Katz Colloquium: Daniel Mattingly, Yale University

Foreign Influencer Operations: How TikTok Shapes American Perceptions of China

About the Talk: 

Authoritarian regimes increasingly rely on social media influencers—rather than traditional outlets—to shape foreign public opinion. To assess the scope and impact of this strategy, we compile comprehensive data on pro-China influencers on TikTok. These influencers consistently attract more engagement than official state media accounts and some likely generate substantial financial returns. We then build a fully functional version of the TikTok app and conduct a randomized experiment with 7,500 Americans, who viewed over 120,000 pieces of real TikTok content. We show that pro-China foreign influencers are strikingly effective at increasing favorability toward China, while traditional state media causes backlash. The findings highlight the importance of non-state foreign influencers in shaping global public opinion.

About the Speaker: 

Daniel Mattingly is Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He studies the domestic and international politics of authoritarian regimes, with a focus on China. He is the author of The Art of Political Control in China (Cambridge University Press, 2020). His current research focuses on China's global media, influence operations, and military. He received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. from Yale University.