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Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1673073
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Advertising Chinese Politics: The Effects of Public Service Announcements in Urban China
by
Daniela Stockmann Assistant Professor Leiden University
Ashley Esarey Visiting Assistant Professor
Whitman College
Zhang Jie Assistant Professor
Communication University of China
Comments are welcome*
Email correspondence: [email protected]
* For fruitful research collaboration we would like to thank Shen Mingming, Yan Jie, and Chai Jingjing from the Research Center of Contemporary China and Song Houze from at Peking University. For insights, suggestions, comments, and criticisms we are grateful to Liu Linqing, Rosario Aguilar, Liz Suhay, Ann Crigler, Michael Delli Carpini, Devra Coren-Moehler, Tang Wenfang, Ted Brader, Peter van Aelst, Tereza Capelos, Nick Valentino, Eric Groenendyk, Pierre Landry, Stefan Landsberger, Michael Meffert, Philip Everts, Kees Brants, Wang Yuhua, Pan Jian, and Carsten Hoppe. This paper is part of a joint research project between Leiden University and Communication University of China, funded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). We are also grateful for financial support for conducting focus groups from Whitman College. For superb research assistance we would like to thank Li Zheng, Jin Xi, Xu Yuemiao, Ma Beibei, Lu Hanji, and Zhang Chenlong. For computer programming we are dedicated to Harold Fellermann and Daniel Wunsch.
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1673073
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Abstract
During the reform era the Chinese state has modernized the way in which campaigns are conducted. Today, the government focuses on public service advertising on television to actively shape people‘s attitudes and behavior on such issues as environmental protection and legal reform. More broadly, public service advertising is aimed at holding together an increasingly diverse and fragmented society. This paper examines the effects of public service advertising on people’s opinions. Based on experiments we investigate the extent to which public service advertising is effective and why. As the first-ever study concerning the effects of public service advertising in the Chinese media, this paper employs multiple research methods to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between the Chinese state and society. The predominant view in Chinese politics is that reforms since the Mao era have weakened the coercive power of the state. Recently, however, scholars have begun to explore the mechanisms through which the Chinese state has been able to adapt and remake institutional forces for reinforcing national unity and integration. This study contributes to this debate by exploring the role of television propaganda in influencing people’s views and behavior and finds that public service announcements can lead to negative views of the state, unless viewers recognize the messages as a state sponsored form of political communication. In the 21st century, Chinese remain surprisingly supportive of the state’s efforts to guide public opinion through political advertising.
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Introduction
Political advertising constitutes one of the most important means by which political
leaders communicate with citizens. In the United States, in particular, there is extensive
evidence from experiments, surveys, and political campaigns that demonstrates that
political advertisements can and do have measurable effects on individual voters and
perhaps on the larger political system. Political advertising and campaigns affect citizen
knowledge and information levels (Gelman and King 1993, Hutchings 2001), public
evaluations of candidates and parties (Mendelberg 2001, Valentino, et al. 2004), voting
decisions (Lupia 1994, Brader 2005), and attitudes toward the political system itself
(Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1997).
Compared to political advertising, public service announcements (PSA) play a less
important role in the political science literature. In contrast to political ads, defined as one
means through which parties and candidates present themselves to the electorate (Holtz-
Bacha and Kaid 2006), PSA are supposed to educate and persuade the public on issues of
social significance (Nan 2008). Early studies of PSA have had difficulties detecting
effects on people’s behavior (see, for example, Robertson, et al. 1974), but recent
research has found that the persuasiveness of PSA, particularly on television, depends
strongly on features of the message, such as its perceived realism (Andsager, et al. 2001),
sensationalism (Stephenson 2003), presentation of exemplar versus statistical evidence
(Limon and Kazoleas 2004), overall liking (Nan 2008), and framing (Shen and Dillard
2007). As PSA campaigns have become more sophisticated, they are presumably more
likely to affect citizens’ attitudes towards political and social issues.
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Recent changes in campaigning via mass media in China show that PSA (or gongyi
guanggao, in Chinese) play an important role in the way in which political leaders
communicate with and persuade citizens to accept their political leadership. During the
Reform Era (1978-present) the Chinese state modernized its strategy for political
campaigning. Today, state and party units at different levels of government rely
increasingly on political advertising, primarily on television, in order to substitute for
more traditional ways of political communication, such as, films and propaganda posters.
In the past, public service advertising was directed at building a modern set of values and
norms or “spiritual civilization” in order to hold together an increasingly diverse and
fragmented society. In practice, however, PSA have become part of a wide range of state
efforts to fight corruption, improve treatment of migrant workers, protect the
environment, improve knowledge of laws and regulations, and promote a positive image
of the National People’s Congress. These commercials are shown everyday during
primetime hours on national and local television, thus reaching approximately 75 percent
of the rural and about 80 percent of the urban population (Stockmann 2009).
Yet the specific effects of PSA in China remain uncertain. Chinese leaders are
convinced that political commercials are well perceived by the Chinese public and,
therefore, are a useful form of propaganda. Officials evaluate the impact of PSAs
primarily based on the number broadcasted, which provides insights into exposure but
not the persuasion of media audiences. There is also agreement among China scholars
that contemporary campaigns have short-term effects on the behavior of the targeted
population, though compliant behavior quickly disappears once a campaign eases off
(Economy 2002; Manion 2004; van Rooij 2006). Prior research, however, has not
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revealed the causal mechanisms that link campaigning to changes in citizen behavior. In
addition, many scholars have argued that increasing marketization, internationalization,
and technological advancement of the Chinese media have increase the ability of the
Chinese state to propagate its political goals and policies (see, for example, Brady 2008,
Zhao 2008, Landsberger 2009). Yet the effects of new forms of propaganda, including
the use of marketing strategies, on Chinese audiences remains thus far untested
empirically.
Improved circumstances for research have made such an inquiry possible. This paper
draws on unique data to study who is likely to be persuaded by PSA and why. The data
analyzed here are from four focus groups and seven experiments conducted in Beijing in
2009 and 2010. Focus groups provided us with the opportunity to develop hypotheses
about citizen responses to PSAs, while experiments allowed us to investigate the effects
of PSAs on individual levels of knowledge and attitudes. These data are complemented
by 27 semi-structured interviews with government officials, producers, and broadcasters
conducted in Beijing during 2008 and 2009.
Campaigning by Means of Public Service Announcements
Mass campaigning used to be a prominent feature of Chinese politics: the country
experienced at least one major campaign almost every year until Mao Zedong’s death in
1976. Today, the Chinese state continues to use campaigning as a policy instrument, but
campaigns do not reach the same degree of coercion and citizen involvement as during
the Mao era. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) the population became
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exhausted and disillusioned about the purpose of mass movements.1 Chinese political
leaders realized that staying in power required not more but less state involvement in
people’s lives. At present, public officials reject Maoist-style mass mobilization
techniques aimed at “brain washing,” a Chinese expression for remolding the attitudes of
citizens through periods of intense ideological indoctrination (Lifton, 1969; Manion,
2004). The state designers of campaigns understand that they need citizen cooperation
and voluntary involvement to mobilize the public to expose problems, such as corruption,
and to aid subsequent investigation by state agencies. Instead of relying on coercion,
officials favor intensified publicity and mobilization through established legal channels
and programs to lower the costs of participation through avenues such as hotlines and
reporting centers. The state provides positive incentives for political participation in
campaigns (Manion 2004, van Rooij 2006). For those who do not choose to become
involved, however, there is no longer any fear of negative consequences.
Campaigns in China are aimed at implementing policies and educating citizens. For
example, the government has initiated legal enforcement campaigns and legal
dissemination campaigns, as part of a broader effort to build a rule of law in China.
Legal enforcement campaigns have been periods marked by swifter, stricter, and
concentrated punishment of violations of the law. There are usually three phases to
enforcement campaigns: First, the state raises awareness and mobilizes the public;
subsequently, citizens are encouraged to report non-compliant behavior in order to
1 Ordinary citizens realized that mass mobilization techniques had been used primarily as a means to solve power struggle at the top. See, for example, Mo 1976 on people’s hesitance to initially participate in the “Criticize Lin Biao, Criticize Confucius campaign.” Desire for change amongst the population was also clearly expressed in the “Democracy Wall” movement, in which workers called for rapid reforms.
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identify targets; and finally, the targets of the campaign are punished.2 Such campaigns
include drives against crime and corruption but also against violations of law, including
copyright infringements and pirated goods, pollution, illegal arable land use, the
operation of illegal internet cafés, distribution of pornography, the production of unsafe
food and drugs, and employment of forced labor (Manion 2004, Rooij 2006). During the
early phases, citizens are mobilized to use legal channels to expose violators of the law.
Legal awareness campaigns aim to inform citizens about the law and to actively build a
legal consciousness among the population (Exner 1995). The assumption is that greater
knowledge and positive perceptions of the legal system motivate citizens to use the legal
system in order to solve grievances and thus improve policy implementation. At the same
time, participating in the legal system raises knowledge of the law. Therefore, campaigns
aimed at implementing policies and educating citizens are mutually reinforcing.
Media play an important role in both types of campaigns. Via mass media public
officials aim to create “a favorable environment” for the implementation of government
policies by raising awareness as well as changing people’s attitudes and behavior. Public
service advertising constitutes one means for government officials to communicate their
political agenda to citizens and gain popular support to legitimize their policies.
PSAs on television are reflective of a new approach towards propaganda work. Along
with greater marketization and internationalization of the Chinese media, the state has
increasingly relied on methods and techniques imported from the West and adapted them
to Chinese conditions and needs. For example, during the 2008 Beijing Olympics and
after the Wenchuan earthquake, the Propaganda Department relied on a public relations
2 Manion (2004) describes those three phases as three peaks: publicity, report, and punishment peak.
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strategies and PSA campaigning to disseminate propaganda similar to the promotion of a
new product (Brady 2009, Chen 2009, Landry and Stockmann 2009, Landsberger 2009).
This separates PSA from other forms of propaganda associated with the propaganda
system under Mao, such as banners with slogans, propaganda posters, and the posting of
newspapers in public spaces, which did not rely on insights from commercial marketing.
Typically, PSA are initiated by state and party units, produced by TV stations and
advertising companies, and funded by corporations. State and party units as well as social
organizations at all levels of government all have the right to initiate PSA campaigns and
receive public funding to initiate campaigns. Due to the fragmentation of the Chinese
political system (Lieberthal and Lampton 1992), initiators usually collaborate with other
governmental units in order to increase support for campaigns. At the central level,
institutions that frequently promote PSA campaigns also incorporate the institutions that
are in charge of managing and implementing PSA policies, specifically the Guidance
Committee on Building Spiritual Civilization Construction (GCBSC), the State
Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC), State Administration for Radio,
Film, and Television (SARFT), and the General Administration of Press and Publication
(GAPP). Due to the Leninist nature of China’s political system in which the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) dominates state institutions, it is particularly useful for
campaigns to include party leadership; the GCBSC is part of the broader propaganda
system supervised by the Central Propaganda Department (CPD) of CCP. The SAIC is
the state institution in charge of issuing licenses to companies, including corporate
advertisers and advertising companies, and of implementing advertising policy more
generally. SARFT and GAPP administer broadcasting and print publications,
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respectively. Depending on the theme of the campaign, these party and state units may
collaborate with other political and societal actors, such as, for example, the Discipline
Inspection Committee on anti-Corruption efforts.
Once the topic has been decided, initiators usually get in touch with broadcasters.
Advertising departments of TV stations then divide up production among advertising
companies, who will then approach corporations as sponsors. One reason for this division
of labor is the lack of funding for PSA campaigning. Although party and state units
receive state subsidies they can spend on propaganda, the funding is not sufficient to
purchase the desired advertising slots when TV ratings are high. The state requires TV
stations to spend at least three percent of commercial time during prime time in the
evenings between seven and nine on PSA campaigning, including holidays. 3 This
reduces opportunities for television stations to make a profit by selling commercial
advertisements. In order to mobilize cooperation, the state has therefore tacitly agreed to
several initiatives by the broader advertising community. Since 1997, media outlets have
been permitted to receive corporate sponsorship for PSA. In return, corporations are
allowed to display their name or brand logo. The PSAs cannot, however, “call attention
to the brand or trademark and may not place products or information about the provision
3 Guanyu Zuo Hao Gongyi Guanggao Xuanchuan de Tongzhi (Announcement on How to Do PSA Propaganda Well), CPD, SAIC, SARFT, GAPP, 4 August 1997, available at http://www.gapp.gov.cn/cms/cms/website/zcfgs/layout3/index.jsp?infoId=450908&channelId=782&siteId=48, accessed 24 November 2009. In 2002 this rule was changed towards “on average every day between 7 and 9 pm” Guanyu Jin Yi Bu Zuo Hao Gongyi Guanggao Xuanchuan de Tongzhi (Announcement on gradually Improving PSA Propaganda), CPD, GCBSC, SAIC, SARFT, GAPP, 12 December 2002, available at http://www.cnlyjd.com/fagui/fagui/bumenguizhang/xuanchuanguiding/200212/fagui_1767947.html, accessed 24 November 2009.
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of services in the ads.” 4 On television corporate logos cannot appear for longer than five
seconds and may not be larger than one fifth of the total screen size.
These regulations are not always strictly enforced. Surreptitious advertising is
common for both corporations and television stations; some PSAs display the telephone
number of the corporate sponsor alongside its logo (Stockmann 2009). The involvement
of state, media, and corporate actors in the production and funding of PSA creates some
difficulty clearly distinguishing PSA from commercial advertising.
Chinese central-level officials are well aware of the use of PSA for commercial
purposes, but acknowledge that broadcasters, producers, and financial sponsors need to
gain some benefit in order to have a positive incentive to participate in campaigning.
When campaigns are of high importance to the Chinese leadership, such as the campaign
in anticipation of the 2008 Olympics or the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of
China, the central government does not allow corporate trademarks to appear behind
PSA, but instead lists government institutions, most of the time GCBSC, SAIC, SARFT,
and GAPP, as sponsors for the advertisement. When broadcast on television PSAs are,
therefore, often accompanied by a commercial logo, but can also appear with references
to the television station or state and party sponsors.
Overall, PSA campaigning is representative of a new approach toward propaganda
that attempts to sell political messages in a manner similar to a commercial product. PSA
are supposed to actively change attitudes and behavior in a way favorable to state
policies. Due to the involvement of different political and societal actors in the
4 Guanyu Zuo Hao Gongyi Guanggao Xuanchuan de Tongzhi (Announcement on How to Do PSA Propaganda Well), CPD, SAIC, SARFT, GAPP, 4 August 1997, available at http://www.gapp.gov.cn/cms/cms/website/zcfgs/layout3/index.jsp?infoId=450908&channelId=782&siteId=48, accessed 24 November 2009.
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production of PSA, the origin of political messages on television is often difficult for
viewers to determine, especially when corporate trademarks or television logos appear.
The next section discussed the implications of this new context for campaigning by
means of PSA for media effects.
Implications for Media Effects
Communication campaigns are characterized by periods in which the quantity of
media messages increases during a specific period of time. In liberal democracies
communication campaigns are often characterized by the diverse messages competing
against each other, especially when political candidates and parties attempt to convince
the electorate to cast their vote in favor of them. In contrast, authoritarian states exert
more control over the mass media, limit the diversity of political messages in the news,
and impose regularity on information flows (Geddes and Zaller 1989, Egorov, et al.
2009). Because equal access is less guaranteed for political parties, even electoral
campaigns can be largely one-sided, as, for example, during electoral campaigning in
Russia (Oates 2006).
Following a similar pattern, PSA campaigning in China increases the quantity of
messages that support the goals and policies of the government throughout the course of a
campaign, which is typically limited to a few months. During this period, a number of
PSAs on a common theme are broadcast several times a day on Chinese television,
primarily during the “golden time” before the 7 o’clock news. Exposure to PSAs is very
common; they now reach around 80 percent of the urban and 75 percent of the rural
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population.5 According to CTR market research conducted between January and July
2009, 67 percent of government-initiated PSA were broadcast on city-level television, 24
percent on provincial television, 5 percent on CCTV, and 4 percent by others. Television
stations all over the whole country participate in PSA campaigning and often
simultaneously emphasize several themes of local or national importance.6
Does the state’s heavy emphasis on broadcasting PSAs on television mean that people
are becoming more supportive of the goals that the government intends to promote? In
the American context, the effects of political campaigning are well-demonstrated.
Political ads and other campaign events can change the priorities and preferences of
voters (Kinder 2003). Most studies reveal that such effects are caused by content and tone
of political information (see, for example, Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1997), though some
focuses on group-related cues (Mendelberg 2001 2001, Valentino, et al. 2002) and
emotions (Brader 2006). In an authoritarian state ruled by a single party, such as China,
political messages that appear in television ads are not associated with different parties,
groups, or social movments as in liberal democracies. Previous research on the
development of PSAs in China suggests that television ads may be highly successful in
persuading audiences (Brady 2008, Landsberger 2009). Chinese have also been found to
5 Percentages are based on the China Survey 2008, conducted by the College of Liberal Arts of Texas A&M University in collaboration with the Research Center of Contemporary China at Peking University. It is based on a random stratified multi-stage probability sample of all Chinese adults, employing the GPS sampling technique and thus included migrant workers. See Pierre F. Landry and Mingming Shen, "Reaching Migrants in Survey Research: The Use of the Global Positioning System to Reduce Coverage Bias in China," Political Analysis 13 (2005). 6 This percentage was 6.7 percent for Beijing TV, 4.4 percent for Guangdong TV, and 3 percent for Qinghai TV. PSA were measured as advertising initiated by party or state units and did not include those PSA financed by companies, thus underestimating the percentage of PSA. Zhongguo Guangbo Yingshi (China Radio Film & TV) Magazine, December 2009.
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be quite receptive to media influence, except when people are highly aware of an issue
and disagree with the position of the government on it (Kennedy 2009, Stockmann 2010,
Stockmann and Gallagher 2011). Yet with respect to PSA campaigning, political
messages tend to be non-controversial. It is therefore possible that PSA work as intended
by the Chinese state such that we observe a positive relationship between PSA content
and people’s support for the message promoted by the ad, if we observe any effects at all
(Content Hypothesis).
In addition to content, we are particularly interested in the effects of the source labels
attached to the ads. Source characteristics such as a speaker’s public approval (Page, et
al. 1987), insider status (Carmines and Kuklinski 1990), accuracy and objectivity
(Iyengar and Kinder 1985), expert status and knowledgeability (Page, et al. 1987, Lupia
and McCubbins 1998), likeability (O'Keefe 1990), party reputation (Iyengar and
Valentino 2000), ideology (Zaller 1992), and media label (Baum and Groeling 2009) can
matter for persuasion. In China, there is evidence that source characteristics also figure in
the persuasion of Chinese media audiences. With respect to newspapers people make
sense of a complicated newspaper environment by dividing newspapers into types that
vary in terms of their credibility. Newspapers that are more commercialized are perceived
as representatives of ordinary citizens and as delivering objective information.
Newspapers that are less commercialized are perceived as expert sources of information
pertaining to the government. Depending on the level of the perception of a newspaper as
credible, readers in Chongqing, Wuxi, Shenyang, Foshan, and Beijing were more or less
easily persuaded by news content (Stockmann 2007). With respect to advertising on
Chinese television, there is also some initial evidence that source characteristics affect
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attitude change. Chan (2000) found that the image of a country as being environmentally
friendly or unfriendly influenced popular attitudes towards green advertising, perceptions
of the brand, and purchase intentions. Since PSA are usually linked with either a
corporate or a state label, we would expect that people are more supportive of the
message, depending on their perceived levels of trust in either the state institution or
corporation that sponsored the ad (Source Credibility Hypothesis). Since much research
on political trust in China has found that trust in the government is generally quite high
(Chen and Shi 2001, Shi 2001, Nathan 2003, Li 2004), we expect that the state label will
be associated with high levels of credibility.
A final goal of PSA campaigning is to change people’s behavior. Chinese policy-
makers assume that attitudinal change will lead to changes in behavior. There is manifold
evidence in social science research that this assumption holds only for certain kinds of
attitudes. In political science, political attitudes are generally viewed as less important in
fostering political action than other factors, such as socio-economic status and political
mobilization (Rosenstone and Hansen 1993, Verba, et al. 1995). In recent years, however,
there has been a revival of the argument that political perceptions, besides those related to
political efficacy, can make a difference. Political empowerment (Bobo and Gilliam
1990), self-interest (Green and Cowden 1992), intense feelings about an issue (Fiorina
2002), conviction (Burns, et al. 2002), group membership in relation to the political
context (Hutchings 2001), and emotional appeals (Brader 2006) motivate people to
become politically active. Market research also emphasizes that people can be motivated
to regularly purchase a particular product when they feel certain that one brand is better
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than others (McQueen 1990).7 We believe that it is unlikely that exposure to one PSA,
even if resulting in attitude change, has the power to change people’s behavior.
Nevertheless, PSAs may motivate people to consider how they could achieve the goals
promoted by the message or seek information about how do to so. The content and/or
source label of the PSA should make people more likely to come up with concrete ideas
about how to address the problem raised by the PSA and motivate them to change their
behavior and seek additional information about the problem (Behavioral Intention
Hypothesis).
Overall, we would expect to find that the PSA will affect people’s support for the
political message, depend upon their trust in the PSA source, and will have effects
concerning their behavioral intentions. However, since PSA campaigns focus primarily
on valence issues, PSA may play a stronger role in reinforcing attitudes and behavioral
intention than in persuading the skeptics. Those who behave in accordance with state
policies are likely to be people who held congruent attitudes before the campaign, but are
who are mobilized to become politically active when the state signals support through
PSAs, thereby reinforcing pre-existing beliefs.
Experimental Design and Data
We use an experimental design to test the above hypotheses. Political scientists
increasingly recognize the value of the experimental method (Druckman, et al. 2006).
The main advantage of relying on the experimental method is its ability to isolate the
7 Similar results can be achieved by creating identification between a person’s life style and the product, or by creating an emotional bond between the product and the activity in which it is used.
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causal impact of communication factors on message recognition, political attitudes, and
behavior. If respondents in control and treatment groups make different choices, and if all
differences among the respondents have been randomized, then the most likely causal
source of the choice is the attribute that is manipulated by the treatment (see, for
example, Iyengar and Kinder 1987). Despite satisfactory internal validity, one potential
weakness of relying on the experimental method is that this technique is low in terms of
its external validity. Since we solely rely on samples of ordinary citizens in Beijing, we
can only be confident that experimental results apply to these samples and not all Chinese
or even Beijingers. Case studies and surveys from various cities and provinces, such as
Anhui, Yunnan, Chongqing, Liaoning, Guangdong, and Jiangsu have, however, observed
strong relationships between campaigning and citizen mobilization (Manion 2004, Rooij
2007, Stockmann and Gallagher 2011). Here, we seek to provide insights concerning the
missing causal link between campaigning by means of the mass media and citizen
mobilization.
To our knowledge, this is the first time a laboratory experiment has been conducted
among ordinary citizens in mainland China to study Chinese politics. In recent years
scholars have employed natural experimental research designs to study media effects
(Landry and Stockmann 2009, Stockmann 2010). While natural experiments are strong
with respect to their ability to observe how people behave under natural circumstances,
their capacity to isolate causal factors is weaker compared to experiments conducted in a
laboratory setting, where the experimental manipulation can be more easily controlled.
While laboratory experiments are frequently employed by scholars of psychology in
China, experimental methods have only once been applied to study Chinese politics.
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Gries (Gries Forthcoming) has conducted an experiment among Chinese students at a
state university in Beijing to investigate the sensitivity to symbolic and material gains and
losses among Chinese and Americans. The study showed that American and Chinese
students reacted differently to the same scenarios about material and symbolic gain in
foreign politics. While convenient samples are frequently used in experiments, the use of
students raises concerns about the generalizability of results in the study of campaigning,
since students usually have limited personal experience with the political process and
therefore may be particularly vulnerable to persuasive campaign communication (see, for
example Valentino, et al. 2002). Another reason why we focused on a broad sample of
ordinary citizens and not particular social groups is that Chinese policy-makers and
producers do not have a particular target audience in mind when developing PSA themes
and producing these ads. Public officials define PSA as propaganda instruments targeted
at “ordinary people” (laobaixing). Similarly, none of the producers interviewed had a
specific social group in mind when creating PSAs. Instead, they indicated that they
always sought to affect a wide audience (Stockmann 2009). It is likely that producers are
indirectly influenced by the style that attracts target audiences of commercial advertising,
including most women, blue collar workers, and the younger generation (Prendergast and
Hwa 2003, Wang 2008). Since PSA are directed at ordinary people, however, we decided
to test our hypotheses with respect to average citizens. For these reasons, we recruited
adults to study the impact of political advertising on reception, attitudes and behavior.
Our study was conducted in the Research Center for Contemporary China (RCCC) at
Peking University, with a total of 210 adults with 30 participants per experimental
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treatment in late June 2010.8 Subjects were recruited based on the snowball method,
relying on numerous entry points, and with the aim to derive a sample similar in
demographic characteristics to the population of Beijing, as indicated by the most recent
census data. The resulting sample is roughly representative of the adult population of
Beijing in terms of gender, age, and education, including 48 percent women and 52
percent men ranging between 18 and 64 years of age, with education ranging from below
than primary school level to graduate-level university education. On average, participants
were 37 years old and had received a high-school degree. Due to the large number of
migrants in China, our sample includes 43.2 percent of people who live in Beijing
without a local residency permit (hukou). All participants had lived in Beijing for at least
two years and had not participated in focus groups or experiments conducted by RCCC.
Participants were told they would receive a monetary reward for watching television
and filling in a questionnaire to understand their views about television programmes. As
people entered the RCCC facility they were randomly assigned to one of seven
experimental treatments, which are described below. A lab assistant then showed the
person to a viewing room and instructed her how to use a pair of headphones while
watching a video on a computer. All participants saw the same series of commercials and
a recently aired news program into which one of two PSAs, either with one of two source
labels, or without a source label, was inserted. After viewing the eight-minute video,
participants went into a second room to fill in a self-administered questionnaire,
developed based on insights from four focus groups and two pre-tests.9 The questionnaire
8 The sample dropped to 208 after two questionnaires were lost when scanning digital copies of questionnaires. 9 Since we could not assume familiarity with computers among all participants, we preferred self-administered questionnaires to the use of computers for completing the questions. The lab assistant guiding
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asked people about their habits of watching television, their views on television program
content, concerns and opinions on three issues explained below, trust and satisfaction
with their government, and inclination to participate in politics. There was no mention of
the term “PSA“ until the end of the questionnaire. The questionnaire concluded with a
note that informed participants they could obtain informational materials about how to
save water, fight corruption, and strengthen the nation by technology and science (the
subject of the news broadcast) after they had finished all tasks. To impose a small cost on
the participant to obtain additional information, the room where the materials were
distributed was located one floor above the experimental location. In order to avoid
pressuring people to obtain information as a component in their participation in the study,
participants first received a small fee for their participation upon turning in the
questionnaires, were guided to the exit, and could leave unobserved. People left the
experimental location at a different exit than incoming participants, thus eliminating the
possibility that they could influence other participants. Since the experiment continued
after people left the experimental location, we debriefed participants by mail.
Even though people did not watch television in a natural setting, the experiment
simulated reality in an important way that facilitates generalization: exposure to PSAs
was incidental and occurred during the airing of commercials prior to the start of the 7
o’clock news program. This is how PSAs are actually broadcast on China Central
Television. As a result, the ads shown in the study faced the challenge of attracting the
attention of viewers in a manner similar to that of genuine PSAs.
the participant from the viewing room to the place where to fill in the questionnaire offered to provide assistance, if needed. Thirteen post-tests were conducted face-to-face, primarily among the elderly or participants with low education levels. Experimental results do not change when controlling for interviewer effects or face-to-face interviewing. Results can be retrived from the authors at [email protected].
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Experimental Manipulation
The experiment tested the exposure to one of two PSAs as well as to the source label
affiliated with the PSA. The goal was to investigate if PSA have an effect on recall,
attitudes, and behavior, and whether the source label shown after the PSA makes a
difference. Participants in one control group were shown a video without any PSA;
participants in the remaining six groups saw exactly the same video featuring one of two
PSAs without any source label, with a state label or a corporate label was inserted. In
order to permit comparison among all control and treatment groups, we randomly
assigned people into one of seven conditions as displayed in table 1.
To test whether the effects differ depending on the issue the PSA deals with, we
chose two PSA that differed by issue area. An earlier content analysis of PSAs that
received first, second, and third prices in the biannual National PSA Competition
organized by the GCBSC and SAIC revealed that ads considered important by the central
government primarily focus on valence issues; they tend to propagate building a civilized
society, protecting the environment, fighting corruption, or fostering nationalism – issues
about which most Chinese agree (Stockmann Forthcoming). For example, most people
believe that one should save water, should not give bribes, should support the
motherland, and so on. The messages promoted by PSAs are primarily moral in nature,
that is, they aim to make people more supportive of the values and behavior the state
deems to be important and advantageous for society and politics. Therefore, most citizens
are already familiar with the core messages in PSAs. In the four focus groups conducted
in Beijing, we detected broad support among participants of differing age and educational
21
levels for PSA content of the above types as well as for the government’s sponsorship of
PSAs, in general. (Esarey et al 2011). While most PSAs considered important by the
central government share these features, they differ with respect to their relevance to
politics. PSAs can promote major political slogans on the agenda of President Hu Jintao,
such as, for example, the “8 desirables and 8 non-desirables ” (ba rong ba chi, 八荣八耻)
or social harmony, but they may also propagate equal treatment of weak groups in
society, including migrant workers or AIDS victims, and environmental protection
(Stockmann Forthcoming). As is the case for most prize-winning PSAs, the two PSAs
chosen for the experimental manipulation focused on valence issues and promoted a
message about how citizens should behave. We selected one PSA about fighting
corruption and one promoting water conservation.
These two ads differed in terms of their relevance to citizen participation in politics.
The anti-corruption PSA pertains to the problem of reining in the bribery of venal
government officials—an activity in which many citizens do not participate and may feel
powerless to prevent. The PSA about water conservation, however, concerns an issue that
can be affected, to some extent, by all citizens. Moreover, viewers of the water
conservation PSA were likely to readily perceive how the ad pertains to their daily life.
This key difference between the content of the two ads allows us to identify whether the
effect of PSAs differs by their political relevance.
Insert Table 1 about here
22
In order to make ensure that these PSAs were authentic and differed primarily in
terms of the issue, we chose PSAs that had received a prize at the biannual National PSA
Competition organized by the SAIC and GCBSC.10 A requirement for the competition
was that the PSAs had been previously broadcast. Competition judges composed of
officials, senior personnel of advertising departments in major media outlets (such as
CCTV), advertising companies, and academics. The water conservation ad, produced in
Guizhou, received a third prize in the 2005 competition and the anti-corruption ad,
produced in Yunnan, a second prize in the 2007 competition. None of the focus group
participants indicated that they had seen either of the ads, even when specifically asked.
This strengthened our confidence that each PSA would be new to experimental
participants, though people may have been familiar with their central messages.
These ads were also similar in terms of how the story was told and the type of the
behavior they sought to affect. The environmental PSA portrays a group of 15 children
arm wrestling after school. One small bespectacled boy defeats all opponents and is later
shown turning off dripping facets. The resulting physical exercise, a viewer assumes, is
the source of his hidden strength. The sentence, “I want to conserve water” then appears
prior to the sponsor’s name, Haier, a major corporation producing household electronics.
The second advertisement was part of an anti-corruption drive. The anti-corruption PSA
shows the hands of a bureaucrat on a black desk. The bureaucrat is presented with a
document, which is rejected, until a gift appears, whereupon the document receives a
stamp of approval. Next, documents accompanied by a wrist watch, a credit card, and car
keys receive approval. The next items are a pair of handcuffs and an arrest notice that is
10 We would like to thank our research collaborator for this project, Professor Liu Linqing at Communication University of China, for providing us with these materials. As the organizer of the National PSA Competition he has the right to use these PSA for further research.
23
stamped “I approve.” The bureaucrat’s hands are then shown cuffed while a melodious
voice says “oppose corruption and promote clean government, know honor and
illuminate disgrace.” Each of these ads includes a surprising turn of events at the end of
the ad. Both ads start with a visual narrative, but the true intention of the story is only
subsequently revealed. Similarly, in both cases viewers are supposed to change their
habitual behavior by turning off water faucets and abstaining from giving gifts to
officials. These considerations suggest that any differences we find across experiments
are likely to result from characteristics associated with the issue rather than other features
associated with the ad itself.
In order to manipulate the source label we relied on examples submitted to the
National PSA Competition to construct two source labels. Many source labels in China
have a plain background on which the logo of the corporate or state sponsor is displayed.
Especially state labels usually list several institutions as sponsor. For example, the PSA
campaign to promote the “Welcome the 60th anniversary, be civilized“ PSA campaign to
prepare the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China in 2009 displayed the four
sponsoring organizations, including the Central Office of Spiritual Civilization (a branch
of the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party), the National
Commerce Administration, the National Administration of Radio, Film, and Television,
and the General Administration of Press and Publications. In-depth interviews with
officials and producers revealed that the number and rank of supporting institutions
displayed after the ad is seen as a sign of government support for the ad and thereby
increases its authoritariveness (Stockmann Forthcoming). In order to be able to compare
the effects of the content of the label we reduced the number of sponsoring institutions
24
displayed on the state label to one. We chose the most highest-ranking institution that is
usually involved in PSA campaigning at the central level for the state label the Central
Office of Spiritual Civilization, a branch of the Central Propaganda Department of the
Chinese Communist Party. For the corporate label we chose to display the logo of Haier,
a nationally recognized manufacturer of freezers, washing machines, televisions, water
heaters, air conditioners, and microwave ovens. In the past, Haier has supported PSA
campaigns. Both names were displayed in white on black background of equal size; in
case of the state label we chose the font that is commonly used in state labels for PSAs
and in case of the corporate label we displayed the actual logo of the company. Both
labels were shown five seconds after the respective PSA, which is the maximum length
permitted for PSA sponsors, according to official regulations.11
Manipulation Check
Did experimental participants receive the PSA messages while watching the
commercials prior to the CCTV news program? In order to determine if they had done so,
we measured the ability of the participant to correctly recall whether she had seen an
advertising on saving water or corruption. People were provided with a list of
commercials, including the explanation that some of them had appeared in the video and
some had not. They were asked to select the ads they had seen from the list. Since some
focus group participants had difficulties distinguishing between commercial
advertisements and PSAs, we deliberately used the term “commercial (guanggao)” in the
11 Guanyu Zuo Hao Gongyi Guanggao Xuanchuan de Tongzhi (Announcement on How to Do PSA Propaganda Well), CPD, SAIC, SARFT, GAPP, 4 August 1997, available at http://www.gapp.gov.cn/cms/cms/website/zcfgs/layout3/index.jsp?infoId=450908&channelId=782&siteId=48, accessed 24 November 2009.
25
question, not PSA (gongyi guanggao).12 The variables was coded “1” if the participant
correctly recalled to have seen the PSA contained in the video she had seen, otherwise
zero. Results indicate that 87.8 percent of participants who had seen the environmental
PSA could correctly recall the ad; 86.7 percent could correctly recall the anti-corruption
PSA. This small difference in the ability to recall between people who had seen the two
different ads was statistically insignificant (t = -0.08, p < 0.94). These results indicate that
about 85 to 90 percent of the audience during the golden time on television in China may
receive PSAs. It is possible that people paid more attention to commercial time than they
would when watching CCTV news at home, but even when assuming that these results
greatly overestimate people’s reception of PSAs, they still remain impressive.
Compared to recalling PSA content, being able to recall the source of these ads was
more difficult for participants. Most people were not able to recall correctly the content
of the source label displayed after the ads for only five seconds. At the end of the
questionnaire, we asked whether people had heard the term PSA (gongyi ganggao) before
and if they video had contained one. We then asked participants to describe its content
and which organization they thought had initiated the production of the ad.13 Among
people who said they had seen a PSA only four out of 60 people who had seen the state
label were able to recall the name of the Central Office of Spiritual Civilization; another
ten out of 60 named a central-level institution though not the correct one. None of the
participants mentioned the name of the corporation displayed on the corporate label.
These results may have two implications for the interpretation of the study’s findings:
12 Curiously, only 28.1 percent of people who watched the anti-corruption ad correctly identified it as a PSA. By comparison, 51.1 percent of people who watched the environmental ad correctly identified it as a PSA. 13 The term organization (jigou) can refer to non-governmental organizations and does not prime participants to think about state organizations.
26
first, if we find effects associated with the source label these effects are not likely to
operate cognitively. That is, if people cannot correctly recall the source of the ads due to
the short display of the source label, but there are still significant differences between
people who saw the same ads but with different labels, these effects must be associated
with mental shortcuts that are associated with the source label itself that is not stored in a
viewer’s memory. Second, we may find stronger effects of the state label compared to the
corporate label, because it may be easier to link the state label to PSA content. PSA are
typically embedded within a series of commercials, all of them having a corporate
sponsor. Therefore, if a corporate label is displayed immediately after the ad, it may be
identified as a separate commercial advertising rather than as a source label
corresponding to the PSA.
Measurement
This study examines the effects of the anti-corruption and environment ads on two
aspects of attitudes and behavior. The first aspect is persuasion that is directed toward
encouraging the behavior portrayed as desirable in the ad as well as to increase popular
trust and satisfaction with the central government. The second aspect concerns the
motivation of viewers to implement the behavior portrayed as desirable by the ad as well
as to obtain information about how to save water or fight corruption.
Persuasion
A first set of attitudinal questions refers to people’s support for fighting corruption
and protecting the environment. We created two indices based on participants’ strong
agreement, agreement, disagreement or strong disagreement of the following statements:
27
“We should protect the environment even though it may delay economic development;”
“We should protect water resources even though it will cause inconvenience; “Ordinary
citizens should not bribe government officials even if it makes things more difficult to get
done;” “Government officials should not take bribes even though all others do so.” These
attitudinal statements were developed based on focus group respondents’ interpretation of
the ads. Both scales run from 1 to 16, whereby higher numbers express more support for
each statement. When comparing the two scales people expressed slightly more support
for environmental protection than anti-corruption measures (mean_environment = 11.81;
mean_corruption = 11.24).14
In addition, we developed an index for trust in government based on people’s
response to the question: “Generally speaking how much do you trust the following
organizations: CCTV, local television stations, commercial enterprises, the central
government, and the local government.15 These items were based on similar formats
asked in two national public opinion surveys, the World Value Survey and the China
Survey, in order to allow for comparison. The variable runs from 1 to 16, whereby
higher numbers represent greater trust. This indicator can provide additional evidence for
legitimization of government policies by means of PSA and source-effects.16
14 Cronbach’s alpha for the environmental protection scale was 0.78, for the corruption scale 0.54. When using individual statements as dependent variables in the analysis, results do not significantly change. Results can be obtained from the author at [email protected]. 15 Cronbach’s alpha for the political trust scale was 0.72. 16 Since the state label referred to a party institution at the central level, we also examined people’s trust in the central government separately. Results are similar and can be obtained from the author at [email protected].
28
Behavioral Intention and Information-Seeking
To test whether PSA reinforce behavior we rely on subjective and objective
measures. A first question asked about a person’s personal behavioral intention: “Do you
have a clear idea about how to fight corruption / to conserve water? Responses were
coded as a dummy variable wherein “1“ refers to having a clear idea. We also asked
respondents to write down any specific ideas they had. Answers to this open-ended
question helped us to check whether the ideas people had about how to achieve the goals
promoted by the PSAs corresponded to the content of the ads. People mentioned many
measures, but had clearer ideas about how to conserve water compared to fighting
corruption. We regarded answers that mentioned controlling the water flow of water
fossets, abstaining from giving gifts to government officials, and punishment as answers
that related to PSA content. In addition, people frequently mentioned water recycling,
technology, regulation, and education and propaganda by the state as means to save
water. With respect to fighting corruption, people mentioned greater government
supervision, media independence, changing the political system, education and
propaganda by the state, reporting corrupt officials to relevant state institutions, and
increasing salaries of officials as anti-corruption measures. If people mentioned a method
they could implement on their own (for example, reporting corrupt officials or water-
recycling, we examined their responses to the follow-up question that asked whether the
participant planned to implement the methods she mentioned in the future. This variable,
which we call motivation, runs from 1 to 7, whereby higher numbers stand for greater
willingness to implement these methods.
29
In addition, we examined information-seeking as a means to observe the extent to
which people are mobilized to change their behavior as a result of having watched a PSA.
Previous research on PSA has relied frequently on measuring people’s self-reported
motivation and information-seeking, which may overstate actual behavioral effects.
Therefore, we rely on an objective measure. The questionnaire ended with the text: “If
you would like to learn more about environmental protection, strengthening the nation
though technology and science, or anti-corruption measures, we provide informational
materials in Room 409 in this building after all tasks have been completed.“ Room 409
was located one floor above the experimental location to impose a small cost on the
participant to obtain information. As mentioned earlier, we were careful not to pressure
participants to obtain information because of their participation in the study. In Room
409, a lab assistant provided participants with information material and was instructed to
note down which materials were taken and by whom. We interpret the decision by a
participant to seek additional information by requesting materials as a measure for
information-seeking as it requires a person to take the elevator or walk up the stairs and
search for the correct location.
Results on Persuasion
Our first hypothesis predicts that content will be positively related to support for
the message contained in the ad and political trust, if we observe any effects at all. If PSA
content works as intended by the Chinese state, we should also find that appeals to save
water and fight corruption should increase support of the government. Our second
hypothesis leads us to expect that people will become more supportive of the message,
30
depending on their perceived levels of trust in either the state or corporate sponsor of the
ad. If the state is considered more trustworthy than corporations, we should find a more
positive effect, or the reverse. To test these hypotheses, we estimate the impact of PSAs
and source labels on support for environmental protection, anti-corruption measures.
Insert Table 2 about here
Table 2 displays the result of our first test. Each column represents a separate OLS
regression equation where support for environmental protection, anti-corruption
measures, and political trust is regressed upon dummy variables for each treatment
condition, with the control group as the excluded category (reference variable). With this
specification, we can directly compare the size of the effects of the content with those of
the source labels. To guard against the possibility that differences in the distribution of
socio-demographic characteristics might account for differences observed, we control for
gender, education, holder of a local residency permit, and age.17 We also control for the
likelihood of the respondent to try to guess a desirable answer and the perceived source
of the ad. As pointed out above, the perceived source of the PSA differed considerably
from a participant’s actual exposure to the source label. The functional form of the model
is as follows:
uControlsabelCorporateLStateLabeltalPSAEnvironmenPSACorruptionAntirustPoliticalTSupport
+++
++!+=
43
210/""
"""
Our hypotheses hinge on the magnitude of coefficients for 1! , 2! , 3! , and 4! .
17 There are no significant differences in the distributions of these variables across cells, and excluding these controls does not alter the direction or magnitude of the results.
31
In contrast to the Chinese government’s intent when propagating political content in
television ads, the content itself does not have a positive effect on either support for
environmental protection, anti-corruption measures, or political trust. Instead, exposure to
PSAs has a negative effect on these attitudes. This effect is most visible with respect to
trust in the government as displayed in both size and statistical significance of the
coefficients, but even with respect to support for the political messages contained in each
ad the coefficients are going in the same direction. We believe that this negative effect
may be caused by the fact that PSAs deal with problems that the government is trying to
solve by means of campaigning. Watching a PSA may prime people to think about these
problems, thus influencing their evaluation of the government and specific policies.
With respect to source label effects, we find that the display of the state label has a
strong and significant impact on attitudes, particularly trust in government. The
coefficient for groups that have seen the state label makes them two points more trusting
than groups that have not seen any PSA or a PSA without any label. By contrast, the
display of the corporate label is not as impressive in magnitude or statistical significance.
As in case of PSA content, these results are mirrored when analyzing support for
environmental protection and anti-corruption measures, but not statistically significant.
As mentioned earlier, these results already take into account the actual perceptions people
have of sponsorship of the PSA as we control for those perceptions in the analysis.18
Is the positive effect of the state label really a result of positive affect associated with
the central government? We believe so. During cued recall (see above), we also asked
people how much they liked the ad, provided that they recalled having seen it. We found
18 The size of coefficients for these control variables are not statistically significant. Results can be obtained from the authors through email correspondence with [email protected].
32
that people who had seen the state label were consistently more likely to report that they
liked the ad, provided that participants had correctly recalled the ad. Participants who
could correctly recall having seen an ad about environmental protection tended to like the
ad somewhat without any label (mean = 3.22; s.d. = 0.7), but even better when the state
label was displayed afterwards (mean = 3.39; s.d. = 0.64). Similarly, people who could
correctly recall having seen an ad about fighting corruption somewhat liked the ad
without any label (mean = 3.0; s.d. = 0.65), but liked the state label even more (mean =
3.39; 0.57). These results suggest that people transferred some attributions of the state
label onto perceptions of the ad itself.
We are also confident that the positive coefficient for groups that saw the state label
is based on truthful responses to the question rather than coercion. First, people in those
two treatment conditions were quite frank when expressing their opinions on anti-
corruption measures. When asked to explain their ideas about how to solve corruption,
people who had seen a state label responded, for example: “the power should not be in
one hand;” “through opening of the government, media independence, and supervision of
the masses;” “by establishing independent departments that have absolute
implementation rights, do not need to report to higher levels, and that have the right to
directly investigate.” Similarly, in our four focus groups we showed the same
environmental and anti-corruption PSAs and encouraged people to discuss them. Just as
in the experiment, we also found that people were quite opposed to the idea that
corporations, such as Haier, used PSA as a means to promote their brand names. They
overwhelmingly favored the state as the sponsor of PSAs. This was true across age
groups, education levels, and gender (Esarey, et al. 2011).
33
Furthermore, we explicitly take into account the possibility that participants may give
responses to questions that they feel are desirable for study. Although we created an
elaborate and credible cover story to divert the participant’s attention away from the true
goal of the study, some participants still tried to guess what they perceived as the right
answer. We could compare people’s answers to the recall of ads and their descriptions of
the PSA in the end of the questionnaire with the actual ads they had seen. We also took
into account whether people were able to provide a description of an ad when stating that
the video they watched had contained a PSA. Based on these responses we constructed a
scale to assess a person’s likelihood to guess the “right” answer and controlled for it in
the analysis. About 50 percent of people did not attempt to guess, 38 percent guessed a
little bit, 11.1 attempted to guess, and 1.4 were highly likely to guess.
Behavioral Intention and Information-Seeking
Our third hypothesis predicts that content and/or source label of the PSA should make
people more likely to come up with concrete ideas about how to address the problem
raised in the PSA and to seek information about it. If PSA content works as intended by
the Chinese state, we should find that appeals to conserve water and fight corruption will
motivate people to implement the measures displayed as solution to the problems of
water shortage and corruption. To test this hypothesis, we estimate the impact of PSAs
and source labels on people’s likelihood to have a clear idea about how to save water and
fight corruption. If people had ideas that they could implement in their personal lives,
they should also express motivation to employ these measures in the future.
34
Table 3 displays the result of our second test. Each column represents a separate
regression equation where having a clear idea about how to save water, fight corruption,
and people’s motivation to implement their proposed solutions is regressed upon dummy
variables for each treatment condition, with the control group as the excluded category.
Since having a clear idea is a dummy variable, we employ probit maximum likelihood
estimation, while ordinary least-squares regression analysis is used to examine effects on
motivation. In all cases, positive coefficients indicate a higher behavioral intention. As
before, we use the same functional form of the model and include the same control
variables.
Insert Table 3 about here
In contrast to persuasion, we find that PSA content and labels have different effects,
depending on which issue the PSA deals with. As mentioned earlier, environmental
protection is more closely related to people’s personal lives than corruption, which relates
primarily to government officials. Therefore, PSA content on water conservation inspires
people more than the anti-corruption PSA to think about how they personally could
contribute to addressing the problem.
The average Beijinger in our experimental sample (a man with a high-school degree,
37 years of age with a Beijing residency permit) was about 35 percent likely to have a
clear idea about how to conserve water without having seen the ad. Yet just having
watched the environmental PSA made him 58 percent likely to express a clear idea. The
content of the ad made 23 percentage points of a difference. By contrast the source label
35
had the reverse effect. While we still observe a positive effect for the state label it is this
time not statistically significant. Instead, the corporate label turns out to make people
more resistant to the message contained in the ad. The average Beijinger in our sample
was only about 19 percent likely to express a clear idea about how to save water when
having seen a corporate label, 16 percent less likely than when not having seen it. For the
environmental PSA, the corporate source label mitigated the positive effect of the
message contained in the PSA. It is important to note that the ideas expressed about how
to solve the problem of water conservation were not directly taken from the ad itself.
While many people mentioned turning off the water faucet, they were not more likely to
give this response when having seen the environmental PSA. Therefore, we believe that
the ideas displayed as desirable in the ad served as a stimulant, but not necessarily as the
blueprint for behavior. Somewhat surprisingly, this stimulation to think about solutions
did not lead to higher motivation among participants. None of the treatment conditions
stood out as motivating people to express an interest in seeking information about how to
conserve water.
With respect to corruption, we observed almost the reverse effects. As in case of
persuasion, the content of the anti-corruption PSA related negatively and the state label
positively with people having ideas about how to solve corruption. Yet none of these
results were statistically significant. This is probably related to the fact that most people
did not see the content of the anti-corruption PSA as relating to their personal lives. Only
few respondents mentioned anti-corruption measures that people could initiate
themselves, such as abstaining from giving gifts to officials or reporting corruption. Most
people raised measures that required the state (primarily the central government) to take
36
the initiative through regulation, political reform, or raising the salaries of officials. This
disconnect between the anti-corruption PSA and ordinary citizens was consistent with our
four focus groups in which people welcomed the corruption ad, although many
considered it to be aimed at deterring officials from taking bribes (Esarey et al, 2011).
Despite the small numbers of participants who had some ideas about how to address
corruption themselves, once people expressed such a notion they felt more motivated to
implement it, provided that they noticed a source label. Comparatively, the effect of the
state label was more powerful than the corporate label, although just having seen a well-
known brand name after the PSA made people about 1.6 points more motivated, which is
about 23 percent on the 7 point Likert-scale. On the whole, viewing the PSA made people
less motivated to implement anti-corruption measures.
Once we imposed a small cost on people’s motivation to change their behavior or
seek information about how to do so, even the strong effect of the state label with respect
to anti-corruption measures fades away. Among our sample of 210 Beijingers, only two
people took the initiative to ask for additional information. One was a 22-year-old highly
educated male had seen the environmental PSA with a state label and the other one a 44-
year-old less educated woman who had only seen the anti-corruption PSA, although
without any label. Only the latter took the time to find the room and get information. She
picked two reports that explained how to fight corruption, three about how to conserve
water, and one about how to strengthen the country through advancements in science and
technology (the topic of the news report). Neither person had indicated in the
questionnaire that they had concrete ideas about how to address water shortage or
corruption.
37
Overall, while we found some effects of PSA content and source labels on people’s
behavioral intention and motivation to solve problems in the future, these effects face
hurdles when citizens are making choices about how to behave in practice. While this
study shows that one individual PSA may not have the power to make people give up
something else (in this case time) in order to learn more information about saving water
and fighting corruption, these hurdles may be able to overcome when PSA campaigns
create an environment in which failure to comply with the behavior displayed as
desirable in the ad becomes costly. This may explain why case studies of specific anti-
corruption campaigns or the “Welcome the Olympics, be civilized” campaign in 2008
have found a relationship between PSA campaigning and aggregate changes in behavior
among ordinary citizens (Manion 2004, Brady 2009).
Implications for Political Trust in China
Our findings on the positive effect of the state label on trust in the central
government provide a definite answer to a key question that is debated among researchers
of regime legitimacy, satisfaction with government, and political trust in China. It is a
well-established fact that the Chinese government, particularly the central government,
enjoys high levels of political support as expressed in public opinion polls general. In a
survey conducted in 1993, 94 percent of the respondents expressed trust and willingness
to obey the government (Chen and Shi 2001). Surveys conducted in Beijing in 1995,
1997, 1999, 2001, and 2002 are roughly consistent with these findings (Chen, et al. 1997,
Chen 2004, Wang 2006). Trust in local governments tends to be somewhat lower,
38
whereby it decreases when moving from the center to provinces, counties, townships,
towards villages (Li 2004).
A first group of researchers treats these survey responses as truthful responses
reflecting a support for the rule of the CCP and explores the sources of popular support
for the government. For example, (Shi 2001) argued that traditional values such as filial
piety and respect for hierarchy exert a strong influence on high levels of political trust in
both China and Taiwan. (Nathan 2003) speculated that diversification of the media plays
an important role in explaining China’s high levels of political trust. (Chen and Shi 2001)
found that government propaganda has not influenced popular levels of confidence in the
government, while (Kennedy 2009) showed a strong positive relationship. (Stockmann
2010) argued that these differences can be explained by varying levels of media
credibility and that marketized media remain powerful propaganda instruments in China.
In addition to traditional values and propaganda, scholars have also found that financial
well-being and improved living standards has made citizens satisfied with government
performance (see, for example, Wang 2006).
Yet many of these studies have received strong criticism - less in publications
than at conferences - by researchers that suspect a large social desirability bias in Chinese
survey responses to questions on the political legitimacy of the Chinese government.19
This criticism is often based on a view that the Chinese political system relies strongly on
coercion to sustain its rule. As a result, citizens are afraid of the consequences when
revealing dissatisfaction and are therefore hesitant to reveal the true opinions about their
19 On a similar rationale underlying this argument see the dictator’s dilemma (Wintrobe, 1998).
39
satisfaction with politics and the degree to which they support the regime.20 In response,
researchers of the first group usually bring up measures of political fear based on survey
questions (Li 2004, Wang 2006). Unfortunately, without systematic list experiments
survey questions alone cannot measure political fear accurately, since people who are
fearful are unlikely to give truthful answers.21
Our experimental results clearly dispute such an interpretation of the results. In
our experiment, affect towards the Chinese central party-state is automatically activated
upon mere exposure to the name of a central party institution, leading to greater
persuasive effects of PSA on political trust. In our experiment, people were engaging in
online-processing of information: when people receive a piece of information, for
example a political candidate, the affective component affiliated with a concept (for
example, the candidate) is stored in long-term memory, but the actual content that lead to
the final evaluation is lost (Lodge, et al. 1995 1995). When people were asked how much
they trusted the central government, they gave more positive answers when the concept
its associated affective component was prompted. They even transferred positive
attributions of the state label onto their evaluations of the PSA message.
These results are significant and strong even though our manipulation check
revealed that people were unable to correctly recall the source of the PSA, even when
looking for general references to central government institutions more broadly. The
inability to recall the state as a source makes the affective response affiliated with the
20 See Zhengxu Wang, "Explaining Regime Strength in China," China: An International Journal 4, no. 2 (2006). for a summary of this argument. 21 On list experiments see Daniel Corstange, "Sensitive Questions, Truthful Answers? Modeling the List Experiment Multivariately with Listit," Political Analysis 17, no. 1 (2009), Adam Glynn, "What Can We Learn with Statistical Truth Serum? Design and Analysis of the List Experiment," in Midwest Political Science Association Conference (Chicago2010)..
40
state label extremely difficult to be overturned by a later conscious, cognitive assessment.
Yet this cognitive assessment is arguably required, if people would overstate their trust in
the central government. Social desirability bias occurs after a person has made up their
mind on a survey question when reporting the opinion to the interviewer (Berinsky 2004).
To over-report trust in government would arguably require that people who sat the state
label would remember having seen it in the ad, thus being more sensitive to questions
related to the government. In addition to our results of liking, the inability to recall the
state label further strengthens our confidence that over-reporting occurs as a result of
political fear.
Insert Table 4 about here
This is not to say that we did not observe any social desirability bias. By contrast,
we actually discovered that about 50 percent of participants were giving overly positive
responsive to our questions. Since we knew the specific content each control and
treatment group’s video, we could check the answers people gave to a set of recall
questions with the actual content they had been exposed to. We then created a dummy
variable for people who gave overly positive responses, including people who said they
recall watching an ad on corruption or environmental protection while in fact they had
not seen it, people who said they had seen a PSA, but guess in an open-ended follow-up
question that they must have seen a PSA on the environment or corruption because there
were many questions on these issues in the survey questionnaire, but in reality they had
not seen the ad. 46.6 percent of our sample gave at least one of the above responses,
41
which we believe was motivated by a desire to please the researchers, even though the
true intention of the experiment was only revealed to participants afterwards.22 Therefore,
we believe that high levels of political support for the central government in Chinese
surveys may be partially inflicted as some participants have a tendency to give positive
responses to survey questions. However, overly positive responses are unlikely to result
from political fear: When we examined the characteristics of participants who engaged in
this bias, we found that having watched the state label did not prompt such a response.
Instead, people were most likely to engage in guessing the “right” (and positive) response
when they did not have a Beijing hukou or had low levels of income (see table 4).
Overall, these findings lead us to conclude that high levels of political trust in
China is indeed exaggerated, but not due to fear of repression, but possibly because of
participants’ intention to please the interviewer. In our experiment, the average level of
reported trust in the central government was 3.38 (s.d. = 0.69), while the average level of
precisely the same survey question asked in the World Value Survey 2001 was 3.36.23
Although the experience of participating in a survey conducted by face-to-face interviews
may be less artificial than in this experiment, these results suggest that guessing may also
influence survey responses. To our surprise, people who were trying to please us, by
guessing the “right” answer did not report higher levels of trust in government.24 Instead,
the average person participating in our experiment was less likely to be supportive of
22 A scale developed based on these questions was included as a control variable in the statistical analyses presented in the previous section. 23 Calculated based on descriptive statistics in table 1 in Wang, "Explaining Regime Strength in China," 221.. 24 In table 2 and 3, guessing was a control variable. In these statistical models, guessing is only substantially significant for dependent variables displayed in table 1 (support and political trust). Coefficients are -3.967*** (s.e. = 1.452); -2.903** (s.e. = 1.324); -1.510 (s.e. = 1.120) on support for anti-corruption, environmental protection, and political trust, respectively.
42
either anti-corruption or environmental protection measures and to express support for
central-level political institutions. We are not sure why guessing worked in favor of
positive responses in one instance, but not in the other. It may be the case that this
particular group of people only tried to guess when asked about the content of the video
they had seen, but gave honest responses to questions unrelated to the content of the
treatment. We are highly confident, however, that guessing was not caused by political
fear prompted by exposure to the concept of the Chinese central party-state.
Conclusion
Assessing the effects of political advertising on attitudes and behavior in China is
a challenging enterprise. Nevertheless, an approach drawing upon multiple methods,
including interviews, focus groups, and experimental testing has promise for advancing
scholarly understanding of the extent to which modern, marketized propaganda affects
the world’s largest television audience. An advantage of the experimental component of
this study is that it allowed us to determine that political advertising, to which the
Chinese state is deeply committed, actually does affect public opinion and to some extent
how. This objective was particularly important because our focus group data suggested
that viewers may instinctively tune out advertisements by changing the channel or
engaging in other tasks. The finding that more than 85 percent of experiment participants
could recall the ads they saw suggests that people do receive the messages of PSAs,
although in the case of the experiments the participants did not have the choice of
switching the channel. PSAs appear, therefore, to serve as a powerful form of political
communication.
43
The experiments revealed a complex picture of PSA effects. Contrary to our
expectations, advertisements that mention problems, such as water conservation or
corruption, actually reduce trust in government, which is the opposite of the effect
desired by the government. This finding can perhaps be explained by the fact that in a
country ruled by a one-party regime with hegemonic powers there is often only the state
to blame for political problems in the absence of clear avenues for efficacious citizen
participation in politics. Yet when viewers recognize PSAs as state sponsored messages,
the PSA seemed more likely to increase trust in government. Ostensibly, the viewers
assumption was that state support for issues such as anti-corruption efforts reflects the
genuine desire to improve governance. This indicates that PSA effects may swing based
on audience attentiveness and the presence of a state label. Counter-intuitively, when
observers do not identify the state as the source of an ad, broadcasting PSAs that
highlight social ills may well prove counter productive. Effective manipulation of
propaganda to increase public support for the state, in other words, may be a more
delicate task than the regime comprehends.
The difference between the effects of the PSA treatments concerning anti-
corruption efforts and water conservation was also instructive. People seemed to view the
former as the purview of the government and as a problem that only the state could
address. In fact, bribery is a two-way street that intimately involves some, although not
all, citizens. If people are willing to bribe officials, in a context in which there is little fear
of punishment on either side, officials are likely to accept bribes. In China, however, the
public places blame on the corrupt official who, social mores suggest, should be above
such conduct. The PSA pertaining to water conservation did not spur many people to
44
assume the minor cost of collecting additional information, but it did get people to think
about solving the problem, even if it was not clear they would upon act upon the
solutions. One explanation for this could be a sense of apathy among the Chinese public
that is rooted in the view that individual actions related to water conservation will have
little impact on the problem.
In both the focus groups and the experiments, we found compelling evidence that
the ability of observant viewers to identify of the state as the source of PSAs is conducive
to audience approval of ads. This indicates that in the 21st century the Chinese public
remains highly supportive of state propaganda, a circumstance that empowers the state to
use PSA to guide public opinion, set the public agenda, and influence political
preferences through public advertising campaigns. On the whole, this research suggests
the Chinese state has considerable capacity to promote attitudes that resonate with the
public by harnessing the power of television and modern advertising tactics. Under such
circumstances the regime can use media power to better protects its own interests and is
more likely to survive pressure to cede greater authority to political challengers. The
public’s acceptance of the state’s power over propaganda, in other words, contributes to
authoritarian resilience and may increase the longevity of the one-party regime.
45
Figures and Tables
Table 1. Experimental Treatment and Control Groups.
Control or Treatment
Group Name
Video Content
CCTV
Program Precast
Commercials Treatment Xinwen Lianbo
Control Group
Environmental PSA
Environmental PSA; no label
Environmental State Label PSA
Environmental PSA; state label
Environmental Corporate Label
PSA
Environmental PSA; corporate
label
Anti-corruption PSA
Anti-corruption PSA;
no label
Anti-corruption State Label PSA
Anti-corruption PSA; state label
Anti-corruptionl Corporate Label
PSA
Anti-corruption PSA; corporate
label
46
Table 2. Support for Anti-Corruption and Environmental Protection Measures,
Political Trust and Satisfaction, by Condition25
Independent Variables
Support for Anti-
Corruption Measures
Support for Environmental
Protection Measures
Trust in Government
Exposure to Anti-Corruption PSA
-0.424 (1.180)
-0.534 (1.076)
-1.576* (0.911)
Exposure to Environmental PSA
-0.306 (1.209)
-0.634 (1.102)
-1.653* (0.932)
Exposure to State Label
0.334 (0.901)
0.953 (0.821)
2.076*** (0.695)
Exposure to Corporate Label
0.178 (0.899)
0.198 (0.820)
0.337 (0.694)
Constant 10.821*** (1.901)
12.652*** (1.734)
8.252*** (1.467)
N 208 208 208 R-Squared 0.06 0.06 0.14 *** p<0.01; ** p<0.05; * p<0.1;
25 Entries for support variables are ordinary least-squares regression coefficients. Controls in each analysis, not shown here, include perceptions of PSA source as central-level institution, a state or party institution, CCTV, educational degree, gender, holder of a Beijing residency permit, age, and the degree to which a person tried to guess the right answer to other questions. Sample sizes for each cell were n=30; significance tests are one-tailed.
47
Table 3. Behavioral Intention (among all Participants) and Motivation (among
Participants who have Ideas that they can Implement in their own Lives).26
Independent Variables
Idea about Anti-
Corruption Measures
Motivation to Implement
Anti-Corruption Measures
Idea about Environmental
Protection Measures
Motivation to Implement
Environmental Protection Measures
Exposure to Anti-Corruption PSA
-0.273 (0.338)
-1.657 (1.186)
0.130 (0.331)
-0.063 (0.249)
Exposure to Environmental PSA
-0.524 (0.355)
-2.586* (1.253)
0.625* (0.339)
-0.033 (0.252)
Exposure to State Label
0.213 (0.263)
1.586** (0.673)
-0.290 (0.253)
-0.056 (0.182)
Exposure to Corporate Label
-0.265 (0.274)
1.264* (0.670)
-0.507** (0.257)
0.135 (0.192)
Constant 0.183 (0.549)
7.170*** (1.523)
-0.480 (0.528)
7.143*** (0.406)
N 208 35 208 104 R-Squared / Pseudo R-Squared 0.11 0.43 0.16 0.10
*** p/z<0.01; ** p/z<0.05; * p/z<0.1;
26 Entries for behavioral intention variables are probit regression coefficients, entries for self-perceived information-seeking ordinary least-squares regression coefficients. Controls in each analysis, not shown here, include perceptions of PSA source as central-level institution, a state or party institution, CCTV, educational degree, gender, holder of a Beijing residency permit, age, and the degree to which a person tried to guess the right answer to other questions; Significance tests are one-tailed.
48
Table 4. Likelihood of Guessing (among all Participants).27
Independent Variables
Idea about Anti-
Corruption Measures
Exposure to State Label
0.03 (0.23)
Exposure to Corporate Label
-0.18 (0.22)
Educational Degree -0.4 (0.34)
Educational Degree Squared
0.23 (0.34)
Female -0.04 (0.18)
Age -0.03 (0.05)
Age Squared 0.00 (0.00)
CCP Member 0.27 (0.32)
Beijing Hukou -0.37 (0.25)
Income (logged) 0.82** (0.37)
Constant 1.37 (1.16)
N 208 Pseudo R-Squared 0.07 *** z<0.01; ** z<0.05; * z<0.1;
27 Entries for independent variables are probit regression coefficients; Significance tests are one-tailed. Results remain consistent when controlling for interviewer effects.
49
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