"Normalization of Censorship: Evidence from China" by
Tony Zirui Yang.
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Congratulations!!! I will always remember your class at UT!

every time I speak to a journalist about social media & politics or social media & journalism, I point this out. It's a far-right, white supremacist platform -- what reason could anyone who doesn't identify in that way to be on it?

Despite the increasing reliance on online media for news consumption, people generally exhibit lower levels of trust in online news relative to traditional media. To explain the preference disparities in media trust and their potential cross-national variations, this article examines individuals’ trust gap between newspapers and Internet news across 14 countries and regions in East, South, and Southeast Asia. Drawing on nationally representative data and other country-level data (2018–2021), we test two underlying mechanisms, political trust transfer and alternative information orientation, that account for the media trust gap, as well as their boundary conditions. Multilevel analysis reveals that political trust positively correlates with people’s relative trust in newspapers, which is pronounced in societies with lower levels of polarization and limited press freedom. Besides, using the Internet and social media as the main channels of political information seeking may increase people’s relative trust in Internet news, especially in societies with higher levels of press freedom and political polarization. Our findings offer systematic explanations for news trust preferences by combining political characteristics and their contextual conditions, which have implications for understanding today’s media trust crisis.

Figure 1 is a bar and point plot comparing trust in newspaper and Internet news across 14 Asian societies. Trust levels are shown for each country with two markers: a black circle for newspapers and a black triangle for Internet news. Countries include Myanmar, Mainland China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Mongolia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. The gap between the two points for each country represents the “trust gap,” with newspaper trust generally higher than Internet news trust, especially in Myanmar and China. The smallest or reversed gaps are seen in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Table 2 presents results from three multilevel regression models predicting the media trust gap (defined as newspaper trust minus Internet news trust). Model 1 includes only fixed effects, Model 2 adds controls, and Model 3 includes interaction terms. Key predictors include political trust (positive, significant in all models), alternative information orientation (negative and significant in Models 1 and 2), and several significant interaction terms with press freedom and political polarization in Model 3. Model fit improves across models, as shown by decreasing AIC and BIC values. Marginal and conditional R² increase from Model 1 (0.035/0.112) to Model 3 (0.059/0.222), indicating better explanatory power. The note clarifies that coefficients are unstandardized and controls include various demographic and political variables. Asterisks denote significance at ***p < .001.

Two marginal effects plots show how the effect of political trust on the media trust gap varies by (a) press freedom and (b) political polarization. The y-axis in both panels is labeled “Marginal Effect of Political Trust.” In Panel (a), the x-axis represents press freedom, ranging from 0.2 to 0.8. The marginal effect of political trust on the media trust gap decreases as press freedom increases. The slope is negative and crosses the zero line, with a shaded gray area indicating 95% confidence intervals. A histogram at the bottom shows the distribution of press freedom across countries. In Panel (b), the x-axis represents political polarization, ranging from approximately -1.5 to 3.5. The marginal effect of political trust decreases as polarization increases, with a consistently positive but declining slope. Again, shaded areas indicate 95% confidence intervals, and a histogram at the bottom displays the distribution of polarization scores across countries.

Two marginal effects plots illustrate how the effect of alternative information orientation on the media trust gap changes depending on (a) press freedom and (b) political polarization. The y-axis in both panels is labeled “Marginal Effect of Alternative Information Orientation,” with values decreasing from 0 at the top to more negative values at the bottom. In Panel (a), the x-axis shows levels of press freedom from 0.2 to 0.8. As press freedom increases, the marginal effect of alternative information orientation becomes more negative, suggesting that in countries with greater press freedom, the negative association between alternative information orientation and trust in mainstream media is stronger. A shaded area around the line represents the 95% confidence interval. A histogram below the x-axis displays the distribution of press freedom across countries. In Panel (b), the x-axis represents political polarization ranging from approximately -1.5 to 3.5. The marginal effect of alternative information orientation becomes more negative as political polarization increases, again indicating a stronger negative effect in more polarized contexts. A histogram at the bottom shows the distribution of polarization values. The shaded area reflects 95% confidence intervals around the trend line.

Fascinting new study in 14 countries across Asia examining the media trust gap by Guo & @yuzhelei.bsky.social doi.org/10.1177/1940...

As promised, a reading list about Xiaohongshu is available now with the help of many Chinese social media researchers: qianxeniahuang.super.site/resources/xi.... Special thanks to @carwynmorris.bsky.social for co-editing this. I am only hosting this on my personal website for logistic reasons.

Screenshot of abstract for the article "Conceptualizing evaluations of the political relevance of media texts: The Politically Relevant Media Model," found at: https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtae004

🚨New pub alert! 🚨 Out now in Communication Theory, I introduce a model for how media users evaluate media texts as politically relevant, leading to cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes bearing a variety of consequences. A 🧵... (1/10)