COVID-19 increased censorship circumvention and access to sensitive topics in China.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
; 119(4)2022 01 25.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1630982
ABSTRACT
Crisis motivates people to track news closely, and this increased engagement can expose individuals to politically sensitive information unrelated to the initial crisis. We use the case of the COVID-19 outbreak in China to examine how crisis affects information seeking in countries that normally exert significant control over access to media. The crisis spurred censorship circumvention and access to international news and political content on websites blocked in China. Once individuals circumvented censorship, they not only received more information about the crisis itself but also accessed unrelated information that the regime has long censored. Using comparisons to democratic and other authoritarian countries also affected by early outbreaks, the findings suggest that people blocked from accessing information most of the time might disproportionately and collectively access that long-hidden information during a crisis. Evaluations resulting from this access, negative or positive for a government, might draw on both current events and censored history.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Access to Information
/
Information Seeking Behavior
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Qualitative research
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Asia
Language:
English
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
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