Lecture： Media Control When Pollution Occurs in China

Speaker： Zheng Xu

Time：12:45-13:25, 23rd October, 2018

Venue：Room 505, Tongji Building A

Abstract：

Using data on Chinese local newspaper reports of water pollution events, this paper studies how governments in autocratic regimes filter information to avoid political responsibilities. We find that, compared with less regulated nonparty newspapers, party newspapers are 33% less likely to report water pollution events, especially those caused by state-owned companies. In contrast, they are more likely to report upstream pollution, for which upstream governments, instead of local government, should be responsible. These relationships are not observed in reports of floods, natural disasters for which governments are not responsible.  The results are robust, after considering water quality measures, such as dissolved oxygen (DO), the chemical oxygen demand of permanganate (CODMn), and ammonia nitrogen concentrations (NH3–N), and market forces, such as circulation and advertising revenues. We also find that party newspapers tend to report less about water pollution when government policies emphasize strengthening media control or when facing lower market competition . This study provides empirical evidence that, governments in authoritarian regimes try to achieve their goals through media control, which could potentially be mitigated by market competition.