Propaganda as Antidote: How Propaganda Motivates People in Defending the Regime Against Criticism

Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs

East Asia Program

present

Propaganda as Antidote: How Propaganda Motivates People in Defending the Regime Against Criticism

A Talk by Dongshu Liu, Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science Department, and Li Shao, Ph.D. Candidate, Political Science Department

Faced with criticism about policies, how do autocratic governments retain popular support through propaganda? We believe there are two types of propaganda strategies: the informational strategy that assures prospective economic benefits of the policy and the ideological strategy that appeals to nationalist pride. We argue that the informational strategy is less effective because it makes people be aware of policy cost as well. This talk examines the nature of this question. Here, we use our latest research to examine the way autocratic governments rely upon ideological propaganda to support their unpopular agendas. These results of this study deepen our understanding of propaganda, performance legitimacy, and why criticism is sometimes not censored in China.

Sponsored by Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs and East Asia Program

Contact Havva Karakas-Keles for more information: hkarakas@syr.edu