{"title":"委托审查:中国动态、分层、多阶段的信息控制制度","authors":"Taiyi Sun, Quansheng Zhao","doi":"10.1177/00323292211013181","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"How does internet censorship work in China, and how does it reflect the Chinese state’s logic of governing society? An online political publication, Global China (海外看世界), was created by the authors, and the pattern and record of articles being censored was analyzed. Using results from A/B tests on the articles and interviews with relevant officials, the article shows that the state employs delegated censorship, outsourcing significant responsibility to private internet companies and applying levels of scrutiny based on timing, targets, and stage of publication. The dynamic, layered, multistage censorship regime creates significant variation and flexibility across the Chinese internet, most often in decisions about what to censor. This approach aims to maintain regime stability and legitimacy while minimizing costs. Rather than blocking all information and players, the state recognizes its technical and bureaucratic limits but also realizes the benefits of a degree of toleration. Delegated censorship utilizes both power control and power sharing and offers a new understanding of authoritarian state-society relations.","PeriodicalId":47847,"journal":{"name":"Politics & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.1000,"publicationDate":"2021-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/00323292211013181","citationCount":"11","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Delegated Censorship: The Dynamic, Layered, and Multistage Information Control Regime in China\",\"authors\":\"Taiyi Sun, Quansheng Zhao\",\"doi\":\"10.1177/00323292211013181\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"How does internet censorship work in China, and how does it reflect the Chinese state’s logic of governing society? An online political publication, Global China (海外看世界), was created by the authors, and the pattern and record of articles being censored was analyzed. Using results from A/B tests on the articles and interviews with relevant officials, the article shows that the state employs delegated censorship, outsourcing significant responsibility to private internet companies and applying levels of scrutiny based on timing, targets, and stage of publication. The dynamic, layered, multistage censorship regime creates significant variation and flexibility across the Chinese internet, most often in decisions about what to censor. This approach aims to maintain regime stability and legitimacy while minimizing costs. Rather than blocking all information and players, the state recognizes its technical and bureaucratic limits but also realizes the benefits of a degree of toleration. Delegated censorship utilizes both power control and power sharing and offers a new understanding of authoritarian state-society relations.\",\"PeriodicalId\":47847,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Politics & Society\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":4.1000,\"publicationDate\":\"2021-05-06\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/00323292211013181\",\"citationCount\":\"11\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Politics & Society\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"90\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1177/00323292211013181\",\"RegionNum\":2,\"RegionCategory\":\"社会学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q1\",\"JCRName\":\"POLITICAL SCIENCE\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Politics & Society","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00323292211013181","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
Delegated Censorship: The Dynamic, Layered, and Multistage Information Control Regime in China
How does internet censorship work in China, and how does it reflect the Chinese state’s logic of governing society? An online political publication, Global China (海外看世界), was created by the authors, and the pattern and record of articles being censored was analyzed. Using results from A/B tests on the articles and interviews with relevant officials, the article shows that the state employs delegated censorship, outsourcing significant responsibility to private internet companies and applying levels of scrutiny based on timing, targets, and stage of publication. The dynamic, layered, multistage censorship regime creates significant variation and flexibility across the Chinese internet, most often in decisions about what to censor. This approach aims to maintain regime stability and legitimacy while minimizing costs. Rather than blocking all information and players, the state recognizes its technical and bureaucratic limits but also realizes the benefits of a degree of toleration. Delegated censorship utilizes both power control and power sharing and offers a new understanding of authoritarian state-society relations.
期刊介绍:
Politics & Society is a peer-reviewed journal. All submitted papers are read by a rotating editorial board member. If a paper is deemed potentially publishable, it is sent to another board member, who, if agreeing that it is potentially publishable, sends it to a third board member. If and only if all three agree, the paper is sent to the entire editorial board for consideration at board meetings. The editorial board meets three times a year, and the board members who are present (usually between 9 and 14) make decisions through a deliberative process that also considers written reports from absent members. Unlike many journals which rely on 1–3 individual blind referee reports and a single editor with final say, the peers who decide whether to accept submitted work are thus the full editorial board of the journal, comprised of scholars from various disciplines, who discuss papers openly, with author names known, at meetings. Editors are required to disclose potential conflicts of interest when evaluating manuscripts and to recuse themselves from voting if such a potential exists.