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State's Information Control and People's Beliefs in Political Rumors

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State's Information Control and People's Beliefs in Political Rumors University of Nevada, Reno Rumor Markets: State’s Information Control and People’s Beliefs in Political Rumors A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science By Chengli Wang Dr. Robert Ostergard/Dissertation Advisor May, 2018 © by Chengli Wang 2018 All Rights Reserved i ABSTRACT In contemporary China, despite heavy censorship, political rumors about corruption and scandals are rampant on the Internet and social media. Contrary to popular intuition, I argue political rumors are prevalent in China because they hold essential functions in maintaining authoritarian resilience: both the government and the people use rumors as an important channel in disseminating their political messages. To test my hypotheses, I conducted an online survey experiment in 2017 in China. I established four models of information exchange that analyze how the state’s information control and a lack of political trust create an underground market mechanism for unauthorized information, which stimulates people purchasing rumors as substitute goods. In information black markets, rumors fill the supply gap of official news that is usually censored by the state or be replaced by propaganda. In gray markets, the state’s information manipulation, such as using rumors to test and guide public opinion, encourages people to take rumors as more accessible and equally reliable sources of news. This research contributes to policy-making in combating political rumors and fake news. Since the inaccessibility and absence of credible information would lead to a proliferation of online rumors, a possible pathway for reducing online rumors is that the government needs to make a “supply-side” reform of official news rather than unilaterally to strike unauthorized information. This research has rich implications for our understanding of the limit of authoritarianism and contributes to existing theories on information flow and regime stability. ii DEDICATION To Donghe Wang & Rong Wang iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………………i LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………………….... vii LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………………. viii ABTRACT……………………………………………………………………………….ix CHAPTER 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………1 1.1 What are Rumors? An Optional Definition…………………………………...4 1.2 Political Rumors in Authoritarian Regimes…………………………………...6 1.3 A Multiple-Method Approach……………………………………………….11 1.3.1 Trend Analysis and Automated Text Analysis………………………11 1.3.2 Survey Experiment………………………………………………...... 13 1.3.3 The Rationale of the Approach………………………………………14 1.4 Organization of the Dissertation…………………………………………….16 2. Rumors in Chinese Authoritarianism……………………………………………....19 2.1 A Fertile Ground for Rumor Mongering…………………………………….19 2.1.1 Right to Know……………………………………………………...19 2.1.2 Antagonism between Citizens and the Government……………….22 2.1.3 A Weapon of the Weak…………………………………………….24 2.2 Reactive Information Control and its Dilemma………………………….….26 2.3 Proactive Information Control……………………………………………….29 2.4 A Market Theory of Rumor …………………………………………………32 3. Reactive Information Control and the Black Market of Rumors……………...…37 3.1 Hypotheses and Variables……………………………………………………41 3.2 The Survey Experiments…………………………………………………….41 3.2.1 Design………………………………………………….………….45 iv 3.2.2 Recruitment………………………………………………………...45 3.3 Experiment 1…………………………………………………………………46 3.3.1 The Experiment…………………………………………………….46 3.3.2 Results…………………………………………………………...…52 3.4 Experiment 2…………………………………………………………………59 3.4.1 The Experiment………………………………………………….…59 3.4.2 Results……………………………………………………………...64 3.5 Experiment 3…………………………………………………………………69 3.5.1The Experiment………………………………………………….…69 3.5.2 Results…………………………………………………………...…71 3.6 Experiment 4…………………………………………………………………77 3.6.1The Experiment…………………………………………………….77 3.6.2 Results……………………………………………………………...80 3.7 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………...84 4. Proactive Information Control and Gray Markets of Rumors………………...…86 4.1 Introduction…………………………………………………………….….…86 4.2 Rumors and Public Opinions in Authoritarian Regimes…………………….89 4.3 The Mega Tigers Hunted in Authoritarian Campaign…………………….…93 4.4 Empirical Strategies…………………………………………………….……99 4.4.1 Verification by the Trend Analysis………………………………...99 4.4.2 Verification through Automated Text Analysis………………….116 4.4.3 Ancillary Evidence: Comparison with Ordinary Tigers………….125 4.5 Conclusion……………………………………………………………….…128 5. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….130 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………….136 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Group Means Differences in Official News Belief and Rumor Belief (E1) ………….53 Table 2. Kruskal-Wallis Test of Group Mean Differences(E1) ………………………………….54 Table 3. Robust Regression Analysis of Rumor Belief and Official News Belief (E1)………….56 Table 4. Group Means Differences in Information Belief and Policy Satisfaction (E2)…………65 Table 5. Robust Regression Analysis of Information Belief and Policy Satisfaction (E2)………67 Table 6. Group Means Differences in Information Belief and Policy Satisfaction (E3)……...….72 Table 7. Robust Regression Analysis of Rumor Belief and Policy Satisfaction (E3)……………74 Table 8. Robust Regression Analysis of Official Rebuttal Belief (E3)……………………...…...76 Table 9. Group Means Differences in Information Belief and Policy Satisfaction (E4)…………81 Table 10. Kruskal-Wallis Test of Group Mean Differences (E4)………………………..….........82 Table 11. Robust Regression Analysis of Information Belief and Policy Satisfaction (E4) .........83 Table 12. Timeline of Reports on Zhou Bin and Zhou Yongkang……………………………...103 Table 13. Timeline of Reports on Ling Zhengce……………………………………………..... 105 Table 14. Timeline of Reports on Gou Zhenggang………………………………………..........106 Table 15. Text Analysis of Weibo Posts: Nodes and Top 5 Most Used Subnodes in Each Case………………………………………………………………………………………...........121 Table 16: Sample Weibo Comments Involving Subnodes………………………………...........122 Table 17: The Appearance Intervals of Corrupt Officials……………………………………...128 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Online illegal Information in China……………………………………………………10 Figure 2. Road Map of Information Control and Information Dilemma…………………………32 Figure 3. Mechanisms of the White Market of Information……………………………………...33 Figure 4. Mechanisms of Underground Markets of Information………………………………....36 Figure 5. The Procedure of the Survey Experiments……………………………………….…….42 Figure 6. The Procedure of the Survey Experiment 1 (E1) …………………………………...…47 Figure 7. Group Means of Rumor Belief and Official News Belief (E1) …………...………...…52 Figure 8. The Procedure of the Survey Experiment 2 (E2) ……………………………...…...….60 Figure 9. Group Means of Belief in Rumors and Official News (E2) …………………..........….64 Figure 10. The Procedure of the Survey Experiment 3 (E3) …………………………....……….69 Figure 11. The Procedure of the Survey Experiment 4 (E4) …………………….…………...….78 Figure 12. Group Means of Belief in Rumor, Rebuttal, and Policy (E4) ………………..………81 Figure 13. Search Result of “35 May”, An Euphemism of June 4th in China, on Weibo…….….99 Figure 14. Search Index and Media Index of Mega Tigers in Baidu…………………...………102 Figure 15. Search Index and Media Index of Mega Tigers’ Immediate Family Members in Baidu……………………………………………………………………………………....…….110 Figure 16. Related Search Keywords of Mega Tigers in Baidu……………………...…………112 Figure 17. Search Index of Mega Tigers and Their Families in Baidu…………………...…….114 Figure 18. Search Index of Mega Tigers and Their Family Members in Baidu (2011- downfall) ……………………………………………………………………………….....…….115 Figure 19. Forwards and Comments in the Most-often mentioned Posts of Mega Tigers’ Immediate Family Members…………………………………………………………….………125 1 Chapter 1 Introduction This dissertation is an empirical attempt to explain the institutional origin of rumors in authoritarian regimes using China as a specific case study. This research studies how authoritarian institutions, especially the state’s information control, stimulate the prevalence of political rumors in China. The Chinese government faces a dilemma in balancing the control and flow of information. Rumors play an essential role in maintaining necessary information flow without jeopardizing regime survival to political pluralism. Meanwhile, rumors serve as an alternative source and channel for people to get political information. A theory of underground information economy is used to explain the why political rumors are widespread in China. On the one hand, the state’s intervention in free information flows makes political messages a scarce commodity and forms a “black market of information.” In this market, people purchase rumors as alternatives of official news. On the other hand, the state’s proactive control of information stimulates people to buy rumors in a “gray market of information” as unauthorized but credible commodities with low price. This dissertation tests these propositions both qualitatively and quantitatively. On the qualitative side, I conducted multi-method studies on both the reactive and proactive information control of China. Trend analysis and automated text analysis upon the big data analytics platforms Baidu and Weibo were used to explore the government's rumor- guiding process during China's recent anti-corruption campaign (2012-2015). On the 2 quantitative side, I conducted an online survey-experiment to test how restrictions on the free flow of information stimulate people to believe in political rumors in China. This experiment involved 11,000 participants
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