A Psychological Firewall? Risk Perceptions and Public Support for Online Censorship in Russia

Objective. Authoritarian regimes commonly justify Internet censorship by framing the Internet as a threat to their citizens that must be tightly controlled for their own protection. This threat rhetoric underpins government censorship and creates a “psychological firewall” driving public support for...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social science quarterly 2017-09, Vol.98 (3), p.958-975
Main Authors: Nisbet, Erik C., Kamenchuk, Olga, Dal, Aysenur
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Authoritarianism
Case studies
Censorship
Citizens
Decision making
Frame analysis
Internet
Mass media
Mass media effects
News
Partisanship
Perceptions
Political Communication & Authoritarian Contexts
Polls & surveys
Protection
Public opinion
Reliance
Rhetoric
Risk
Risk perception
Scholarship
Television
Threats
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Summary:Objective. Authoritarian regimes commonly justify Internet censorship by framing the Internet as a threat to their citizens that must be tightly controlled for their own protection. This threat rhetoric underpins government censorship and creates a “psychological firewall” driving public support for a censored Internet. Methods. Based on risk and decision-making scholarship, we evaluate how mass media and partisan regime support promulgate these threat perceptions, and in turn how they influence citizen attitudes about censorship. Employing Russia as a case study, we tested our hypotheses with a national survey (N = 1,600) conducted in May 2014. Results. We found that reliance on Russian national TV news predicted greater Internet threat perceptions, and in turn these threat perceptions significantly increased support for online political censorship. Conclusion. Approval of the Putin government further amplified the impact of these threat perceptions on support for censorship. Implications for understanding psychological foundations for support for censorship in authoritarian contexts are discussed.
ISSN:0038-4941
1540-6237
DOI:10.1111/ssqu.12435