Politics of Authoritarianism
With the proliferation of social media, authoritarian regimes have found new ways to respond to political unrest. CSMaP examines the different ways these governments have adapted to the digital age to suppress, or spread, narratives online.
Research
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Journal Article
Why Botter: How Pro-Government Bots Fight Opposition in Russia
American Political Science Review, 2022
There is abundant anecdotal evidence that nondemocratic regimes are harnessing new digital technologies known as social media bots to facilitate policy goals. However, few previous attempts have been made to systematically analyze the use of bots that are aimed at a domestic audience in autocratic regimes. We develop two alternative theoretical frameworks for predicting the use of pro-regime bots: one which focuses on bot deployment in response to offline protest and the other in response to online protest. We then test the empirical implications of these frameworks with an original collection of Twitter data generated by Russian pro-government bots. We find that the online opposition activities produce stronger reactions from bots than offline protests. Our results provide a lower bound on the effects of bots on the Russian Twittersphere and highlight the importance of bot detection for the study of political communication on social media in nondemocratic regimes.
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Book
Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field, Prospects for Reform
Cambridge University Press, 2020
News & Views
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Commentary
The People Who Believe Russia’s Disinformation
Will Russia’s propaganda campaign continue to work on its citizens and others? Or will the lies fall apart?
April 12, 2022
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News
How Pro-Regime Bots are Used in Russia to Demobilize Opposition and Manipulate Public Perception
In a new paper, we investigate how pro-regime bots employ a variety of tactics to prevent, suppress, or react to offline and online opposition activities in Russia, finding online activities produce stronger reactions than offline protests.
February 21, 2022