Protest Event Analysis Meets Autocracy: Comparing the Coverage of Chinese Protests on Social Media, Dissident Websites and in the News

Author(s)

Christian Göbel, H. Christoph Steinhardt

Abstract

How accurate is media-elicited protest event data from autocracies where the state censors the media? Based on a source-specific model of event selection and a multisource dataset of over 3,100 protests from three Chinese megacities, we demonstrate the substantial advantages of using social media data, capturing 115 times more protests than English-language international news, 74 times more than domestic news, and 10 times more than dissident websites. Social media are most likely to cover small and nonviolent events that other sources often ignore. Aside from antiregime protests, they are less affected by censorship than often assumed. A validity test against public holidays and daily rainfall shows that social media data outperform dissident websites and traditional news. Social media, and to a lesser extent dissident media, are promising new sources for protest event analysis in autocracies. Scholars should treat news media-based event data from heavily censoring regimes with caution.

Organisation(s)

Department of East Asian Studies

Journal

Mobilization

Volume

27

Pages

277–295

ISSN

1086-671X

DOI

https://doi.org/10.17813/1086-671X-27-3-277

Publication date

2022

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

506006 Peace studies, 504023 Political sociology, 602045 Sinology

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Sociology and Political Science

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/protest-event-analysis-meets-autocracy-comparing-the-coverage-of-chinese-protests-on-social-media-dissident-websites-and-in-the-news(9cbe22e1-b129-41c1-8f71-c72a54ef6ab1).html