Informational Autocrats, Diverse Societies

TL;DR

This paper develops a theoretical model showing that societal diversity in preferences and beliefs reduces an autocrat's incentive to manipulate information, highlighting diversity as a safeguard against misinformation.

Contribution

It introduces a Bayesian persuasion model analyzing how societal heterogeneity influences autocratic information strategies, a novel approach in political economy.

Findings

Greater societal diversity leads to less autocratic information manipulation

Diversity acts as a natural barrier to misinformation

The model provides insights into the role of societal heterogeneity in information dynamics

Abstract

This paper presents a theoretical model of an autocrat who controls the media in an attempt to persuade society of his competence. We base our analysis on a Bayesian persuasion framework in which citizens have heterogeneous preferences and beliefs about the autocrat. We characterize the autocrat's information manipulation strategy when society is monolithic and when it is divided. When the preferences and beliefs in society are more diverse, the autocrat engages in less information manipulation. Our findings thus suggest that the diversity of attitudes and opinions can act as a bulwark against information manipulation by hostile actors.