Foreign Media and Protest Diffusion in Authoritarian Regimes

Do foreign media facilitate the diffusion of protest in authoritarian regimes? Apparently for the first time, the author tests this hypothesis using aggregate and survey data from communist East Germany. The aggregate-level analysis takes advantage of the fact that West German television broadcasts could be received in most but not all parts of East Germany. The author exploits this “natural experiment” by conducting a matched analysis in which counties without West German television are matched to a comparison group of counties with West German television. Comparing these two groups of East German counties, the author finds no evidence that West German television affected the speed or depth of protest diffusion during the 1989 East German revolution. He also analyzes a survey of East German college students. Confirming the aggregate-level results, the survey data show that, at least among college students, exposure to West German television did not increase protest participation.

[1]  A. Oberschall.  Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Opportunities and framing in the Eastern European revolts of 1989 , 1996 .

[2]  Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft , 1995 .

[3]  Douglas J. Myers.  The Diffusion of Collective Violence: Infectiousness, Susceptibility, and Mass Media Networks1 , 2000, American Journal of Sociology.

[4]  D. Pollack.  Politischer Protest : politisch alternative Gruppen in der DDR , 2000 .

[5]  Francesca Polletta,et al.  Passionate Politics: Emotions and Social Movements , 2001 .

[6]  Larry M. Bartels.  Messages Received: The Political Impact of Media Exposure , 1993, American Political Science Review.

[7]  Doug McAdam.  Recruitment to High-Risk Activism: The Case of Freedom Summer , 1986, American Journal of Sociology.

[8]  Alberto Abadie.  Bootstrap Tests for Distributional Treatment Effects in Instrumental Variable Models , 2002 .

[9]  H. Grupp,et al.  Evaluating the market potential of innovations: A structured survey of diffusion models , 2006 .

[10]  William F. Danaher,et al.  Media and Mobilization: The Case of Radio and Southern Textile Worker Insurgency, 1929 TO 1934 , 2001, American Sociological Review.

[11]  Roger V. Gould.  MULTIPLE NETWORKS AND MOBILIZATION IN THE PARIS COMMUNE, 1871* , 1991 .

[12]  E. Kuhrt,et al.  Die wirtschaftliche und ökologische Situation der DDR in den 80er Jahren , 1996 .

[13]  M. Abrahamson,et al.  Principles of Group Solidarity. , 1988 .

[14]  G. Quester.  The international politics of television , 1988 .

[15]  Doug McAdam,et al.  The Cross-National Diffusion of Movement Ideas , 1993 .

[16]  G. Dale.  The East German Revolution of 1989 , 2009 .

[17]  T. G. Ash.  The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague , 1990 .

[18]  L. Whitehead.  The International Dimensions of Democratization , 2001 .

[19]  G. King,et al.  Analyzing Incomplete Political Science Data: An Alternative Algorithm for Multiple Imputation , 2001, American Political Science Review.

[20]  S. Bikhchandani,et al.  Learning from the behavior of others : conformity, fads, and informational cascades , 1998 .

[21]  Karl-Dieter Opp,et al.  Die volkseigene Revolution , 1993 .

[22]  Susanne Lohmann,et al.  Collective Action Cascades: An Informational Rationale for the Power in Numbers , 2000 .

[23]  M. Macy,et al.  Complex Contagions and the Weakness of Long Ties1 , 2007, American Journal of Sociology.

[24]  T. Kuran.  Sparks and prairie fires: A theory of unanticipated political revolution , 1989 .

[25]  K. Opp,et al.  Dissident Groups, Personal Networks, and Spontaneous Cooperation: The East German Revolution of 1989 , 1993 .

[26]  Ehrhart Neubert.  Geschichte der Opposition in der DDR 1949-1989 , 1998 .

[27]  E. Rogers.  Diffusion of Innovations , 1962 .

[28]  Pamela Oliver,et al.  Networks, Diffusion, and Cycles of Collective Action , 2003 .

[29]  Steven Pfaff,et al.  Exit‐Voice Dynamics in Collective Action: An Analysis of Emigration and Protest in the East German Revolution1 , 2003, American Journal of Sociology.

[30]  S. Huntington.  The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century , 1991 .

[31]  Sarah A. Soule,et al.  The Student Divestment Movement in the United States and Tactical Diffusion: The Shantytown Protest , 1997 .

[32]  J. Grix.  The Role of the Masses in the Collapse of the GDR , 2000 .

[33]  J. D. McCarthy,et al.  Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements , 1997 .

[34]  H. L. Kern,et al.  Opium for the Masses: How Foreign Media Can Stabilize Authoritarian Regimes , 2009, Political Analysis.

[35]  Preston King,et al.  Worlds of Difference: European Discourses of Toleration, c. 1100–1550. By Cary J. Nederman. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000. 157p. $40.00 cloth, $18.95 paper. , 2001, American Political Science Review.

[36]  S. Lohmann.  The Dynamics of Informational Cascades: The Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig, East Germany, 1989–91 , 1994, World Politics.

[37]  Patrick H. O’Neil.  Communicating democracy : the media and political transitions , 1998 .

[38]  A. Hirschman.  Exit, Voice, and the Fate of the German Democratic Republic: An Essay in Conceptual History , 1993, World Politics.

[39]  Doug McAdam,et al.  Social Movements and Networks: Relational Approaches to Collective Action , 2003 .

[40]  Michael Biggs,et al.  The Dynamics of Protest Diffusion: Movement Organizations, Social Networks, and News Media in the 1960 Sit-Ins , 2006 .

[41]  K. Mayer,et al.  The Rush to German Unity. , 1995 .

[42]  T. Kuran,et al.  Now out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989 , 1991, World Politics.

[43]  G. Sanford,et al.  Building democracy? the international dimension of democratisation in eastern Europe , 1997 .

[44]  Sidney Tarrow,et al.  Democracy and disorder : protest and politics in Italy, 1965-1975 , 1990 .

[45]  Timur Kuran.  Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification , 1995 .

[46]  W. Süß.  Staatssicherheit am Ende : warum es den Mächtigen nicht gelang, 1989 eine Revolution zu verhindern , 1999 .

[47]  J. Sekhon,et al.  Genetic Matching for Estimating Causal Effects: A General Multivariate Matching Method for Achieving Balance in Observational Studies , 2006, Review of Economics and Statistics.