Suchergebnisse

This report explores the Russian public demand for internet freedom. Produced by Erik Nisbet with the Center for Global Communication Studies and the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, the study seeks to uncover attitudes and opinions about internet regulation, censorship of online content, and the potential for citizen mobilization and protest. Key findings from the report include: Almost half (49%) of all Russians believe that information on the Internet needs to be censored; A plurality (42%) of Russians believe foreign countries are using the Internet against Russia and its interests. About one-quarter of Russians think the Internet threatens political stability (24%); About four out of five Russians (81%) stated a negative feeling toward calls to protest against the government and change political leadership; The Russian government and the Russian security service were virtually tied in the percentage of Russians (42% and 41% respectively) that cited these organizations as trusted regulators of the Internet; 51% of Russian believe the primary motivation of government legislation creating a blacklist of websites is the maintenance of political stability versus 13% who believe the primarily motivation was limiting democratic freedoms; 39% of Russian believe personal blogs should be regulated the same as mass media websites.

Examines relative contributions of macro-level socioeconomic and political influences, individual-level demographic factors, and use of TV news (including TV networks such as Al Jazeera) to anti-American attitudes in predominantly Muslim countries.

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic has been paired with a global misinformation "infodemic." Citizens in authoritarian countries, where most media is state controlled, often do not have access to credible information sources to help combat misinformation. In fact, the news media in these countries may be the primary drivers of misinformation while digital media may be sources of more accurate information. We test how news and digital media in an authoritarian context are associated with endorsing misinformation while introducing the concept of informational learned helplessness as an additional factor driving inaccurate beliefs. We test our hypotheses employing data from a nationally representative telephone survey of the Russian public (N = 1600) and discuss the implications of our findings for Russian attitudes about COVID-19 vaccination.

Previous scholarship on networked authoritarianism has examined an array of repressive legal and political strategies employed by regimes to constrain online political expression. How the tension between citizens' desires to engage in online political expression and the possible dire consequences of doing so is resolved, however, is understudied. We address this lacuna by drawing upon concepts from risk and decision-making research and examining how the emotional and cognitive components of risk and decision-making shape citizens' online political expression. Employing a three-wave panel survey of Turkish internet users collected over 8 months, our fixed-effects regression analyses show that anticipatory emotions drive expressive behavior, but that risk assessment does not. Furthermore, the influence of negative emotions on online expression is moderated by individuals' degree of regime opposition. We discuss the importance of understanding the psychological mechanisms by which networked authoritarian contexts influences citizens' decisions to engage in contentious online speech.

Summary
Policy discourse about disinformation focuses heavily on the technological dimensions of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. Unfortunately, this myopic focus on technology has led to insufficient attention being paid to the underlying human factors driving the success of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns. Academic research on disinformation strongly suggests that belief in false or misleading information is driven more by individual emotional and cognitive responses — amplified by macro social, political and cultural trends — than specific information technologies. Thus, attention given to countering the distribution and promulgation of disinformation through specific technological platforms, at the expense of understanding the human factors at play, hampers the ability of public diplomacy efforts countering it. This article addresses this lacuna by reviewing the underlying psychology of three common types of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and identifying lessons for designing effective public diplomacy counter-strategies in the future.

This report is the third in a series that examines public attitudes and preferences about Internet censorship and regulation in states in which media and Internet use are subject to increasing restrictions. In the context of Pakistan, where rapid increases in internet access and usage are accompanied by a propensity to regulate this new cyber-territory, the goal of this report is to uncover the views of Pakistani Internet users with respect to the regulation and control of online spaces. In each of these reports, we seek to provide insight into who uses the Internet in each country and the most used and trusted sources of online and offline information. But more than that, the surveys seek to add to a process: learning how to plumb general views about the influence of the Internet on politics and society and chart attitudes concerning censorship on various political, religious and social grounds. The reports test an approach to determining who, among competing institutions, people trust to regulate the Internet, what constitutes their policy preferences about Internet regulation, and the extent to which Internet regulation issues might figure in political mobilization efforts in furtherance of Internet freedom.

Democracy and press freedom have a long, intertwined history. This article builds on previous research examining democratic consolidation by developing a theoretical model to explicate the multilevel relationships between the openness of national media systems and citizens' perceptions about press freedom in emerging democracies. We combine individual-level public opinion data from the 2007 Pew Global Attitudes Survey with institutional data from Freedom House to examine institutional and individual predictors of perceived supply and citizen demand for press freedom. The results of the analyses demonstrate a relationship between characteristics of national media systems and citizen perceptions and preferences about press freedom, although individual factors such as educational attainment, reliance on print media, evaluations of media and state performance, and regime support play a more meaningful role in shaping perceptions about press freedom. Theoretical implications for understanding citizen attitudes about press freedom and their relationship with democratization are discussed.

Many have attributed anti-American sentiment within Arab countries to a highly negative information environment propagated by transnational Arab satellite TV news channels such as Al-Jazeera. However, theoretical models and empirical evidence evaluating the linkages between media exposure and opinion about the United States remains scant. Drawing on theories of media effects, identity, and public opinion, this article develops a theoretical framework explicating how the influence of transnational Arab TV on opinion formation is contingent on competing political identities within the region. Employing 5 years of survey data collected across six Arab countries, we empirically test several propositions about the relationship between Arab TV exposure and public opinion about the United States generated by our theoretical framework. Our results demonstrate significant associations between transnational Arab TV exposure and anti-American sentiment, but also show these associations vary substantially by channel and political identification. The theoretical and policy implications of the study are discussed.