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August 14, 2026Perspectives on PoliticsOpen Access

I Read the News Today, but Why? Media Consumption, Socialization, and Autocracy

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Authors

SGSam; id_orcid 0000-0002-0726-4231 Greene

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Overview

Survey analysis demonstrates that social rationality strongly drives news consumption breadth and intensity under authoritarian regimes, highlighting the limits of purely decision-based media models.

Key Points

  • Investigate whether social rationality—consuming news to build social bonds and converse—explains media engagement in authoritarian settings where informational utility is limited.
  • Analyzed original survey data collected from respondents in Belarus and Russia, two authoritarian states with differing media control strategies.
  • Evaluated the distinct contributions of social rationality, decision-rational motivations, and intrinsic prosocial orientations on news consumption breadth and intensity.
  • Social motivations strongly and positively predicted both the breadth and overall intensity of media consumption across authoritarian contexts.
  • Decision-rational considerations contributed specifically to the breadth of news consumption, while interactions between social motives and prosocial tendencies varied across regimes.

Cite This Study

Sam; id_orcid 0000-0002-0726-4231 Greene (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a7ec69fb70b84ec8b912ce7https://doi.org/10.1017/s1537592726105866
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Also Consider

Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context:

  1. 1Still Watching, Less Persuaded: Attention to News Reduces Authoritarian Propaganda Effectiveness2025
  2. 2Are self-censoring media less efficacious? Examining public perceptions of news efficacy in an autocratizing society2026
  3. 3A Self-Righteous, Not a Virtuous, Circle: Proposing a New Framework for Studying Media Effects on Knowledge and Political Participation in a Social Media Environment2024 · 13 citations
  4. 4The Unequal Challenge of Learning from Under-Informative News2026
  5. 5Polarise and Rule: Independent Media in Autocracy and the Role of Social Media2026