A Bigger World or a Bigger Room? Internet Access, Political Affiliation, and Online Expression in China

How do Internet access and political affiliation interact to influence online expression in China? This study categorizes Chinese netizens’ Internet access as regular or irregular, based on their exposure to blocked online information. Using data from the 2015 Chinese Urban Governance Survey (CUGS), a unique dataset that measures individuals’ use of circumvention technologies, the authors find that the association between irregular Internet access and engagement in online criticism varies by individuals’ political affiliation with the party-state system. For netizens with irregular Internet access, Communist Party (CCP) members who are ideologically loyal to the party-state system are more active in online criticism, whereas state-sector employees who benefit economically from the system are less active. These findings indicate that exposure to alternative information that contradicts official propaganda may affect perceptions of the regime, particularly among CCP members, thereby leading Internet censorship to produce counterproductive effects. Meanwhile, the constraining role of economic affiliation suggests that the traditional patronage networks employed by the party-state system extend to political control in cyberspace.