BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians The CCP has also asserted control over news outlets Hollywood to ensure a favorable depiction of China in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Chinese diaspora commu- and its CCP regime in major films.?? Even with studios nities around the world.”® Beijing has used pressure under U.S. ownership, the international media have tactics and exerted influence through intermediaries repeatedly uncovered cases in which U.S. filmmakers to change editors or owners of critical outlets in altered elements of their work to address or anticipate Hong Kong.?? Wealthy progovernment forces from the the objections of Chinese censors, who serve as gate- mainland have begun to buy up media outlets in Hong keepers to the country’s lucrative domestic market.** Kong and elsewhere.” And there have been instances a - a E . B . . : Exploiting democratic culture for authoritarian ends in which businessmen with economic interests in : f . . . . lronically, some products of democratic culture have China have attempted to expand their media holdings we os “a Tai 3 facilitated the work of modern authoritarian propa- in lalwan. gandists. The notion that there is no such thing as ; , , objective truth and that history is nothing more than a Perhaps more disturbing is China's effort to purchase . . . . . , : . contest of competing narratives owes its popularity to ia floerise In global culture thronen Its abate affiliated radical theorists who have gained a strong foothold in aia nominally private companies. For example, Visual academia and even among some who call themselves China Group, a mainland mies has purchased journalists, such as Glenn Greenwald. the image and licensing division of Corbis, a company that controls a huge afiehive of nistotically Important While accusations that the press is biased or publish- photographs. The trove includes iconic photographs es lies are common in American political campa