This dissertation examines how contemporary state power is constructed and restricted through social media platforms by focusing on China's rising role in global communication. Previous research on China's approach to communication has focused mainly on censorship and activism at home while disregarding the fact that the Party-state is increasingly intervening in global information landscapes by curating information flows on Western platforms like Facebook and Twitter. This project draws on

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... l datasets and computational methods; and it integrates theoretical insights from global communication, comparative political communication, and international relations to develop a theory of how a rising non-Western and non-democratic power wields Western platforms for expanding its propaganda efforts. The theoretical framework is tested and supported by three empirical studies. In the first study, I reveal that Chinese state media actively leverage Western platforms to provide alternative news and craft national images, and global audiences engage with propagandized content. In the second study, I further demonstrate that the Chinese state media strategically shape international news by reporting different stories to foreign countries. Economic factors drive the structure of international news flows. In the third study, I test how Western platforms regulate and restrict this new practice of globalizing propaganda through strategic flagging of state media accounts. Collectively, these findings provide a composite framework to explore the stakeholders of globalizing propaganda, explain the components behind China's subversive penetration in global communication, and advance the scholarly understanding of state-sponsored international propaganda in the social media age.