How the Pro-Beijing Media Influences Voters: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

Abstract

Authoritarian regimes have increasingly leveraged foreign media to project influence within democracies, yet evidence of these co-opted outlets' actual effects remains scarce. This study presents findings from a field experiment conducted during Taiwan's 2020 general election, assessing the impact of The China Times, a Beijing-backed media conglomerate, on voter behavior and attitudes. The experiment incentivized participants to engage in sustained consumption of real-time news from this outlet in the weeks leading up to the election. Results from a panel survey linked to individual-level web-tracking data reveal that exposure to The China Times sways voters in favor of the People's Republic of China (PRC). These effects, however, are primarily driven by nonpartisan and PRC-friendly voters. To the extent that I find effects among PRC-skeptics, they show evidence of backfiring. As Beijing's media co-optation extends beyond Taiwan, my findings have broader implications for understanding the effectiveness and limitations of authoritarian influence operations.