Messaging Apps
A Rising Tool for Informational Autocrats
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6340947 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Inga K Trauthig (0000-0001-8479-7894, The University of Texas at Austin, corresponding author), Zelly C Martins (0000-0002-4664-7155, The University of Texas at Austin), Zelly C Martin (The University of Texas at Austin), Samuel C Woolley (0000-0002-2619-7628, The University of Texas at Austin) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 77 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 17-29 |
| Publication date | 2024-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Research Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1065-9129 • E-ISSN: 1938-274X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/10659129231190932 |
| OpenAlex | W4384931650 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 96 |
Social media have caused adaptations to existing conceptualizations of democratization, democratic backsliding, and authoritarian hardening. One attempt to capture how social media may solidify authoritarian tendencies while maintaining the government’s popularity is the concept of informational autocracies: rule primarily through the manipulation of information. In this paper, we contribute to Guriev and Treisman’s conceptualizations, who coined the term “informational autocrats” and relied on case studies from around the world. Overall, we expand on existing literature on social media and informational autocracies via a discussion of encrypted messaging apps (e.g., WhatsApp or Telegram) in such contexts. Using a qualitative comparative approach consisting of 68 interviews across 11 country case studies, our analyses demonstrate that the relative secrecy offered by encryption messaging apps can benefit state propagandists and authoritarian tendencies
Authoritarianism · Autocracy · Democracy · Democratization · Internet privacy · Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Popularity · Public relations · Secrecy · Social media · Sociology · Computer Science · Law · Media Influence and Politics · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology
The political use of encrypted messaging applications
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Generative AI, propaganda, and digital authoritarianism
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Buying State Power
Disinformation and Regime Survival
Variegated digital state repression in Central Asia
Open Networks, Closed Regimes
Lie Machines
China’s New Role in African Politics
After Repression
The Internet and Political Protest in Autocracies
Republic
The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
The Myth of Digital Democracy
Opening Closed Regimes
The fourth age of political communication
Twitter Revolutions? Addressing Social Media and Dissent
Social Media, Political Polarization, and Political Disinformation
Comparative Research Methods
Tweeting From Left to Right
Rethinking Political Communication in a Time of Disrupted Public Spheres
Democratizing kompromat
Bridging the Spheres
Choose Your Method
Zimbabwean diaspora politics and the power of laughter
The banality of WhatsApp
Contextualizing the power of social media
What about WhatsApp? A systematic review of WhatsApp and its role in civic and political engagement
Keeping Receipts
Encrypted Jihad
Social Media and the Arab Spring
Discursive Power in Contemporary Media Systems
Social Movements and New Media
Bad Neighborhoods in a Good City
The agenda-setting power of fake news
The emergence of network media logic in political communication
Follow the leader! Direct and indirect flows of political communication during the 2013 Italian general election campaign
Authoritarianism in the information age
Turkey – from tutelary to delegative democracy
Perpetually “partly free
Rethinking “democratic backsliding” in Central and Eastern Europe – looking beyond Hungary and Poland
An externally constrained hybrid regime
Using thematic analysis in psychology
Could digital platforms capture the media through infrastructure
Communication and Political Mobilization
The Partial Effectiveness of Indoctrination in Autocracies
The Popularity of Authoritarian Leaders
How Autocrats Manipulate Economic News
Is Telegram a “harbinger of freedom”? The performance, practices, and perception of platforms as political actors in authoritarian states
Procedural Democracy, the Bulwark of Equal Liberty
Networked” Revolutions? ICTs and Protest Mobilization in Non-Democratic Regimes
Corrupting the Cyber-Commons
Political Participation and Regime Stability
From Liberation to Turmoil
On Democratic Backsliding
Liberation Technology
Propaganda and Protest in Autocracies
How Social Media Is Changing Conflict
Global sources of credibility
Authoritarian backsliding and the concentration of political power
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From Single-Party to Electoral Authoritarian Regimes
Propaganda as Signaling
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Foreign Anti-Mainstream Propaganda and Democratic Publics
How Soft Propaganda Persuades
Unwelcome Change
The Consequences of the Internet for Politics
Democratic Authoritarianism
Resilience to Online Censorship
China's Strategic Censorship
Launching Revolution
Authoritarian states and internet social media
Illusion of control
Political Control
Sampling Knowledge
Democracy and Groups
Explosive connections? Mass media, social media, and the geography of collective violence in African states
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How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression
Educative Interventions to Combat Misinformation
How Saudi Crackdowns Fail to Silence Online Dissent
How Sudden Censorship Can Increase Access to Information
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How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, Not Engaged Argument
Transnational Repression, Diaspora Mobilization, and the Case of The Arab Spring
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,33 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |