Authoritarian media and foreign protests: evidence from a decade of Russian news

Abstract

The proliferation of protests around the world poses challenges for authoritarian media outlets. While censoring news about protests abroad may push audiences to alternative news sources, their coverage could motivate citizens to take to the streets at home. To explore whether and how authoritarian media outlets cover foreign protests, we leverage evidence from Russia. Combining evidence from a decade of news coverage with protest-event data, we show that far from censoring news on protests abroad, authoritarian outlets afford them extensive coverage. The coverage of foreign protests, however, declines on days of large Russian protests, when the costs of encouraging mobilization are potentially greater. We also show that authoritarian media selectively use protests abroad, especially those in democracies, to convey the image of citizen activism as threatening and disorderly. Findings, which speak to research on authoritarian propaganda, have implications for scholarship on protest management and authoritarian resilience.