Censorship Research Articles

Participatory Censorship in Authoritarian Regimes

Contrary to the conventional top-down view of government censorship, this study argues that ordinary citizens in authoritarian regimes frequently participate in censorship by reporting online content. I hypothesize that such participation in censorship partially explains the high level of public support for censorship found in existing surveys. Using an original survey in China, I demonstrate that participation in censorship is indeed prevalent, with over half of the respondents self-report having previously flagged online content, and that such participation is positively correlated with support for the censorship apparatus. To causally test the hypothesis, I conduct a pre-registered experiment using custom-engineered, simulated social media pages to manipulate reporting behavior. The results show that respondents encouraged to report simulated posts display significantly higher support for the censorship apparatus. This study highlights the role of ordinary citizens in facilitating authoritarian control and explains why repressive apparatus like censorship can be popular with the population.

Rise of Digital Authoritarianism? Exploring Global Motivations Behind Governmental Social Media Censorship

Social media has been a crucial online space, yet our comprehension of government censorship remains limited by insufficient research. This study addresses this scholarly gap by probing two key inquiries: censorship's motives and evolutionary course. An analysis of 360 censorship incidents from 2006 to 2023 across 76 countries examines three primary rationales: political, social, and security, with political motives prevailing. The reasons for censorship vary across platforms and years, with political and social factors predominantly impacting Facebook and YouTube, while security concerns notably affect TikTok and Telegram. Regional disparities in censorship underscore the prevalence of political motives in Asia and Africa, social factors in South Asia and the MENA region, and security concerns in North America, Europe, and Oceania—the entirety of the Western world. The escalating social media censorship, particularly driven by political and social considerations since 2015, underscores a broader trend of dwindling democracy and burgeoning digital authoritarianism globally. We presume that a nation's democratic environment indicates its social media censorship practices, suggesting the nexus of local and global politics with technology complicates the understanding of social media censorship.

The Lord Is Kind-Hearted And Cannot See The Poor: Social Reflections On The Film”Return To Dust”

Chinese cinema has always played an important role in spreading culture and transmitting values. As a kind of audio-visual media, it needs to be able to reflect social reality, moral concepts as well as cultural values in a profound way. However, in China, which has a strict film censorship system, the production and dissemination of films are strictly controlled and restricted by the government censorship system. There is a film Return to Dust, which created heat through many self-media, such as XiaoHongShu and DOUYIN, before its release, in which the previews showed real rural literary scenes that attracted wide attention. After its release, the social aspect of the film explored the deep-seated human emotions and regional issues, and a month later, the film was taken off the shelves, instantly triggering a wide-ranging discussion on censorship standards and artistic freedom [1]. Return to Dust, as a literary film, is sufficiently rich in cultural connotation and social significance for the audience. The film uses linear storytelling to show the current situation of the rural underclass in Northwest China during the four seasons of the year, the social ills and the complexity of human nature, which triggers the audience to think about "suffering". However, it is worth noting that although the film shows the "suffering", it also shows the warmth of the two underclass people, i.e. the goodness and beauty of human nature. However, such films with sensitive social issues are often restricted by the Chinese government's censorship. Exploring the reasons why Return to Dust has not been accepted by the modern Chinese government is not only a critical reflection on the censorship results of the film, but also a profound analysis of the censorship standards, value orientations, and the ideology of the censors behind the censorship system of Chinese cinema

Browsing and believing: divergent effects of internet use on government trust in Central Asia

ABSTRACT How does the use of the internet by citizens affect their trust in government and political participation? Previous research has yielded conflicting results. We hypothesize that in authoritarian contexts the passive use of the internet will be associated with lower trust in the government and lower political participation while the active use of the internet will be associated with higher trust in the government and higher political participation. Individuals, who receive the news through the internet, will tend to be sceptical about their governments because they will be exposed to alternative sources of information not controlled by the authoritarian government. The more extensively individuals use the internet for creating content, the more positively they will view the government owing to the effects of the self-selection process of acting under government censorship. Using 11 waves of survey data from four Central Asian countries we test our theoretical conjectures and find support for them.

The production of girls’ love narrative in Couple of Mirrors (2021) through transmedia storytelling in contemporary China

ABSTRACT There has been a relative dearth of scholarly discussions surrounding the production of girls’ love (GL) narratives in mainland China since the 2010s. This article offers an illustrative case study of a successful GL multimedia storyworld, Couple of Mirrors (CM), which unfolds across a webtoon, a novel, and a web series. First, this article scrutinizes the multilevel state regulation on queer content creation in different media formats. Second, we draw on Henry Jenkins’ canonical conceptualisation of “transmedia storytelling” to delineate the ways that the production of CM differs from the mainstream BL transmedia stories. Through a textual and paratextual analysis of official producers’ and fans’ participation, we argue that CM’s transmedia storytelling creates explicit GL elements through negotiation between market preferences, heteropatriarchal ideologies, and governmental censorship. In doing so, we show that CM represents a successful non-heteronormative cultural commodity within the mainland Chinese media market.

In the Name of National Security: Press Censorship in Cold War Australia

Though little known, a system of voluntary press censorship based on the British D Notice system operated in Australia during the Cold War. The Australian D Notice system, while successful in the early decades of the Cold War, became increasingly contested throughout the 1970s before apparently falling into disuse in the 1980s. The belief that Australia’s D Notice system simply decayed through lack of use is generally accepted by scholars; however, this explanation does not sufficiently convey the complexity behind the breakdown of the system. The system relies heavily on trust and requires a degree of transparency between governments and the press. This article makes the case that a broadening of the definition of national security combined with the simultaneous growth of both investigative journalism and the perception of increased government secrecy was the ultimate cause of the failure of the D Notice system in Australia.

Evading Censorship. Spanish Radio Disobedience During Late Francoism

Unlike in neighbouring countries, Spanish radio stations were subject to a severe censorship regime for most of the twentieth century. After the end of the civil war (1939), General Franco’s regime issued regulations to control the press and radio. In the case of newspapers, the Press Act (1966) eased this surveillance, but such relief did not apply to radio broadcasting. However, in the second half of Franco’s dictatorship, some local stations and, especially, a nation-wide radio station (Cadena SER) tried to bypass restrictions set by the authorities. This article covers different initiatives, paying special attention to those developed by Cadena SER, which played a decisive role in liberalising information. To this end, journalists who played a key role in this transition were interviewed. As a result of this research, it has been observed that, despite the threats, disobedience was a constant from the 1960s onwards. Such disobedience was not always aimed at fighting the regime during this time of social change, but also responded to the broadcasters’ commercial strategies. It has also been found that certain authorities facilitated these activities through their personal influence.

Beyond the lens: More-than-human encounters in Yin Hong’s Himalayan science education filmmaking

The post-1949 production of China’s science education films has not received enough scholarly attention. This article treats Yin Hong’s Himalayan filmmaking as a prism through which we can rethink science education films’ propaganda missions, knowledge-making modalities, promotion of environmental awareness, and status in Chinese film and overall cultural history. Yin Hong’s film texts, produced under strict government censorship in Mao-era China, propagated the ideology of transforming and mastering nature for socialist development. Nev­ertheless, through investigating personal writings of Yin Hong and other scientists, the article illustrates that the filmmaker’s on-site filming practices embody an epistemic space where personal and embodied encounters with nature cannot be reduced to a “nature-conquering” mission. His filming journey demonstrates more-than-human encounters, where nonhuman nature is not just a subjectable and silent object but actively reshapes filming practices. Shifting analytic focus from representations to practices, the article advocates for a rediscovery of science education filmmaking in China.

Press charges: renegotiating free speech and citizenship in post-partition Delhi

ABSTRACT This article examines the conflict between press censorship and free speech in post-partition Delhi, focusing on the Urdu press. It demonstrates how conflicts over free speech became a focal point for the intersection of two fundamental tensions underlying postcolonial state formation—between civil liberties and the authoritarian legacy of colonial rule, and between a secular democracy and a religion-based partition. The article explores the Urdu refugee dailies that relocated from Lahore to Delhi amid the partition upheaval and emerged as significant media voicing refugees’ interests, often at the expense of Muslim residents. Their provocative writings simultaneously challenged the boundaries of free speech and advanced an exclusionary notion of citizenship based on blood-based descent (jus sanguinis). This narrow conception of citizenship, underlying the partition migrations themselves, challenged the secularist vision of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. In response, the Delhi administration took actions against the refugee papers, making them central to contemporary struggles over press censorship. By taking the state to court, refugee editors promoted citizens’ right to free speech, but simultaneously advanced a circumscribed notion of ethno-religious citizenship. Navigating this dual role, the article unveils the exclusions and contradictions that marked citizenship formation in the early postcolonial period.

Censorship on Japanese anime imported into mainland China

Japanese anime experiences a bumpy road on mainland China's online platforms, with constant removals and edits. This has led audiences to express dissatisfaction and scholars to call on the government to develop a systematic censorship system. However, the need for improved censorship measures is not limited to the government. At least three types of subjects are involved in the censorship process of Japanese anime on online platforms. Taking Bilibili, a Chinese video platform, as a case study, we classify censorship on Japanese anime into government censorship, public censorship, and self-censorship. As the case study shows, these three types of censorship demonstrate dynamic relationships of opposition, coordination, and unity, instead of a unilateral act of government pressure, and there is no simple antagonistic relationship between the subjects. We propose advice for each subject, expecting to alleviate the current conflicts and establish more reasonable interactions between the three parties for introducing and censoring Japanese anime.

“This Is a Political Play”: Making Coriolanus Relevant in Contemporary Iran

Abstract: This article traces the performance history of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus in Iran, focusing on the most recent production of the play directed by Mostafa Koushki (b. 1984), performed between 2019 and 2020 in Tehran, Iran, and Kerala, India. Based on an original in-person interview with Koushki conducted by one of the authors in Tehran in July 2020, the article discusses how the production reflected and responded to the country’s volatile political climate. The analysis considers how various elements, including the minimalist set and costumes as well as gender-neutral casting, work together to communicate the production’s criticism of the current state of affairs in the Islamic Republic while staying within the boundaries imposed on theatre performances by the Iranian censorship regime .

“A New Age for the Living Dead”: Palestinian Nation-Building Through Theater

This article is an attempt to trace the emergence and development of Palestinian theater in the shadow of the Israeli-Arab conflict and against the background of the Nakba and Palestinian nation-building. It examines the first dramatic and theatrical attempts made during the first half of the twentieth century, the uprooting and the decline of these efforts after the 1948 War, the repression of Palestinian cultural activities during the 1950s, and the new start and subsequent growth of professional Palestinian theater after 1967, espe- cially with regard to the al-Ḥakawātī troupe. The founder of this troupe was François Abū Sālim (Abu Salem) (1951-2011), the son of a Hungarian-born French poet and a French painter and sculptor, who integrated himself into Palestinian identity and culture. The pro- fessionalization of Palestinian theater in general has been taking a line parallel to the escalation of resistance and has lived up to numerous historical challenges, defying the hardships imposed on the Palestinian people by Israeli government censorship, geographical isolation, and lack of education.

‘The Root and Flower of a People's Strength’: On the Bi-centenary of The South African Commercial Advertiser and The South African Journal, 1824–2024

The South African Commercial Advertiser, a weekly, and The South African Journal, a bi-monthly, were published in Cape Town in 1824, until the publisher George Greig and the editors Thomas Pringle and John Fairbairn closed down in the face of the threat of government censorship. In effect, the two overlapped in their coverage and the newspaper and the magazine (or review) are best read together as articulations of the general aims of the triumvirate of editors and publishers. This paper seeks to describe and evaluate the South African scope and achievement of these two publications.

Supreme Court Impacts in Public Health Law: 2023-2024.

In a "mixed bag" 2023-2024 session, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a series of decisions both favorable and antithetical to public health and safety. Taking on tough constitutional issues implicating gun control, misinformation, and homelessness, the Court also avoided substantive reviews in favor of procedural dismissals in key cases involving reproductive rights and government censorship.

Social Media and Collective Action in China

This paper studies how social media affects the dynamics of protests and strikes in China during 2009–2017. Based on 13.2 billion microblog posts, we use tweets and retweets to measure social media communication across cities and exploit its rapid expansion for identification. We find that, despite strict government censorship, Chinese social media has a sizeable effect on the geographical spread of protests and strikes. Furthermore, social media communication considerably expands the scope of protests by spreading events across different causes (e.g., from anticorruption protests to environmental protests) and dramatically increases the probability of far‐reaching protest waves with simultaneous events occurring in many cities. These effects arise even though Chinese social media barely circulates content that explicitly helps organize protests.

Misinformation or Censorship? The Impact of Government Censorship on Credibility of Government Propaganda

Misinformation or Censorship? The Impact of Government Censorship on Credibility of Government Propaganda

הצנזורה על סרטי קולנוע ערביים במדינת ישראל, 1967-1948

This article examines government censorship of Arab films in the first two decades of the State of Israel, through extensive archival use of documents of the Israeli Film and Theater Censorship Board. The state authorities had wanted to ban altogether the import of films made in Egypt, where the majority of Arab films were produced, but this was impossible due to the entertainment needs of the Arab minority in Israel, and of Jewish immigrants from Arab countries. The article sheds light on the government's efforts to restrict as much as possible the showing of Arab films and censor their content. The censorship's dual purpose was to prevent Arab films from awakening the national and political consciousness of the Arabs living in Israel, and to distance Jewish immigrants from their Arab culture, in order to promote their assimilation into hegemonic Israeli culture. However, the censorship's attempts at political control over Arabs and cultural control over Jews was doomed to failure due to the emergence of a new means of communication and entertainment in the Middle East – television. This ended the cinema theaters' monopoly over the consumption of Arab films, and thus the Film and Theater Censorship Board's ability to censor them.

Nation-Building Through Imperial Images Fragility and Charisma of Emperor Meiji’s Public Persona

This article explores the complex construction of Emperor Meiji’s public image, from a calculated fragility that promoted national unity to the projection of modern imperial charisma. It examines the extensive Meiji period regime of censorship of imperial representations in various forms, such as portraits, photographs, statues, and currency. The fact that the Emperor was forbidden to compose love poetry and the highly selective publication of his poems during his lifetime likewise emphasises the state’s control over the imperial persona and paints a vivid picture of the multifaceted image-crafting efforts surrounding Emperor Meiji.

Linking Media Instruction, Media Literacy, and Digital Skills to Fake News Beliefs and Censorship Support

This study explores the link between knowledge and skills related to online information consumption and implications for fake news beliefs and support for censorship. The goal of this project was to explore the link between media instruction and students’ news beliefs and attitudes. In particular, survey participants were asked about fake news beliefs, completed digital skill and media literacy assessments, and then completed a measure of their support for government censorship of media. Results indicate that more literate and more skilled users are more skeptical of news media reporting and are more supportive of censorship.

From the eyes of censorship supporters: Chinese attitudes regarding two types of online censorship

ABSTRACT The Chinese government has developed a complicated online censorship regime targeting various media with diversified techniques. Prior literature has argued that the censorship system enjoys general support in China. However, how Chinese people perceive heterogeneous online censorship mechanisms and the corresponding censored objects remains unclear. This study focused on two different online censorship mechanisms in China: the Great Fire Wall and citizen reporting. Using survey data collected in China in 2019, we established two path models to investigate the relationships between perceived media effects, attitudes toward online censorship, desire for censored information, and media being surveilled by each censorship mechanism. Our findings have important implications for understanding the complexity and nuances in censorship-related attitudes in China.