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.

摘要

目前，关于观众如何评论当代威权政权中的新闻的方式，原因以及后果如何，鲜为人知。为了解决这一差距，本研究利用了关于非民主统治下的多个公共领域的最新理论。因此，从理论上讲，批判性评论公众是“投入机构”，不仅会带来风险，而且还会给独裁者带来重要利益。在这种方法的基础上，该研究提出了一系列关于政治批评程度的假设，这些假设应在三种故意选择的威权主义背景下的新闻中可见：阿塞拜疆，俄罗斯和土库曼斯坦。为了检验这些假设，考虑了由七个平台上的46家领先新闻机构提供（或没有提供）的评论环境（N = 322）。对于每种环境，编码人员确定发表的评论是否（1）批评独裁者本人，（2）仅批评下层政策或政权官员或（3）完全不批评。研究结果表明，在三种情况下，读者的批评程度在系统上有所不同，大致遵循了假设的模式。此外，根据本研究的主要假设，反对派媒体和许多国家控制的新闻机构都对批评性公众进行了评论。大致遵循假设的模式。而且，根据本研究的主要假设，反对派媒体和许多国家控制的新闻机构都对批评性的公众提供了便利。大致遵循假设的模式。而且，根据本研究的主要假设，反对派媒体和许多国家控制的新闻机构都对批评性的公众提供了便利。