Hostname: page-component-669899f699-2mbcq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-26T21:01:09.688Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Political Fact-checking and Its Effects on Public Attitudes: Experimental Evidence from China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2024

Chen Xiang  and
Ric Neo
Chen Xiang
Affiliation:
School of International and Public Affairs, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China Harvard–China Project on Energy, Economy and Environment, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Ric Neo*
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University Singapore, Singapore
*
Corresponding author: Ric Neo; Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of political misinformation as propaganda on the legitimacy of the Chinese government. A survey experiment (n = 2,236) was conducted to analyse the effect of positively spun misinformation on citizens’ perceptions and support for the government on two pivotal issues: the economy and air pollution. Results show that spreading positively spun misinformation is beneficial to the regime, as it leads to positive perceptions of the issue and increased support for the government. Interestingly, even when misinformation is exposed through credibly sourced corrections, trust and support for the government remain as high or higher than for the control groups. These effects are significant and hold constant in two issue types, underscoring the strategic value of disseminating positively spun yet false information in China. These findings have rich implications for studies of misinformation and fact-checking in general and China's information politics in particular.

摘要

摘要

有关政府工作绩效的正面宣传能否提升政治支持与政治信任？而接收与官方相悖的信息又会如何更新民众对政府绩效的评价及政治支持？本研究集中关注经济发展与空气治理两大议题，通过设计与发放问卷实验（n = 2,236），发现中国政府运用积极信息报道手段能显著促进民众对议题的积极认知并提升政府支持度。此外，即使通过较为权威的信息来源纠正官方数据，民众对政府的信任及支持度仍然显著高于控制组。以上效应在两大议题中呈现出一致性，突显中国在政府工作绩效正面宣传上的战略性价值，对当下信息政治研究有一定启示意义。

Keywords

information politicsfact-checkingeconomyair pollutionChina信息政治事实核查经济空气污染中国
Type
Research Report
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 260 , December 2024 , pp. 1075 - 1086
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Adena, Maja, Enikolopov, Ruben, Petrova, Maria, Santarosa, Veronica and Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina. 2015. “Radio and the rise of the Nazis in prewar Germany.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 130(4), 1885–1939.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aird, Michael J., Ecker, Ullrich K.H., Swire, Briony, Berinsky, Adam J. and Lewandowsky, Stephan. 2018. “Does truth matter to voters? The effects of correcting political misinformation in an Australian sample.” Royal Society Open Science 5(12), 180593.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allcott, Hunt, and Gentzkow, Matthew. 2017. “Social media and fake news in the 2016 election.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 31(2), 211–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, Anne-Marie. 2009. “Mass persuasion as a means of legitimation and China's popular authoritarianism.” American Behavioral Scientist 53(3), 434–457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, Erin Baggott, and Carter, Brett L.. 2023. Propaganda in Autocracies: Institutions, Information, and the Politics of Belief. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Jidong, Pan, Jennifer and Xu, Yiqing. 2016. “Sources of authoritarian responsiveness: a field experiment in China.” American Journal of Political Science 60(2), 383–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Shuo, Ding, Haoyuan, Lin, Shu and Ye, Haichun. 2022. “From past lies to current misconduct: the long shadow of China's Great Leap Forward.” Journal of Development Economics 157, 102888.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, Wei, Chen, Xilu, Hsieh, Chang-Tai and Song, Zheng. 2019. “A forensic examination of China's national accounts.” National Bureau of Economic Research Paper No. 25754. DOI 10.3386/w25754CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DiFonzo, Nicholas, and Bordia, Prashant. 2007. “Rumor psychology: social and organizational approaches.” American Psychological Association. DOI:10.1037/11503-000.Google Scholar
Flynn, Daniel J., Nyhan, Brendan and Reifler, Jason. 2017. “The nature and origins of misperceptions: understanding false and unsupported beliefs about politics.” Political Psychology 38, 127–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1980. Language, Counter-memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews. Cornell, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gläßel, Christian, and Paula, Katrin. 2020. “Sometimes less is more: censorship, news falsification, and disapproval in 1989 East Germany.” American Journal of Political Science 64(3), 682–698.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guess, Andrew M., and Lyons, Benjamin A.. 2020. “Misinformation, misinformation, and online propaganda.” In Persily, Nathaniel and Tucker, Joshua A. (eds.), Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field, Prospects for Reform. New York: Cambridge University Press, 10–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hahl, Oliver, Kim, Minjae and Zuckerman Sivan, Ezra W.. 2018. “The authentic appeal of the lying demagogue: proclaiming the deeper truth about political illegitimacy.” American Sociological Review 83(1), 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hochschild, Jennifer L., and Einstein, Katherine Levine. 2015. “Do facts matter? Information and misinformation in American politics.” Political Science Quarterly 130, 585–624.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hovland, Carl Iver, Janis, Irving Lester and Kelley, Harold H.. 1953. Communication and Persuasion. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Huang, Haifeng. 2015. “Propaganda as signaling.” Comparative Politics 47(4), 419–444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, Haifeng. 2017. “A war of (mis) information: the political effects of rumors and rumor rebuttals in an authoritarian country.” British Journal of Political Science 47(2), 283–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, Haifeng, Intawan, Chanita and Nicholson, Stephen P.. 2022. “In government we trust: implicit political trust and regime support in China.” Perspectives on Politics 11(1), 1–19.Google Scholar
Jerit, Jennifer, and Zhao, Yangzi. 2020. “Political misinformation.” Annual Review of Political Science 23, 77–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jowett, Garth S., and O'Donnell, Victoria. 2018. Propaganda and Persuasion. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
King, Gary, Pan, Jennifer and Roberts, Margaret E.. 2017. “How the Chinese government fabricates social media posts for strategic distraction, not engaged argument.” American Political Science Review 111(3), 484–501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewandowsky, Stephan, Ecker, Ullrich K.H., Seifert, Colleen M., Schwarz, Norbert and Cook, John. 2012. “Misinformation and its correction: continued influence and successful debiasing.” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 13(3), 106–131.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Li, Xiaojun, Shi, Weiyi and Zhu, Boliang. 2018. “The face of internet recruitment: evaluating the labor markets of online crowdsourcing platforms in China.” Research and Politics 5(1), 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattingly, Daniel C., and Yao, Elaine. 2022. “How soft propaganda persuades.” Comparative Political Studies 55(9), 1569–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyhan, Brendan, Porter, Ethan, Reifler, Jason and Wood, Thomas J.. 2019. “Taking fact-checks literally but not seriously? The effects of journalistic fact-checking on factual beliefs and candidate favorability.” Political Behavior 42, 1–22.Google Scholar
Ospina, Juan, Orosz, Gábor and Spencer, Steven. 2023. “The relation between authoritarian leadership and belief in fake news.” Scientific Reports 13(1), 12860.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Peisakhin, Leonid, and Rozenas, Arturas. 2018. “Electoral effects of biased media: Russian television in Ukraine.” American Journal of Political Science 62(3), 535–550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth J. 2017. “Cultural governance in contemporary China: ‘re-orienting’ Party propaganda.” In Shue, Vivienne and Thornton, Patricia M. (eds.), To Govern China: Evolving Practices of Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 29–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pornpitakpan, Chanthika. 2004. “The persuasiveness of source credibility: a critical review of five decades’ evidence.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 34(2), 243–281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Porter, Ethan, Wood, Thomas J. and Kirby, David. 2018. “Sex trafficking, Russian infiltration, birth certificates, and pedophilia: a survey experiment correcting fake news.” Journal of Experimental Political Science 5(2), 159–164.Google Scholar
Roberts, Margaret. 2018. Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China's Great Firewall. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Swire, Briony, Berinsky, Adam J., Lewandowsky, Stephan and Ecker, Ullrich K.H.. 2017. “Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon.” Royal Society Open Science 4(3), 160802.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tucker, Joshua A., Guess, Andrew, Barberá, Pablo, Vaccari, Cristian, Siegel, Alexandra, Sanovich, Sergey, Stukal, Denis and Nyhan, Brendan. 2018. Social Media, Political Polarization, and Political Disinformation: A Review of the Scientific Literature. Menlo Park, CA: William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.Google Scholar
van Duyn, Emily, and Collier, Jessica. 2019. “Priming and fake news: the effects of elite discourse on evaluations of news media.” Mass Communication and Society 22(1), 29–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, Chengli, and Huang, Haifeng. 2020. “When ‘fake news’ becomes real: the consequences of false government denials in an authoritarian country.” Comparative Political Studies 54, 753–778.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiss, Jessica Chen. 2019. “How hawkish is the Chinese public? Another look at ‘rising nationalism’ and Chinese foreign policy.” Journal of Contemporary China 28(119), 679–695.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhu, Yuchao. 2011. “‘Performance legitimacy’ and China's political adaptation strategy.” Journal of Chinese Political Science 16, 123–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Xiang and Neo supplementary material

Xiang and Neo supplementary material
Download Xiang and Neo supplementary material(File)
File 172.5 KB