دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی منجر شدن دیواره آتش بزرگ به خود سانسوری؛ تاثیر مقررات اینترنت درک شده و توجیه مقررات - امرالد 2017

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of Internet censorship which is represented by the Great Fire Wall, on Chinese Internet users’ self-censorship. Design/methodology/approach – A 3*2 factorial experiment (N=315) is designed. Different patterns of censorship (soft censorship, compared censorship and hard censorship) and the justification of Internet regulation are involved in the experiment as two factors. The dependent variable is self-censorship which is measured through the willingness to speak about sensitive issues and the behavior of refusing to sign petitions with true names. Findings – The results show that perceived Internet censorship significantly decreases the willingness to talk about sensitive issues and the likelihood of signing petitions with true names. The justification of censorship significantly decreases self-censorship on the behaviors of petition signing. Although there are different patterns of Internet censorship that Chinese netizens may encounter, they do not differ from each other in causing different levels of self-censorship. Research limitations – The subjects are college students who were born in the early-1990s, and the characteristics of this generation may influence the results of the experiment. The measurement of self-censorship could be refined. Originality/value – The study contributes to the body of literature about Internet regulation because it identifies a causal relationship between the government’s Internet censorship system and ordinary people’s reaction to the regulation in an authoritarian regime. Unpacking different patterns of censorship and different dimensions of self-censorship depicts the complexity of censoring and being censored.

6. Discussion and Conclusion

The Internet regulation policy in China has attracted world-wide research interest. Without penetrating deeply in different people’s reactions to the censorship under different conditions, it is difficult to understand how the censorship policy is perceived by the public and exerts influence on the public. The current study identified a causal relationship between Internet censorship infrastructure endorsed by Chinese government and Chinese Internet users’ tendency of self-censorship, which was measured by the willingness to speak about sensitive topics and the behavior of signing petition for information access freedom. Although self-censorship of journalists, activists and scholars had been studied in prior literature, very few efforts had been made to explore how ordinary people react to the censorship system, even fewer research tried to build a causation link between censorship and self-censorship. As Tai (2014) discovered, Chinese government’s regulation on new media is tougher and more sophisticated than that over traditional media. The finding of this study suggests that Chinese government has successfully induced self-censorship in not just the elite but also the general public, especially well-educated young people, consequently, will silence discrepant opinions and deteriorate the environment of speech freedom. However, the insights from Roberts’ (2015) study showed that total information blackouts may inspire rivalry and undermine government legitimacy eUorts. It is possible that someday self-censorship may be converted into or replaced by resistance. Future study may need to explore the relationship between self-censorship and resistance, as well as the conditions under which the two consequences of censorship will take place and transform to each other.