Critically Commenting Publics as Authoritarian Input Institutions: How Citizens Comment Beneath their News in Azerbaijan, Russia, and Turkmenistan
Critically Commenting Publics as Authoritarian Input Institutions: How Citizens Comment Beneath their News in Azerbaijan, Russia, and Turkmenistan
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DOI：
10.1080/1461670x.2021.1882877
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发表时间：
2021-03
影响因子：
3
通讯作者：
F. Toepfl;Anna A. Litvinenko
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
F. Toepfl;Anna A. Litvinenko
摘要在当代专制政权中，人们对受众如何、为什么以及会产生什么样的后果来评论他们的新闻知之甚少。为了解决这一差距，这项研究利用了最近的理论，在非民主统治下的多个公共领域。因此，批评性的公众被理论化为“投入机构”，不仅会产生风险，还会为独裁者提供重要的利益。在这种方法的基础上，研究开发了一系列关于政治批评的程度的假设，这些批评应该在三个有目的地选择的专制背景下的新闻中可见：阿塞拜疆，俄罗斯和土库曼斯坦。为了验证这些假设，我们考虑了7个平台上46家领先新闻机构的评论环境（N=322）。对于每种环境，编码员确定发表的评论是否（1）批评独裁者本人，（2）只批评政权的低级别政策或官员，或（3）完全不批评。研究结果显示，读者批评的程度在三种语境中存在系统性差异，大致遵循假设的模式。此外，根据这项研究的主要假设，批评性的评论不仅得到了反对派媒体的帮助，而且还得到了大量国家控制的新闻机构的帮助。
ABSTRACT Little is known presently about how, why, and with what consequences audiences comment on their news in contemporary authoritarian regimes. In order to address this gap, this study leverages recent theorizing about the multiple public sphere under non-democratic rule. Accordingly, critically commenting publics are theorized as “input institutions” that not only create risks but also offer important benefits for autocrats. Grounded in this approach, the study develops a series of hypotheses about the extent of political criticism that should be visible beneath the news in three purposefully selected authoritarian contexts: Azerbaijan, Russia, and Turkmenistan. In order to test these hypotheses, commenting environments facilitated (or not) by 46 leading news organizations on seven platforms were considered (N=322). For each environment, coders established whether comments were published that were (1) critical of the autocrat himself, (2) critical only of lower-level policies or officials of the regime, or (3) entirely uncritical. As the findings show, the extent of readers’ criticism differed systematically between the three contexts, broadly following the patterns hypothesized. Moreover, in line with this study’s key assumptions, critically commenting publics were facilitated not only by opposition media but also by substantial numbers of state-controlled news organizations.