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The proliferation of social media and digital technologies has made it necessary for governments to expand their focus beyond propaganda content in order to disseminate propaganda effectively. We identify a strategy of using clickbait to increase the visibility of political propaganda. We show that such a strategy is used across China by combining ethnography with a computational analysis of a novel dataset of the titles of 197,303 propaganda posts made by 213 Chinese city-level governments on WeChat. We find that Chinese propagandists face intense pressures to demonstrate their effectiveness on social media because their work is heavily quantified–measured, analyzed, and ranked–with metrics such as views and likes. Propagandists use both clickbait and non-propaganda content (e.g., lifestyle tips) to capture clicks, but rely more heavily on clickbait because it does not decrease space available for political propaganda. Government propagandists use clickbait at a rate commensurate with commercial and celebrity social media accounts. The use of clickbait is associated with more views and likes, as well as greater reach of government propaganda outlets and messages. These results reveal how the advertising-based business model and affordances of social media influence political propaganda and how government strategies to control information are moving beyond censorship, propaganda, and disinformation.
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Local emergency management's use of social media during disasters: a case study of Hurricane Irma
Governments' use of social media during all phases of emergency management, especially during disasters, has increased dramatically in the past 20 years. Yet, implementation at the local government level in the United States remains haphazard. As technology and the role of social media evolve, there persists a need to understand the socio‐technical aspects of social media's employment in times of disaster. This study contributes to the growing social media literature by asking the following questions: what challenges remain and what lessons learned are being institutionalised at the local level of government? A qualitative analysis of 26 after action reports on Hurricane Irma (September 2017) by county, state, and federal governments and a four‐hour focus‐group session revealed dominant and subdominant themes, including: push/pull information; capacity and technical issues; inconsistent messaging; one‐way versus two‐way communication; timing of messages; and data collection. The paper concludes by discussing lessons learned, remaining challenges, evidence of organisational learning, and recommendations for future research.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1917019
- PAR ID:
- 10399876
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Disasters
- Volume:
- 47
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 0361-3666
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 247-266
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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