Media manipulation at home and abroad : evidence from the Arab world
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation examines how Arab autocrats use media to influence domestic and foreign publics. While much of the literature on authoritarian media focuses on indoctrination, signaling, and censorship, this dissertation investigates how autocrats manipulate narratives and discourse to maintain their power at home and further their influence abroad. The first paper claims that autocrats advance narratives about threats and conspiracies to reduce dissent. These narratives can shape public beliefs about the regime's competence and are difficult to fact-check by independent media. Using topic modeling on hundreds of thousands of articles from Egypt and Syria, the paper shows that protests were often associated with an increase in discussions of threats and conspiracies. The second paper then turns to the effects of these narratives on public attitudes and online behavior. To do so, the paper uses data from the Arab barometer, twitter followers of major Egyptian newspapers, and an original survey experiment in Egypt. The results show that discussions of conspiracies and threats increase the likelihood that the public prioritizes foreign threats over domestic problems and improve public trust in the government. The third paper examines how regimes employ transnational media to manipulate foreign publics. Using the cases of Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera, the paper claims that Saudi Arabia and Qatar utilize the agenda-setting and framing powers of transnational media to influence regional publics. Specifically, the two countries deploy transnational media to highlight topics that advance their influence, undermine competitors, and support the interests of their sponsor countries.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Place | California |
| Place | [Stanford, California] |
| Publisher | [Stanford University] |
| Copyright date | 2021; ©2021 |
| Publication date | 2021; 2021 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Alrababah, Ala Adnan Mohammad |
|---|---|
| Degree supervisor | Blaydes, Lisa, 1975- |
| Degree supervisor | Weinstein, Jeremy M |
| Thesis advisor | Blaydes, Lisa, 1975- |
| Thesis advisor | Weinstein, Jeremy M |
| Thesis advisor | Fearon, James D |
| Thesis advisor | Schultz, Kenneth A |
| Degree committee member | Fearon, James D |
| Degree committee member | Schultz, Kenneth A |
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Political Science |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|---|
| Genre | Text |
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Ala' Alrababa'h. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Political Science. |
| Thesis | Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2021. |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/cg208fm9826 |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2021 by Ala Adnan Mohammad Alrababah
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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