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Cited by 250Media Influence and PoliticsChina's Socioeconomic Reforms and GovernanceLaw, Rights, and Freedoms

The Impact of Media Censorship: 1984 or Brave New World?

Chen, Yuyu, Yang, David Y.·2019·American Economic Review
DOI 10.1257/aer.20171765
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Abstract

Media censorship is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes. We conduct a field experiment in China to measure the effects of providing citizens with access to an uncensored internet. We track subjects’ media consumption, beliefs regarding the media, economic beliefs, political attitudes, and behaviors over 18 months. We find four main results: (i) free access alone does not induce subjects to acquire politically sensitive information; (ii) temporary encouragement leads to a persistent increase in acquisition, indicating that demand is not permanently low; (iii) acquisition brings broad, substantial, and persistent changes to knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and intended behaviors; and (iv) social transmission of information is statistically significant but small in magnitude. We calibrate a simple model to show that the combination of low demand for uncensored information and the moderate social transmission means China’s censorship apparatus may remain robust to a large number of citizens receiving access to an uncensored internet. (JEL C93, D72, D83, L82, L86, L88, P36)

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  • Chinese college students who have grown up with filtered Internet have very little demand for access to uncensored Internet because of a lack of knowledge of the value of inaccessible information.

    “Chen and Yang show that Chinese college students, who have grown up with filtered Internet, have very little demand for access to uncensored Internet because of a lack of knowledge of the value of inaccessible information (187).”

    From Physical and virtual repertoires of contention (2022) · cites this paper as [187]

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Authors
Chen, Y., & Yang, D. Y.
Affiliations
  • Peking University (CN)
  • Harvard University (US)
ORCID
Chen, Yuyu
Venue
American Economic Review
Publisher
American Economic Association
Published
2019-06-01
Volume
109
Issue
6
Pages
2294-2332
ISSN
0002-8282 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1257/aer.20171765
OpenAlex
W2947564500
Cited by
250
References
39
Citations by year
2026: 27 · 2025: 40 · 2024: 39 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 46 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 29 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 3
FWCI
54.88
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • American Economic Review (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Law, Rights, and Freedoms
Keywords
media censorship, authoritarian regimes, political information acquisition, political attitudes, political behavior, information needs, field experiments

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