Deference vs. defiance: deciphering media’s influence on censorship support in China

This study tests a moderated sequential mediation model to offer evidence for a theoretically derived hypothesis that exclusive use of domestic media (parochialism) in China leads to support of internet censorship, while the opposite is true for avid consumption of non-domestic media (cosmopolitanism). The hypothesized relationships have three distinct and yet interlapping intellectual roots: (1) authoritarian orientation; (2) institutional trust; and (3) need for cognition. Using the 2020 data from the Chinese Internet Users’ Social Awareness Survey of 1,840 Chinese netizens, we found empirical support for all hypotheses. Specifically, the connection between media use and censorship support is sequentially mediated by authoritarian orientation and institutional trust regardless of use patterns. In the process, need for cognition conditions these indirect effects in opposite directions: among parochial users, higher need for cognition strengthens the indirect pro-censorship pathway, while among cosmopolitan users, it bolsters the pathway toward reduced censorship support. These findings show that deeper cognitive engagement does not have a uniformly liberalizing role; instead, it magnifies the downstream consequences of the information environment to which individuals are habitually exposed.