Yingdan Lu
Authoritarian regimes have increasingly co-opted non-state actors such as celebrities and fans to extend the reach of state propaganda in fragmented digital environments. Despite this growing trend, there remains limited understanding of how fans in authoritarian contexts respond to such efforts. This paper identified a novel phenomenon, performative propaganda engagement, to explain why and how celebrity fans in informational autocracies engage with state propaganda. Combining quantitative analysis of fan engagement with People’s Daily on Weibo and qualitative interviews with celebrity fans in China, this exploratory research finds that celebrity fans actively incorporate the promotion of state propaganda into their daily activities, aiming to enhance the visibility and reputation of their celebrities. Fans primarily engage with celebrity-signaling propaganda, and some of this engagement is instrumental. This research contributes to political communication theory by offering an alternative view of the downstream effects of digital propaganda in authoritarian contexts. The findings shed light on how non-state actors are strategically incorporated into state communication efforts and how fans may behave under a compliance-based logic shaped by political constraints and platform incentives, bridging scholarship on authoritarian information control, fandom politics, and algorithmic media environments.