights how the normalization of censorship, ordinary citizens' participation, and strategic censorship of information about democracy contribute to maintaining public support and sustaining regime survival in autocracies.
533 $a Electronic reproduction. $b Ann Arbor, Mich. : $c ProQuest, $d 2024
538 $a Mode of access: World Wide Web
650 4 $a Political science. $3 558774
650 4 $a Web studies. $3 1148502
650 4 $a Public administration. $3 562473
650 4 $a Asian studies. $3 1179577
653 $a Authoritarian regimes
653 $a Censorship
653 $a China
653 $a Public opinion
653 $a Public participation
655 7 $a Electronic books. $2 local $3 554714
690 $a 0615
690 $a 0646
690 $a 0617
690 $a 0342
710 2 $a ProQuest Information and Learning Co. $3 1178819
710 2 $a Washington University in St. Louis. $b Political Science. $3 1479851
773 0 $t Dissertations Abstracts International $g 85-11A.
856 4 0 $u http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=31295168 $z click for full text (PQDT)