Covering the Big Tigers in China: Patronage Ties and Political Signaling within Elite Circles
2026-08-14
Official media in authoritarian regimes typically supports pro-government narratives, yet it also reports on high-ranking officials after corruption investigations into them, despite risking public criticism and offering little new information to central leaders. Why does this occur? I argue that such reporting functions as intra-elite signaling. The central media’s selective focus on certain disgraced officials helps autocrats signal power consolidation, while local media imitation allows local elites to display loyalty. Using an original dataset of news reports on high-ranking officials investigated during China’s anti-corruption campaign (2012–2017), I find that central media disproportionately targeted “big tigers” linked to the top leader’s political rivals. Local media largely mirrored this pattern, highlighting the strategic role of official media in managing relations between autocrats and other elites.