Jennifer Pan
@jenjpan
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@profjenpan on 🧵🧵🧵 | Stanford Prof. | political communication | digital media | China | authoritarian politics | computational social science
Stanford, CA
Joined June 2010
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In a new paper, we show experimentally that anti-Chinese discrimination boosts support for the Chinese regime among a new generation of Chinese students in the US who may otherwise be most sympathetic to democracy
w/
@xuyiqing
,
@yingjie_fan
, Zijie Shao
82
631
1K
For the past few weeks,
@YingdanL_kk
@AnfanChen
& I have systematically collected half a million Weibo posts about Ukraine. It’s true that a large portion of Weibo posts attribute cause of war to US/NATO/“Western” aggression or blame Ukrainian government for conflict.
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Today, 2 papers I coauthored w/
@andyguess
@namalhotra
@p_barbera
are out in Science. These papers, about the role of social media in American democracy, are based on pre-registered experiments with consenting participants conducted w/
@Meta
#SocialMediaAndElections
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Super exciting to receive Advances in Experimental Political Science (
@CUP_PoliSci
)! Learned a ton from Jamie Druckman, Don Green, and everyone who contributed. Useful for anyone doing & interested in doing experiments in social science.
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Paper "Strategies of Chinese State Media on Twitter" analyzing CGTN, Xinhua, People's Daily, China Daily from 2013-2020 out with
@yingjie_fan
, Jaymee Sheng
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But not all hold this view --- only ~50% of posts. ~10% see Russia as aggressor/blame Putin, 15-20% express other opinions (e.g., sympathy for Ukrainians, criticize Putin *and* Zelensky), and 20-25% share info/facts unrelated to either view (e.g., # of deaths).
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Our experiment shows anti-Chinese discrimination (seeing racist comments, Treat B) reduces students' belief that political reform is desirable for China and increases support for authoritarian rule. Non-racist criticisms of Chinese gov't (Treat A) don't have this effect.
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Next step is to train models to classify all posts in our data to see time trends, and analyze Chinese language tweets we've gathered. Our work in
@journalqd
monitoring Weibo during early days of covid laid ground work for this:
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Based on a survey of hundreds of Chinese first-year undergraduates in the US and in China, we find that Chinese students who study in the US are more predisposed to favor liberal democracy and less nationalistic than their peers in China.
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"CASM: A Deep-Learning Approach for Identifying Collective Action Events with Text and Image Data from Social Media" with Han Zhang in print: . We found >135k protests from 2010-17 in China. Here's the data (posts + events): link:
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Effects of discrimination are most pronounced for students who are more pre-disposed to *reject* Chinese nationalism. Results are unlikely explained by relative evaluations of US and Chinese government handling of covid-19.
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This ties into recent observations by
@MariaRepnikova
&
@wendyZhou502
, ,
In my first collaboration with talented
@WendyZhou502
for
@TheAtlantic
we argue that
#China
primarily sees the
#RussiaUkraine
conflict through the prism of the
#UnitedStates
and more broadly of the
#West
. 1/11
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Our paper "How government-controlled media shifts policy attitudes through framing" w/
@xuyiqing
, ZijieShao is out. We show experimentally how framing policy issues differently allows government-controlled media to move public opinion toward opposing sides of the same issue.
#FirstView
from
@PSRMJournal
-
How government-controlled media shifts policy attitudes through framing -
-
@jenjpan
, Zijie Shao &
@xuyiqing
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New pub w/
@debutts
in
@Journal_Of_Comm
"Reporting after Removal: Effects of Journalist Expulsion on Foreign News Coverage". What happened to coverage of China after a large portion of the reporting corps of
@nytimes
,
@washingtonpost
,
@WSJ
were expelled from China in 2020? 1/3
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We estimate % based on sample of 1000 posts randomly selected from the half a million posts (stratified by day), classified by RAs (trained by
@YingdanL_kk
&
@AnfanChen
around the clock to achieve high intercoder agreement); thanks also to
@debutts
for checking coding rules
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New APSR paper "Concealing Corruption: How Chinese Officials Distort Upward Reporting of Online Grievances" with
@Chen_Kerry
is out
, link to replication data at
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Huge congratulations to Dr. Yingdan Lu
@YingdanL_kk
on successfully defending her dissertation "Performative Propaganda Engagement: How Celebrity Fandom Engages with State Propaganda in China”! Check out more of her work at
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“How Chinese Officials Use the Internet to Construct their Public Image” in print. This came out of my first solo research project as a grad student, where I first learned Python back in 2010
Enjoy free access to Volume 7 – Issue 2 through the end of May!
Featuring
@jenjpan
,
@ThewissenS
,
@OlafvanVliet
,
@liviodilo
,
@_vincenzobove
,
@gmastrob
,
@DavidFortunato
,
@hanna_wass
,
@gallopmax
,
@simonweschle
,
@paashamahdavi
, & more!
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Contrary to common belief, chronological feed did not significantly alter polarization, politics knowledge, or other survey-based outcomes, even though chronological feed led users to spend much less time on FB and Insta + changed what content they saw.
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"The Pervasive Presence of Chinese Government Content on Douyin Trending Videos" w/
@YingdanL_kk
shows >40% of trending videos on Douyin (Chinese version of TikTok) come from Chinese gov't, CCP, & official media accounts (what we call regime-affiliated accounts). 🧵
Excited to publish my first image-as-data paper with
@jenjpan
! We combine analysis of video, text and metadata to examine 50K Douyin Trending videos, and find the pervasive presence of the Chinese regime to compete for attention. Also enjoyed all amazing works in this SI, yay!
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My article with
@xuyiqing
on China’s Ideological Spectrum finally in print!
So many great new articles authored or coauthored by women who also know. This one, "China's Ideological Spectrum," by
@jenjpan
and Yiqing Xu should be on your reading list.
#womenalsoknowstuff
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My chapter (Ch29) "Experiments on Political Activity Government Want to Keep Hidden" talks about the design and ethics/legality/safety of experiments in authoritarian context including work by
@david_yang
,
@kgmichelitch
, Jaimie Bleck,
@laurenyoung231
,
@XuXuPoliSci
.
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"Does ideology influence hiring in China?" with
@ttzhang107
is out. For the first time since the 1970s, employees of China's public & private enterprises are required to study political ideology. How does this renewed emphasis on ideology affect economic opportunity?
#FirstView
from
@PSRMJournal
-
Does ideology influence hiring in
#China
? evidence from two randomized experiments -
- Jennifer Pan & Tongtong Zhang (both
@Stanford
)
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My “Sources of authoritarian responsiveness” paper with
@xuyiqing
and Jidong Chen now available in the new
#AJPSvirtualissue
#MPSA18
The new virtual issue of the AJPS offers free access to the top-cited articles recently published.
#AJPSvirtualissue
#MPSA18
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Dibao: The priority of order seeped into Dibao, China’s major social assistance program (中国最低保障). Dibao benefits became used in preemptive policing and surveillance, to deter people from activities deemed by the CCP to threaten order/stability such as protesting.
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There’s more nuance, of course, and data! Hope you get a chance to check it out.
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In the first paper, we switched Facebook & Insta to chronological feed and looked at effects on political polarization, attitudes, and behaviors:
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Stability: Everyone knows “stability” (order) is important to the CCP. Fewer know that what stability means to the regime changed after Falun Gong protests in 1999. Instead of a means of achieving economic modernization, stability increasingly became the goal itself.
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Repressive Assistance: The resulting Dibao distribution boosted surveillance and demobilized people (through bonds of dependence and obligation). This erases the delineation between repression and concessions.
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Seepage: Prioritizing order led to a process I think happens often (seepage) when one government priority alters the allocation of resources and goals of unrelated policy areas.
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New paper on China's 50c Party with
@kinggary
@mollyeroberts
"How the Chinese Govt Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, not Engaged Argument" | new
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In the 2nd paper, we removed reshared content from Facebook feeds. This decreased political news participants saw in feeds, reduced their clicks on partisan news sources & reduced news knowledge but didn’t affect polarization or other attitudes.
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Does it work or does it backfire? It’s true recipients are demobilized. But its implementation is error-prone and it undermines policy promises the government has made (increasing discontent and lowering perceptions of government competence and legitimacy)
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New paper on govt media in China with Kyle Jaros
New online: "China's Newsmakers: Official Media Coverage and Political Shifts in the Xi Jinping Era", by Kyle Jaros and
@jenjpan
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After CCP's push to boost its presence on global social media in 2017, all outlets increased share of posts with these narratives
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Using Experiments to Study Identity: race & ethnic politics
@amber_spry
; racial priming
@AliAValenzuela
@tylerreny
; gender in elections
@SamaraKlar
@schmitte
; gender in comparative politics
@abclayton24
Georgia Anderson-Nilsson
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More papers coming from:
@HuntAllcott
@DrewDim
@dfreelon
@cvelascorivera
@RebekahKTromble
Taylor Brown, Adriana Crespo-Tenorio, Matthew Gentzkow, Edward Kennedy, Young Mie Kim, Devra Moehler, Daniel Thomas, Arjun Wilkins, Beixian Xiong
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Replication data at . Leadership by
@TaliaStroud
,
@j_a_tucker
,
@chadkdj
,
@AnnieFranco
,
@winteram
+ the effort of many others enabled this work
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@fhollenbach
My paper in
@poli_com
w/
@YingdanL_kk
about online propaganda in China combines ethnography with NLP and machine learning.
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However, preferences are relatively stable over time (a month). Those with higher education and political knowledge have more stable, more extreme preferences
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2 more papers that are part of this effort also out today: Asymmetric Ideological Segregation in Exposure to Political News by
@sgonzalezbailon
@davidlazer
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It's part of the section on Experiments to Study Government Actions that also includes experiments on street-level bureaucrats
@noahlnathan
&
@ArielRWhite
, corruption
@paullagunes
&
@SeimBrigitte
, post-conflict contexts
@matanock
, climate change Mary McGrath.
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Experimental Data & Measures: elites
@christiangrose
; convenience samples
@ykrupnikov
@hhannahnam
@HillaryKStyle
; social media data
@andyguess
; org partnerships
@adamsethlevine
; treatments Diana Mutz; behavior in survey experiments
@petersonerikj
@seanjwestwood
Shanto Iyengar
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GUYS I woke up this morning and there was a fresh, new
@undiscoveredpod
sitting in my feed! Happy Launch Day!
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All outlets gained followers, with CGTN experiencing largest gains. Little evidence gains due to inauthentic accounts or bots.
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Like-minded sources on Facebook are prevalent but not polarizing by
@BrendanNyhan
Jamie Settle
@emilythorson
@mwojcieszak
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Other sections: Exp. Design: conjoint
@KCBansak
Jens Hainmueller
@dhopkins1776
Teppei Yamamoto; audits Dan Butler @ cdcrabtree; survey outcomes
@j_kalla
@dbroockman
Jas Sekhon; lab-in-field
@eckelcc
Natalia Candelo Londono, natural experiments Rocio Titinuk, Ethics
@dawn_teele
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State media outlets also increased share of soft news, positivity of reporting, number of countries covered
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Reliability & Generalizability: transparency Cheryl Boudreau; publication bias & p-hacking
@namalhotra
; multi-method research
@JNSeawright
; generalizing results Erin Martman; multiple context experiments
@graemedblair
@GManMac
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Strikingly, exposure to different frames of same issue moves preferences regardless of predisposition. (There's strong correlations btw predisposition & post-treatment preferences, suggesting preferences are relatively coherent & results not due to demand effects).
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@mollyeroberts
and I show what research can tell us about whether & when companies can push back against Chinese govt censorship on
@monkeycageblog
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@christinelu
@YingdanL_kk
@AnfanChen
We didn't limit collection by geography. Agree it would be great to compare. Hard to do because few users (~5%) enable Weibo geolocation or include geography in profile. We've collected Chinese language tweets and aim to use that for comparison (though it's also imperfect).
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Exposure to treatments moves respondents toward policy position espoused in the video, regardless of what that position is. Many effects persist up to 48 hours.
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Do we see so much non-propaganda content because this is a proactive strategy (i.e., such videos are boosted to Trending) or because users like this content more (i.e., videos trend organically)? Early evidence suggests the former.
0
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Experiment Analysis & Presentation: mediation analysis Adam Glynn; subgroup analysis
@MarcRatkovic
; spillover effects Peter Aronow
@deaneckles
@cdsamii
@SZonszein
; design-based statistical graphs
@aecoppock
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Instead, videos contain human interest stories, stories about positive energy (ordinary people doing good/moral stuff), entertainment, & breaking news completely unrelated to any aspect of the Chinese gov't or CCP.
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We provide recommendations on how to measure these preferences reliably with 5-6 survey questions in each policy domain.
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Share of stories about China did not change, nor did audience engagement with stories; sentiment of stories did not become more positive or negative; outlets did not become more likely to write stories because of actions or pronouncements by the Chinese government. 2/3
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@noUpside
@chris_bail
Domestically, where the government can censor as well as produce content, trying to persuade runs the risk of exposing the public to issues you want off the table. Many of the “propaganda” strategies we’ve been studying is about changing behavior, not changing beliefs/attitudes
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@tombschrader
The data we found are social media posts made on Chinese social media sites, e.g., Weibo. I just doubled checked the raw data (publicly available on Harvard Dataverse) and there are no posts made on Twitter or Facebook
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@winsonpeng2011
Our treatment condition is oriented around 民族, Chinese as nationality, but the effect is on political system, 政治体制
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Trending videos from regime-affiliated accounts look and feel more like videos from celebrities & influencers (e.g., contain attention-maximizing feature like super short duration, high entropy) than videos from non-official media.
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What appears to have changed was the production processes of outlets with expulsions--more articles were written collaboratively (increase in bylines and contribution credits). Paper at: . Replication . 3/3
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>65% of these regime-affiliated trending videos have nothing to do with the Chinese gov't or CCP's actions / policies / programs / outcomes / achievements / ideas / orgs / people (let's label this "Propaganda").
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We designed a survey of 63 policy questions spanning 6 issue dimensions: political liberalism, market economy, nationalism, traditionalism, social equality, and ethnic accommodation. We fielded the survey with two longitudinal online samples.
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We find that policy preferences are highly multi-dimensional, where the 6 issue dimensions only are weakly correlated.
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@GroseTimothy
I really look forward to reading! I don’t have much empirical data from Xinjiang for the book but I talk about some implications for Xinjiang in the conclusion.
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@TamarMitts
Thanks
@TamarMitts
, learned a ton from IR folks working on repression and mobilization, online and offline, with this paper
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@TMBS_LostPatron
@jacobin
@jacobin_av
@AnaKasparian
@nandorvila
@BigWos
@countthedings
You’ve got the wrong Jen Pan. I think you might mean this Jen Pan: . Don’t think she’s on Twitter.
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@Golovchenko_Yev
@philutsc
@mollyeroberts
@willrhobbs
@aasiegel
Yes, there’s short term backlash but long term compliance. This is the case in China where periodic crackdowns on VPNs required users to get new VPNs.
@david_yang
research shows few use VPN even if they’re offered it for free
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@carwyn
@jonlsullivan
Thanks! I will be doing a podcast with
@CASBSStanford
next week and another one in late June. Will definitely share when available.
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Treatment: domestic & foreign video news segments in style of CCTV. Domestic: SOE reform should be *Market* vs. *State* led. Foreign: China should take *Dovish* vs. *Hawkish* stance in South China Sea disputes w/ Philippines. *Control* segments show no policy stance.
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@onglynette
@JenPan
@xuyiqing
@onglynette
that’s super nice of you to say. If you have students you think would be a good fit, please send them our way!
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What types of firms are most likely to penalize non-conformity? Exploratory analysis suggests it's firms designated as CCP strategic priorities with high innovation requirements (e.g., AI, 5G, biotech, new energy, smart/nanomaterials, geospatial tech).
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