CHINA'S WEIBO EXPERIMENT: SOCIAL MEDIA (NON-) CENSORSHIP AND AUTOCRATIC RESPONSIVENESS A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Christopher Marty Cairns May 2017 c 2017 Christopher Marty Cairns ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CHINA'S WEIBO EXPERIMENT: SOCIAL MEDIA (NON-) CENSORSHIP AND AUTOCRATIC RESPONSIVENESS Christopher Marty Cairns, Ph.D. Cornell University 2017 Social media's role in facilitating anti-authoritarian protests has received much recent attention. Although a handful of regimes like Tunisia and Ukraine have undergone major changes, savvy autocrats elsewhere have co-opted online space with propaganda while censoring to prevent opposition. Yet in China and other cases, we sometimes observe less censorship than conventional wisdom about au- thoritarian information control would predict. Why do some autocrats choose to censor selectively, and how do they actually implement such fine-grained control? In this project, I argue that allowing limited online criticism can signal regime responsiveness to public demands on issues where leaders' legitimacy is at stake. I develop this logic through a focus on China. Chinese Internet industry interviews address the why and how { i.e. the elite beliefs, and bureaucratic apparatus { behind China's selective censorship since 2011. Second, social media data anal- ysis of online incidents on Sina Weibo (China's Twitter) reveals that censorship is selective even within sensitive issues. The implication of these findings is that leaders' ability and willingness to fine-tune censorship may be vital to maintain- ing popular support (or forestalling dissent) among increasingly educated, urban, Internet-literate publics whose views are crucial to regime survival in rapidly de- veloping authoritarian states. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Christopher Cairns was born in Red Bank, New Jersey but grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado to parents who have always encouraged him to pursue his dreams and inspired him to care about the power of politics to shape individual destinies. At age 18 he left Colorado to begin a journey that first reached Georgetown Uni- versity's School of Foreign Service, where he majored in International Politics as well as studied abroad and worked in Latin America and Indonesia. After grad- uating and then completing a one-year Master's degree in Human Rights at the London School of Economics, he ended up in New York City managing digital media for a major nonprofit, and was influenced by new media's ability to both connect, and persuade citizens. While in New York he also pursued a personal interest in China and Mandarin by self-studying the language in his spare time. These disparate currents { politics, human rights and free expression, China, dig- ital media, and scholarly research { eventually merged together in his plans for graduate school and ultimately, six years in Cornell's Government department, an experience that transformed his professional life. This dissertation is the end product of that journey. iii To my parents, Charles Cairns and Deborah Hamilton, and my wife, June Pan, with whom I share the road of life. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all I am indebted to my dissertation committee, especially my chair Andrew Mertha. Andy always knew just the right nudge to give at the right time, striking a balance between keeping me on track, and leaving me to swim on my own as every graduate student must. His insights into how to clearly articulate the dissertation's real-world import were vital in pulling me out of jargon and into publicly communicating my ideas. He also never failed to offer moral support. As my co-author, Allen Carlson took me through the whole process of creating an article, treating me as equal colleague. He also prompted me to think hard about my target audience. Peter Enns never hesitated to ask the hard questions about my measures and research design. Finally, Daniela Stockmann read my work as a Chinese media expert, provided fieldwork strategies and contacts, and most of all led by example through her own projects. I would also like to thank my fellow graduate students at Cornell and else- where. Elizabeth Plantan and Manfred Elfstrom were awesome co-authors. Wendy Leutert, Isaac Kardon, Lin Fu and many other colleagues provided valuable ideas and support. For those I have neglected to mention, it is due to a lack of space or my own oversight rather than any unworthiness on their part. Funding for this project came from the National Science Foundation, and the Cornell Einaudi Center for International Studies, East Asia Program, and Grad- uate School. During my year of fieldwork I received sponsorship from Peking University's School of Journalism and Communications and would like to thank my host, Professor Wang Xiuli, as well as numerous faculty and students in PKU's Center for Social Media Research. These individuals all provided key interview contacts, ideas and feedback. And of course this project would not have been pos- sible without the participation of numerous interviewees and contacts in China, v who for reasons of confidentiality and security must remain anonymous. Third, I am deeply indebted to my parents, without whose unceasing love and support for the past 32 years I would not be at this point. They taught me the value of hard work and courage in the face of uncertainty, and I am forever grateful. Finally, I must single out my wife, June Pan, who has been my inseparable life companion and fellow doctoral Cornellian ever since we met in Ithaca. From late nights in the library together, to endless discussions about research hurdles, to long shared drives to the nearest major airport, I could never have imagined a more amazing partner to share this epic journey. It may be clich´eto say that marriage (and graduate school!) both fundamentally transform one's life, but with June these two events have been so interwoven that one transformation is unimaginable without the other. I could not have completed this process without her. vi CONTENTS Biographical Sketch . iii Dedication . iv Acknowledgements . .v Contents . vii List of Tables . xi List of Figures . xiii Preface . xiv 1 China And The `Social Media Shock' 1 1.1 Introduction . .1 1.2 Units of Analysis: Breaking Incidents in Issue Areas Resonant With Weibo Users . .8 1.2.1 The Need for a Catalyst . 11 1.3 Case Selection and Scope of Findings: Why China? . 12 1.3.1 Why Social Media? Justifying the Analysis of Sina Weibo . 16 1.3.2 One Technology and Four Actors: Depicting the Weibo Universe . 18 1.4 Research Design . 32 1.4.1 Qualitative Design: Process-tracing Elite Thinking and Bu- reaucratic Restructuring . 32 1.4.2 Quantitative Design: Predicting Breaking Event-level Vari- ation in Censorship . 36 1.5 Alternative Explanations . 37 1.5.1 Alternatives to a `Unitary State' . 38 1.5.2 Elite Rationales for Selective Censorship Other Than Re- sponsiveness Benefit ...................... 40 1.5.3 Non-Rational Explanations . 43 2 A Theoretical Framework for Explaining Selective Social Media Censorship 47 2.1 Introduction . 47 2.2 Authoritarian Input Institutions and Information Control . 49 2.3 Explaining Social Media Non-Censorship: Four Key Factors . 55 2.3.1 Non-Censorship As Signaling: Responsiveness Benefit vs. Image Harm ........................... 60 2.3.2 Collective Action Risk ..................... 63 2.3.3 Visible Censorship Cost .................... 66 2.3.4 The Dependent Variable: Social Media Censorship As Mea- sure of Overall Information Control . 68 2.4 Putting the Factors Together: Explaining (Non-) Censorship In Spe- cific Cases . 70 2.4.1 Predicting Censorship: The Case of Under the Dome .... 73 vii 3 Fragmented Authoritarianism? Reforms to China's Internet Cen- sorship System 79 3.1 Introduction . 79 3.2 Data and Method . 82 3.3 Party Leaders: Seizing Social Media's \Commanding Heights" . 85 3.3.1 Social Media as `Experiment' (2009-12) . 87 3.4 Internet Companies' Symbiotic Relation to State Authority . 92 3.5 The Internet Bureaucracy Pre-Reform (1990s-2011): Partial Frag- mentation . 95 3.5.1 Holding Down the Fort: Actors At the Provincial/municipal Level . 95 3.5.2 Division at the Top: the SCIO/SIIO, and Propaganda De- partment . 100 3.5.3 Analysis: Adequately Reactive, Inadequately Proactive . 104 3.6 Reform and Restructuring (2011-) . 106 3.6.1 China's \Internet Czar": the Central Leading Group for In- ternet Security and Informatization and Cyberspace Admin- istration of China . 108 3.6.2 The Marginalization of the Central Propaganda Department 112 3.6.3 Analysis: Bureaucratic Winners and Losers in the Xi Era . 114 3.7 Conclusion and Implications . 117 3.7.1 Alternative Explanations . 118 3.7.2 Broader Implications and Future Research . 122 4 The Beijing U.S. Embassy Air Pollution Dispute 125 4.1 Introduction . 125 4.2 Relevant Literature . 129 4.3 Why Air Pollution and How Was It Censored? . 131 4.3.1 Explaining Censorship Variation Across the Political, Phys- ical Harm and Scientific Sentiment Categories . 133 4.3.2 Identifying Discussion of Air Pollution and Coding the Sen- timent Categories . 137 4.4 Results . 139 4.4.1 Modeling the Sentiment Categories' Relation to Censorship . 145 4.5 Conclusion: A Clear Shift in Category-specific Censorship Across Time Periods . 151 4.5.1 Broader Implications and Future Research . 153 5 The Bo Xilai Scandal 155 5.1 Introduction . 155 5.2 Relevant Literature . 158 5.3 Why the Bo Scandal and How Was It Censored? . 161 viii 5.3.1 Explaining Censorship Variation Across the Supporters, Ques- tioners and Critics Sentiment Categories . 164 5.3.2 Identifying Discussion of the Scandal and Coding the Senti- ment Categories . 168 5.4 Results .