Revolutions and the Centralized Media, an Inverse Relation

Abstract

In this paper I will argue that revolutions defined as mass political violence aimed at deposing the incumbent leadership are more probable in the absence of the centralized media such as television and newspapers. The lack of intermediary sources of communication between the state and the people fosters local news production and propagation on the individual level, deprives the state from a normalizing apparatus, and sets the stage for the cascades of collective action. I use historical and statistical examples to demonstrate this point and provide a formalization based on the network structure, personal engagement thresholds, and learning mechanisms.

Keywords: collective action, media, political violence, revolutions, social networks, threshold