Propaganda Among Comments: How the Chinese Government Influences Public Opinion with Astroturfers
Open AccessPropaganda in the context of authoritarianism plays an instrumental role in impacting public opinion and consolidating the regime’s control. Aside from persuading governments’ merits and signaling governments’ power, authoritarian governments employ astroturfers who deliberately hide their identities and post pro-government messages to steer online public discourse and impact public opinion. However, limited research has investigated the government’s detailed strategies of political astroturfing in public discussions on international affairs and the distinct behavioral patterns of government astroturfers. Examining these questions in the context of the cross-Strait conflict, I collect original data from Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, and focus on Taiwan-related news posts from the most prominent state-run news media. I employ supervised machine learning skills to analyze collected data, including news posts from January 2022 to September 2022, trending comments of scraped posts, and information of corresponding commenters. The findings indicate that the Chinese government utilizes political astroturfing to steer public digital discussions on international affairs toward a more pro-regime direction. Moreover, government-sponsored commentators exhibit distinct behavioral patterns from regular users regarding wording, response time, and comment length. This research offers valuable insights into understanding the government’s strategy for political astroturfing and the unique activity patterns of government-sponsored astroturfers.
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