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129
8. Youth participation and social media: evidence
from the youth activism and social movement
of Hong Kong
Wilson Wong
INTRODUCTION: SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOUTH AS CHANGE
AGENT
This chapter examines a simple but important question: how does the Internet particularly
social media affect youth participation? In the era of Web 2.0 and Government 2.0, social
media has become a dominant communication technology in which interconnectivity and
engagement are major goals (Mergel, 2013). Among the studies of social media in social
science, the connection between youth participation and social media is unquestionably one
of the most popular and contested topics. There are some good reasons for it. Youth and
social media are becoming closely entangled and increasingly inseparable. Since the youth are
usually more media-savvy and often fascinated by the use of new information technologies,
they are taken as the “netizens” (Palfrey and Gasser, 2013) integrating their passion and vision
for the future of societies with ICT (information and communication technologies) for driving
social change (Dahlgren, 2009). They represent the powerhouse for pushing reforms and even
revolutions through both institutional and non-institutional channels of political participation.
As a non-institutional means of participation, social movements demand the most radical and
broad scale changes in society ranging from the change of government to the overthrowing of
the entire regime. Thus, the social movement phenomenon is one of the important analytical
lens for reflecting on the effect of social media on youth participation.
Youth participation is defined by the United Nations as “being empowered to play a vital
role in their own development as well as in that of their communities, helping them to learn
vital life-skills, develop knowledge on human rights and citizenship and to promote positive
civic action” (Wong and Tang, 2017). The active participation of youth as witnessed by
their leading role in many social movements around the world is known as “youth activism”
(Sherrod et al., 2006). Although “youth participation” may sometimes be used interchangeably
with “youth activism”, the latter is more often related to social movement and community
organizing for social change that goes beyond the traditional institutional means of electoral
politics (Gordon, 2009).
With the rise of youth activism, “how social media affects youth participation” naturally
becomes one of the central questions with both policy and academic significance. Many
people, including policy makers, would answer this question intuitively with the assumption
that the Internet, like most technological advances, is something good and desirable. Following
this line of thought, social media would better inform young people about public affairs and
enable them to become more engaged in politics and political life (Allen et al., 2001). It
is also expected that technology would bring people closer and more connected, fostering
130 Research handbook on e-government
a higher sense of community which should further facilitate political participation and civic
engagement (Banaji and Buckingham, 2013). Subsequently, it should lead to the elimination
of democratic deficit and revitalization of formal political institutions (Barber, 1998).
While this positive view of social media was common in the initial days of adoption of
the technology, real-world observations gradually reveal a more complicated, unexpected
and perhaps surprising picture. Because it is so obvious that there is a general increase in the
level of political participation among the youth with heavy utilization of social media in many
countries such as the famous Arab Spring of the early 2010s, there has been little disagree-
ment that social media has increased youth participation. The debate in research and policy
focuses more on the nature of the relationship between social media and participation, as well
as the impact. Ultimately, the most fundamental question is whether Internet-generated and
social-media-driven youth participation would be constructive or disruptive to the existing
political order, would undermine or strengthen the traditional and formal political institutions.
The objective of this chapter is to provide an updated, comprehensive, and balanced answer
to these questions and issues through a critical literature review and an empirical case study of
a major social movement, the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong of 2014 in which the media
use of supporters and non-supporters would be examined and compared. This chapter would
like to fill some important gaps in the previous studies which are often confined to a binary
approach by going beyond the two over-simplified views – the optimistic view that social
media would alleviate the problem of democratic deficit to lead to a rise of youth engagement
and the pessimistic view that it would convert the youth into disaffected insurgents to destabi-
lize and uproot the status quo.
This chapter is organized in the following sections. First of all, it discusses the shift of
e-government research from government-based websites of Web 1.0 to the era of user-based
social media of Web 2.0. Second, it introduces the debate and contrasting perspectives of the
impact of social media on youth participation. Third, to set up a framework for the analysis
of the case study, it defines the key concepts about leaders and social movements and intro-
duces the new logic of connective action in social-media-mediated social movement. The
fourth section reports on the observations and findings from the case study of the Umbrella
Movement in Hong Kong, mainly through the results of a telephone survey of a randomized
sample of citizens during the Movement. It concludes with key implications of the findings and
future research directions. Although the empirical evidence of this chapter is drawn primarily
from the experience of Hong Kong, as the Umbrella Movement is a major and representative
social movement, its relevance can be easily generalized to many countries of similar contexts.
THE STUDY OF E-GOVERNMENT: TOWARDS WEB 2.0
The emergence of social media marks the watershed in dividing Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. Since
e-government is defined as “all uses of digital information technology in the public sector”
(Heeks, 2005) or “the use of information and communication technologies, and particularly
the Internet, as a tool to achieve better government.” (OECD, 2003), correspondingly, it is
also a watershed between Government 1.0 and Government 2.0 in the use of ICT in the public
sector (Nam, 2012b). From a technological standpoint, it is shifting the passive websites to an
interactive communication network. Theories of the Internet technology emphasize its capa-
bilities in political communication and mobilization to significantly transform policymaking
Youth participation and social media: evidence from Hong Kong 131
and governance by redistributing power among different political actors and influencing
their values and behaviors (Gronlund, 2011; Weidmann and Rod, 2019). However, owing to
various factors, including cost and complexity, governments and public organizations are still
the main users and players of Internet technology in the early stage of its development.
Until the recent decade, e-government studies have been government-centered or
government-focused in nature, targeted at the Web 1.0 use of the technology by government
for government. They often examine how government could use the Internet to serve citi-
zens, rather than taking a citizen-centered approach to understand how citizen use of web
technologies will impact on policies and politics. Application of the Internet in government
administration and politics including the politics of executive and legislative branches receive
the most attention (Chadwick, 2006; Welch et al., 2005; Welch and Wong, 2001; Wong and
Welch, 2006). Many studies under the category of e-government also put heavy emphasis
on improved technological and managerial capacities enabled by the Internet (Bovens and
Stavros, 2002; Fountain 2001; Ho and Ho, 2006; Holliday and Kwok, 2004; Kraemer and
King, 2006). Unsurprisingly, state-led digitalization becomes a major theme of this body of
e-government literature while broader questions of the impact of the Internet on governance,
including its potential to reshape society and politics through more intensive, direct and fre-
quent citizen–government interactions, are often understudied.
As technology advances, the role of the Internet in governance evolves and elevates to a new
level. E-governance through citizen engagement using social media tools is steadily replacing
e-government or e-administration as a more advanced and important stage of progress and
development. Although variations exist among different definitions of governance, a common
theme has emerged that it generally refers to the process and interplay that government,
citizens and other groups in civil society cooperate and interact together as close partners for
resolving issues and addressing problems in society (Holzer and Kim, 2005). E-governance
or digital governance therefore refers to the use of ICT for the purposes of governance. Many
studies have also made a more refined and systemic distinction among the different “Es” in
which e-government and e-governance are taken as different stages of digital governance. For
example, the UNDP/ASPA report (2002) classifies e-government as the use of ICT for policy
implementation and public service delivery and e-governance as the interaction between cit-
izens, government organizations, public and elected officials (e.g., democratic process, open
government, transparent decision-making).
One of the most well-known models of e-government development was produced by the
UN and called the “Web Presence Measurement Model” (United Nations, 2008). It divides
the development of e-government into five stages or phases: emerging, enhanced, interactive,
transactional, and connected. There is a ladder of progress among the five stages in terms of
both level of technology applied and purpose achieved. “Emerging” is taken as the first and
foundational phase, using the simplest technology and achieving the most basic goal. To the
upper end of advancement, “connected” – applying the latest ICT technology such as social
media for the crucial goals of connecting and interacting with citizens – is taken as the final
and most important phase. The UN has explicitly stated that in this stage that “e-participation
and citizen engagement are supported and encouraged by governments in the decision-making
process.”
The same conclusion is echoed in many models of digital governance developed by scholars.
West (2005) views the progression of e-government development as a shift from billboards
to service delivery, and finally to interactive democracy. In his framework, he divides digital
132 Research handbook on e-government
governance into four general stages: (1) the billboard stage, (2) the partial service-delivery
stage, (3) the portal stage with fully executable and integrated service delivery, and (4) interac-
tive democracy with public outreach and accountability-enhancing features. The final stage of
interactive democracy is characterized by accountability-enhancing features and technologies
for public feedback and deliberation. Many other major authors of digital governance share
this consensus, further supporting the use of digital means in promoting citizen engagement
and democracy as a higher mission (Chadwick and May, 2003; Coursey and Norris, 2008).
In reviewing the development of Internet use in the public sector, while the terms and termi-
nology used may be different across studies and models, e-engagement and e-connectivity is
always taken as the most valued features and the ultimate best practice, forming the foundation
of the most advanced stage.
With rapid technological progress, the era of Web 1.0, the stage of one-way less-interactive
websites, has quickly evolved into the era of Web 2.0. Simultaneously, Government 1.0 in
which the government-based website is the dominant mode of operation has given way to
the rise of Government 2.0 which is led by user-centered social media with around-the-clock
non-stop citizen interaction and rising public expectations. Apart from possessing the same
power as Web 1.0 to transform governance by redistributing power and resources among
different actors (Gronlund, 2011; Marvin, 1998; Norris, 2001; Wilhelm 2000), Web 2.0 social
media opens up a new horizon of political participation – online participation. Online partic-
ipation is most popular among the youth, and has the impact of mounting great pressure on
policymaking due to its capacity in providing instant reach and on-time interaction with a large
number of people around the globe, significantly reducing the cost of political communication
and mobilization (Boulianne 2015; Oser et al., 2013; Vissers and Stolle, 2014).
In Web 2.0, both online and offline political participation and their interchangeability and
interconnection becomes an active area of study. There are revolutionary changes in the tech-
nological features and capacities to allow two-way or even multiple-way instant interactive
communication. The fast diffusion and wide spread of highly affordable and easy-to-use
social media application such as Facebook and Twitter enables users to enjoy a high degree
of freedom and autonomy to create content and directly transmit it through the Internet to
the whole world with little or no intermediation. This allows citizens to circumvent levels of
hierarchy and lines of authority set by states, and to transcend territorial boundaries easily in
their social and political lives. Importantly, it has significantly reduced the cost of political
communication and mobilization, empowering the traditionally marginalized and less influ-
ential actors such as the youth (Banaji and Buckingham, 2013; Bennett and Entman, 2001;
Gordon, 2009), paving the way towards a new wave of youth activism and a new form of
non-institutional participation – social-media-mediated, self-mobilized social movement.
THE DEBATE AND EMERGING EVIDENCE
With Web 2.0, the locus of research on ICT in government begins to shift from a more
government-centered and top-down approach of e-government to a more citizen-centered and
bottom-up approach of e-governance or e-participation (Dahlgren 2009; Mergel, 2013, Nam,
2012b). While it is a general consensus among most studies that there is a positive relationship
between the use of social media and youth participation, a debate exists about the competing
Youth participation and social media: evidence from Hong Kong 133
perspectives of optimism and pessimism based on a binary approach of technological deter-
minism (Tewksbury and Rittenberg, 2012).
These two antithetical paradigms are built on completely different assumptions about the
effects of social media. In the optimistic view, the Internet and social media is equivalent to
a creative individual autonomy (Castells, 2000) which enhances personal liberty and a new
expansion of the public sphere of Habermas’s (1989) rational deliberation to advance the
progress of society (Fenton and Barassi, 2011). As youth are generally taken as the “net gen-
eration” and “digital natives”, Internet and social media provide a long-awaited opportunity
to reverse the problem of democratic deficit in Western democracies and generate a revival
of civic engagement among the youth (Banaji and Buckingham, 2013; Budge, 1996; Putnam
2000).
The pessimistic view, however, takes a completely different standpoint and argues the
Internet and social media is much more than a technological communication tool; it is
a mind-changing societal tool (Bennett and Segerberg, 20011; Henn and Weinstein, 2006;
Wilhelm, 2000). Having the tendency to draw like-minded people together and reconfirm
beliefs and values, further narrowing perspectives, it considers social media is nothing other
than an “echo chamber” (Pariser, 2012). This view posits that social media makes young people
less tolerant of diverse opinions and more skeptical of government and its policies, leading to
more individualization, polarization, and conflicts in society (Bennett and Segerberg, 2011).
While social media increases interactivity, it decreases the quality of communication (Carr,
2010). Rational deliberation is not a common mode of communication in social media and is
often crowded out by expressions of biased opinions and emotions, including ideas of hatred
and extreme ideologies (Steinberg, 2015).
The echo chamber effect sets people apart, “locking them up” in their own self-constructed
conceptual and subjective worlds (Tewksbury and Rittenberg, 2012). By magnifying differ-
ences of values and world views and feeding people with information to further strengthen
their original beliefs and positions, the Internet can easily turn individuals into silos. In other
words, in this Web 2.0 era, even for people who are living in the same “physical/objective
world”, they can be far apart in the “conceptual/subjective world”. Such conceptual distance
and isolation can discourage political participation and collective action, including social
movements.
All of this is believed to lead to negative consequences of youth participation, including
crumbling of traditional political institutions and delegitimization of representative politics
(Tormey, 2015). This pessimism has been fueled by observations of social movements around
the globe, where the existing social and political orders have been challenged by the strong
participation of the youth and their heavy use of social media. Under this perspective, the
disaffected youth are perceived as individuals who distrust political institutions, representative
politics, and the mainstream mass media (McCaughey and Ayers 2013; Sandoval-Almazan
and Gil-Garcia, 2014). Given the right circumstances, they can easily become radical insur-
gents to sabotage existing political regimes (Gainous et al., 2015; Lee et al., 2015).
These two opposing views are well described by the two paradigms of dutiful citizen (DC)
and actualizing citizen (AC). According to Bennett (2008), DC represents the optimistic view
that citizens would be enabled by the Internet to become more engaged and committed to
the obligations to the government-centered activities and participate mostly in institutional
means of political participation such as voting. In contrast, ACs express the negative attrib-
utes under the pessimistic view. ACs are distrustful of traditional institutions of politics and
134 Research handbook on e-government
have a diminishing sense of government obligations. They are also more eager to push for
results, destabilize the status quo, and challenge orthodox political institutions through the
non-institutional means of political participation including contentious means such as social
movements and other campaigns built on a network established and sustained by interactive
information technologies.
More specially, the debate centers around the following competing hypotheses: online vs.
offline hypothesis (Does social media increase online participation or offline participation?),
civic vs. political hypothesis (Does social media increase civic participation or political
participation?), reinforcement and normalization vs. mobilization hypothesis (Does social
media reinforce the participation of engaged groups or mobilize new groups?), and citizens
vs. insurgent hypothesis (Does social media turn young people into good citizens or insur-
gents?). After all, the most fundamental question being asked is whether Internet-generated
and social-media-driven youth participation would be constructive or disruptive to the existing
political order, would undermine or strengthen the traditional political institutions.
In studies of the social impact of technology, knowledge and theory often lag behind tech-
nological progress and the subsequent social and political changes it causes. This lagging is
understandable as the Internet, particularly social media, is a still a relatively new technology.
While no definite answer can yet be given to all the research questions about social media on
youth participation, emerging evidence does exist from recent studies conducted with in the
last ten years which matches the period of the popularity and its wide use of social media in
society. Their findings are briefly summarized here according to the competing hypotheses
identified above. In terms of the online vs. offline hypothesis and the civic vs. political hypoth-
eses, research finds that social media has enabled all forms of activist youth participation (Oser
et al., 2013; Sandoval-Almazan and Gil-Garcia, 2014; Tang and Lee, 2013; Vissers and Stolle,
2014).
Occasionally, some exceptions are found. But these studies of contrasting results still
represent a small number of the total studies. Importantly, rather than rejecting the previous
findings, they serve the purpose of underscoring the importance of understanding the con-
ditions, process, context and casual mechanism under which social media would impact on
political participation. For example, Theocharis and Lowe (2016) use an experimental design
and find that using Facebook would have “clearly negative consequences on reports of offline
and online forms of political and civic participation”. However, as they assign an experimental
group of non-Facebook users randomly to use Facebook, it is possible that these individuals
do not adopt Facebook at the very beginning for some good reasons and the assignment has
actually disrupted their pattern of participation. In other words, in an era of social media,
individuals who do not adopt social media may not serve as a representative sample for an
experiment. The study concludes that one of their most important implications is to highlight
the importance of exploring the relationship between digital media and participation and the
mechanisms of influence.
Social media is also conducive to the formation of social capital and online community
(Boulianne, 2009; Conroy et al., 2012; Zuniga et al., 2012). More interestingly, in respect of
the reinforcement (normalization) vs. mobilization hypothesis, social media has led to simul-
taneously reinforcing the participation of engaged groups and mobilizing new groups (Hirzalla
et al., 2010; Lee and Chan, 2018; Nam, 2012a). Similarly and paradoxically, concerning the
citizens vs. insurgent hypothesis, youth use social media for both legitimate and traditional
institutional means of political participation as dutiful citizens, and for non-institutional and
Youth participation and social media: evidence from Hong Kong 135
contentious means of political participation, including protest and social movement, as actu-
alizing citizens (Fu et al., 2016, Gainous et al., 2015; Lee and Chan, 2018; Lee et al., 2015)
Ideally, more studies over a longer period of time would be needed to reach more robust
and stable results on the impact of social media on youth participation. However, in reviewing
the findings of major studies available so far, it is clear that the dichotomous approach of
classifying the impact into either a pessimistic view or an optimistic view is over-simplified
and unrealistic. It is better to adopt a more comprehensive, refined and inclusive approach with
consideration of the contexts and environment of the youth participation. Essentially, most of
these specific questions seek to understand the kind of youth that social media impacts and the
form of political participation that social media would influence. But many of the competing
hypotheses set up false dichotomies and fail to recognize that both states can co-exist and are
not necessarily mutually exclusive. An alternative approach would examine how youth uses
social media, under what conditions and for what purposes to enhance participation in both
online and offline modes. Moreover, it is obvious that context plays a critical role in deciding
the purpose of participation. In a non-democratic or authoritarian setting, it is much more
likely for the youth to participate actively in social movements, playing the role of insurgent
rather than a lawful citizen as there is simply no lawful and legitimate means for them to
express their preferences and demands to their government.
CONNECTIVE ACTION AND PERSONALIZATION: A NEW LOGIC
OF SOCIAL MOVEMENT
Although the dichotomous approach of studying social media and youth participation has been
shown to be unfruitful and misguided, social media is acting more than as a neutral techno-
logical tool simply to enhance the capacity of the youth political participation. Studies have
found social media is a catalyst for transforming youth into individualized actors who are more
accustomed to a leaderless and organizationless mode of political participation and collective
action that defies the traditional mode of hierarchy and control by leaders and organization.
This gives rise to the new phenomenon of personalization of politics (Bennett and Segerberg,
2011) in which the logic of collective action has been replaced by the logic of connective
action (Bennett and Segerberg, 2012). With the rise of social media, self-mobilization in con-
nection with an interactive online community has become a new logic of youth participation.
Even though participants act collectively in protests and social movements, which are
reinforced by the echo chamber of social media, they are driven by their own personal motives
and the movement is coordinated collectively through the online interactive community or
network. Social media-mediated participation has substantially replaced hierarchies and the
roles and functions of leaders in social movements. In a connective social movement where
membership is fluid and loosely defined, persistent and broad participation is critical. One of
the most dominant functions of social media would be solidarity and community building (Lee
and Chan, 2018). For example, visual memes, including video clips from online social media
livecast, are required for “connective witnessing” (Mortensen, 2015) to create and secure the
common identity between the individual and the collective (Bayerl and Stoynov, 2014; Gal et
al. 2016). It is also a tool of negotiating tactics and strategies. All the above functions previ-
ously performed by movement leaders and organizations are now carried out by social media
through a process of competitive selection in the participative digital community.
136 Research handbook on e-government
To shed more light on the effect of social media on changing the logic of youth participation
in collective action, this chapter uses the Umbrella Movement of Hong Kong in 2014 as a case
study and draws on the findings from a randomized citizen telephone survey conducted during
the Movement to illustrate the connection between social media and political participation.
Before presenting the case analysis, it is important to first define and discuss the key concepts
of social movement and leadership.
Social movement is “a form of sustained collective action to create a major social change”
(Jasper, 2014). As duration is one of the defining features of social movement, individual
incidents of collective action such as a single protest, is not considered as a social movement
(Tilly, 1984). There is also a contentious politics approach in defining social movements as
“collective challenges, based on common purposes and social solidarities, in sustained inter-
action with elites, opponents, and authorities” (Tarrow, 2011). From this perspective, social
movement is one form of contentious politics in which “outsiders” challenge the political
actors in the established power structure (McAdam et al., 2001). This also reflects the fact
that social movement is often the means of those who lack power and would like to demand
the attention and decisions of the authorities to make concessions (Staggenborg, 2016). It is
consistent with the nature of social movement as a platform used by the less powerful to make
social change happen. As those people have weak positions in the political system, it often
becomes unavoidable for them to go outside the official power apparatus to achieve their
goals, especially in a non-democratic setting (Chiu and Lui, 2000).
Leadership, in general, can be defined as “the capacity of someone (the leader) to direct
and energize people to achieve goals”. Kouzes and Posner (2012), in their well-known book
on leadership, The Leadership Challenge, further develop and conceptualize leadership as
a relationship between the leader and the followers who share the same vision and aspiration
and get extraordinary results together, which would not be possible without either of them:
Leaders never get extraordinary things accomplished all by themselves. Leaders mobilize others to
want to struggle for shard aspirations, and this means that, fundamentally, leadership is a relationship.
Leadership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow. It is
the quality of this relationship that matters most when engaged in getting extraordinary things done.
A leader–constituent relationship that is characterized by fear and distrust will never produce any-
thing of lasting value. A relationship characterized by mutual respect and confidence will overcome
the greatest adversities and leave a legacy of significance. (Kouzes and Posner, 2012, p. 30)
According to the above definition and description, two important points should be noted. First,
leaders are different from public managers or top-level bureaucrats (Wong, 2015). A leader is
someone who is more than his or her official role and position. Similarly, it is wrong to assume
that a person with organizational authority at the top level will automatically function in the
role of a leader. Second, it is also implied that leaders need leadership skills to fulfill the func-
tions of leadership. Leadership is not simply accomplished by the exercise of organizational
authority, such as the use of fear and penalty or the appeal of economic incentives.
Social movement, by definition, occurs outside the organizational boundary and hierarchy
such that institutional and material incentives are usually not the means of motivating partici-
pants. In a social movement, a leader must do without heavy dependence on formal authority.
Soft skills and informal and non-structural elements of an organization, such as mission and
vision, are also necessary in leadership for generating extraordinary performance. It is the
ability of the leader to connect with the followers and participants with the belief that their
Youth participation and social media: evidence from Hong Kong 137
collective action in the movement would lead to the realization of a common goal that pushes
the movement together and makes it strong (Chenoweth and Stephan, 2012).
In understanding how social media would affect the conventional social movement, we
must first understand what makes a social movement strong. In this regard, Kouzes and Posner
(2012) have elaborated the steps to be taken in good leadership. First, a leader must start with
clarifying and affirming shared values by living the values and setting the example. Second,
a leader should also inspire a shared vision by envisioning the future, imagining the possibil-
ities for finding a common purpose. In this process, the leader must also enlist the support of
other members of the organization by appealing to a common ideal. They also point out, in
accomplishing success shared by all, a leader does not act alone and must enable others to act
as well. A leader must foster collaboration by creating a climate of trust and facilitate produc-
tive relationships. Empowering and strengthening others to enhance their self-determination
and to develop their competence and confidence is also necessary. Finally, to institutionalize
success and make the change sustainable on a long-term basis, a spirit of community must be
created by celebrating the values and victories in which all members of the organization are
personally involved.
Web 2.0 and the new logic of connective action, significantly disrupts and transforms the
above process of leadership and interaction in a social movement because leaders simply do
not exist in the social media world.
THE UMBRELLA MOVEMENT: CASE AND FINDINGS
The Umbrella Movement was a major movement fighting for democratization in Hong Kong
during late 2014. Based on research on the Movement (Lee and Chan, 2018; Wong and
Chu, 2017), it was a social movement in which social media, namely Facebook, served as
an important tool of mobilization. During the Movement, for a period of 81 days, millions of
participants occupied three major areas of Hong Kong, including its central business district.
The data used for the case study is mainly based on a telephone survey and archival research.
A telephone survey of 1,006 Hong Kong citizens aged 18 or above was conducted in November
2014. It was a random digit dial survey conducted by the Center for Communication and
Public Opinions Survey, School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University
of Hong Kong. The response rate was 34%, with a sampling error of +/− 3.1%, within a 95%
confidential interval. There were also direct observations and site visits of the occupation sites
during the Movement.
To start with the analysis, different sources of information for news and public affairs are
analyzed by age, education level and income. After dividing respondents into five age groups,
an obvious contrast is found between the use of television and websites or social media as
a major source of information (table one). The younger the respondent, the more likely he or
she receives information by consulting online sources and less likely by watching television.
Meanwhile, a totally opposite pattern is observed in the older generation. The youngest group
(18–29) were most likely to receive information from websites or social media (57.18%)
while only 12.35% and 5.19% of the 50–59 and 60 or above age groups respectively, absorb
information online. The television pattern is equally striking as only 23.44% of the 18–29 age
group frequently watches television, while the elderly aged 60 or above report double that per-
Table 8.1 Age and source of information for news and public affairs
Source
Age Group
18–29 30–39 40–49 50–59 60 or above
Newspapers or magazines 18.43% 39.56% 38.22% 36.89% 32.54%
Radio 0.94% 4.70% 8.81% 11.16% 9.27%
Television 23.44% 28.43% 37.08% 39.61% 53.00%
Websites or social media 57.18% 27.31% 15.89% 12.35% 5.19%
Total (to the nearest integer) 100%
Table 8.2 Education level and source of information for news and public affairs
Source
Education Level
Primary or below Secondary Tertiary or above
Newspapers or magazines 32.32% 31.77% 34.93%
Radio 12.17% 8.28% 4.89%
Television 51.68% 44.69% 26.05%
Websites or social media 3.83% 15.27% 34.13%
Total (to the nearest integer) 100%
138 Research handbook on e-government
centage (53.00%). All these findings denote a generational shift of information dissemination
and consumption means from traditional mass media to new media (Table 8.1).
Education level is an equally important variable affecting the source of information for
news and public affairs. As shown in Table 8.2, more than half (51.68%) of the people whose
education level is primary or below gain information on current affairs by watching television,
while their reliance on websites or social media is negligible at 3.83%. Nearly half (44.69%) of
people with secondary education are also regular TV watchers. The strong influence of televi-
sion somewhat ceases only when education level reaches “tertiary or above” (26.05%). On the
other hand, 34.13% of tertiary-educated respondents obtain current affairs information online.
The third important variable to be discussed here is income (Table 8.3). Again, a clearly
visible divergence can be identified between the use of television and websites or social
media as source of information. The exchange rate between Hong Kong dollars and US
dollars is pegged at around US$1 to HK$7.78. For respondents with a monthly household
income of less than HK$10,000, only as few as 4.97% of them receive information from the
Internet. Most of them, amounting to a very significant portion of 56.80%, watch television
instead. An interesting finding is that a monthly household income of HK$20,000 appears
to be a discerning threshold. Under that amount, television is a dominant source of current
events information, while over that amount the Internet begins to capture a larger proportion
of people. Only 28.00% of respondents with a monthly household income of HK$50,000 or
above rely on television to gain an understanding of the outside world. However, unlike “age”
and “education level”, there is not a linearly increasing relationship between “income” and
“Websites or social media” use for current events as the Internet use peaks at 30.65%with the
median income group (HK$20,000–29,999) and gradually decreases to 24.62% for the top
income group (HK$50,000 or above).
With the above analysis of the stark divergences in media consumption by people of differ-
ent generations and socio-economic backgrounds, the next inquiry would be the consequences
brought about by looking at the same world with different lenses. Table 8.4 presents how
closely media usage relates to the political views of people. After categorizing respondents
Table 8.3 Income and source of information for news and public affairs
Source
Monthly Household Income (HK$)
10,000 or below 10,000–19,999 20,000–29,999 30,000–49,999 50,000 or above
Newspapers or magazines 31.46% 21.31% 28.24% 33.91% 41.86%
Radio 6.78% 8.05% 6.92% 9.26% 5.52%
Television 56.80% 51.07% 34.20% 30.26% 28.00%
Websites or social media 4.97% 19.57% 30.65% 26.57% 24.62%
Total (to the nearest integer) 100%
Table 8.4 Media usage and support for the Umbrella Movement
Media
Support
{N=282}
(29.82%)
Half–half
{N=212}
(22.45%)
Not Support
{N=425}
(47.73%)
Newspapers or magazines 32.51% 33.45% 33.98%
Oriental Daily – 8.27% 38.03%
Apple Daily 59.08% 41.14% 9.52%
Ming Pao 10.66% 9.73% –
StHeadline – – 16.42%
Radio 7.61% 5.87% 7.53%
RTHK 51.53% 51.92% 77.12%
CRHK 37.37% 42.28% 19.85%
Television 19.16% 40.70% 46.82%
TVB 49.50% 79.96% 71.87%
Cable TV 25.11% 9.65% 11.09%
Websites or social media 40.72% 19.97% 11.67%
Total (to the nearest integer) 100%
Youth participation and social media: evidence from Hong Kong 139
according to their attitudes toward the Umbrella Movement, the remarkable and recurrent
contrast between consumption of television information and online information once again
emerges.
Among supporters of the Umbrella Movement, 40.72% identify websites and social media
as their major source of information for news and public affairs while only 19.16% choose
television. For non-supporters, their media usage pattern is exactly a mirror-image of that of
supporters. As many as 46.82% of non-supporters rely on watching television to comprehend
social affairs while those who would go online for information just account for 11.67%.
Another striking result shown in Table 8.4 is that, given the very similar rating of newspa-
pers or magazines from both supporters (32.51%) and non-supporters (33.98%), fundamental
differences are actually reflected by their choice of papers. For supporters of the Movement,
the most popular newspaper is Apple Daily, a newspaper close to the pan-democrats.
Approximately 60% of the Apple Daily readership are Movement supporters while only
9.52% are non-supporters read that newspaper. On the other hand, Oriental Daily, a politi-
cally pro-government newspaper is read by 38.03% of the non-supporters, while almost no
supporters of the Movement read that paper. A similar division is found with radio. Over
three-quarters of non-supporters (77.12%) are listeners to the Radio Television Hong Kong
(RTHK), a public radio station under the HKSAR Government; while a larger percentage
of listeners who support the Movement (37.37%) listen to Commercial Radio Hong Kong
(CRHK), one of the only two commercial radio broadcasting companies in Hong Kong. Only
Table 8.5 Users and non-users of the internet in Hong Kong by age, education and
income
Age/education level/income Internet users Non-users
Age group 18–29 1.3%
30–39 21.8% 3.6%
40–49 23.0% 8.0%
50–59 19.3% 25.1%
60 or above 10.2% 62.0%
Total (to the nearest integer) 100% 100%
Education level Primary or below 2.8% 33.4%
Secondary 41.4% 57.1%
Tertiary or above 55.8% 9.4%
Total (to the nearest integer) 100% 100%
Monthly household income (HK$) 10,000 or below 4.4% 34.7%
10,000–19,999 11.0% 26.8%
20,000–29,999 17.9% 14.1%
30,000 or above 66.5% 24.4%
Total (to the nearest integer) 100% 100%
140 Research handbook on e-government
19.85% of non-supporters listen to CRHK. Television is a major source of information for
Hong Kong citizens. The strong influence of Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), especially
among the non-supporters and “half-half” respondents, should be well noted. In short, the
main message of Table 8.4 and the above elaboration is that media usage is very closely related
to one’s world views and values, including the formation of political attitudes and perceptions
toward a particular social movement.
Table 8.5 provides a more in-depth picture of the issue of digital divide in Hong Kong by
showing the differences in age and socio-economic background between Internet users and
non-users. Among Internet users, 25.8% of them are young people aged 18–29 while only
10.2% are elderly aged 60 or above. On the other hand, as many as 62.0% of non-users are
made up of elderly aged 60 or above and 25.1% of people aged 50–59. Only 1.3% of youth
aged 18–29 declared themselves as non-users. The pattern for education level is also obvious.
Up to 55.8% of Internet users have attained a high level of education, with merely 2.8% of
them having “primary or below” qualifications. Meanwhile, more than 90% of non-users have
an education level of secondary or lower. Only 9.4% of non-users reported an education level
of tertiary or above. The last but equally important aspect to be analyzed here is respondents’
monthly household income. Internet users have higher incomes than non-users. As many as
66.5% of users earn HK$30,000 or above, while only 4.4% earn HK$10,000 or below. In con-
trast, more than 60% of non-users have monthly household income below HK$20,000, while
only 24.4% of them earn HK$30,000 or above.
The Internet and social media are shaping the views and values of people as well as their
actual behaviors, in terms of organization patterns and modes of participation. Table 8.6 best
summarizes the big picture of political participation in Hong Kong during the period of the
movement. It shows the outcome of the effect of media usage of the Internet and social media
on political participation making collective action more individualized and personalized.
Adopting a 21-point political activism index (PAI) developed by Norris (2005), Table 8.6
categorizes 21 items of political participation behaviors into four perspectives, namely, voting,
campaign-oriented, cause-oriented and civic-oriented. Except for the category of voting, which
Table 8.6 Patterns of political participation: rankings of individual-based and
group-based modes
Rank Category Item Percentage
1 Voting Reported voting in the last Legislative Council election 57.29%
2 Cause-oriented Signed petition 26.96%
3 Campaign-oriented Worn or displayed campaign badge 16.81%
4 Civic-oriented Been a member of a religious group 16.17%
5 Cause-oriented Demonstrated legally 14.90%
6 Cause-oriented Boycotted products for political, ethical and environmental reasons 11.73%
7 Cause-oriented Protested illegally 11.42%
8 Cause-oriented Bought products for political, ethical and environmental reasons 9.62%
9 Civic-oriented Been a member of an organization for education, parents or academic
research
8.77%
10 Civic-oriented Been a member of an organization for commerce, profession or
industry
8.35%
11 Civic-oriented Been a member of a social club 6.87%
12 Civic-oriented Been a member of a labor union 5.71%
13 Civic-oriented Been a member of a cultural or hobby group 5.18%
14 Campaign-oriented Contacted Government officials or Councilors for social affairs 4.97%
15 Civic-oriented Been a member of a sports club or club for outdoor activities 4.12%
16 Civic-oriented Been a member of an organization for environmental protection,
animal rights or peace
3.91%
17 Campaign-oriented Donated to political parties or political groups 3.38%
18 Civic-oriented Been a member of consumer organization 2.43%
19 Civic-oriented Been a member of an organization for humanitarian aid, human rights,
minorities or immigrants
2.01%
20 Campaign-oriented Been a volunteer for political parties or political groups 1.59%
21 Campaign-oriented Been a member for political parties or political groups 0.95%
Youth participation and social media: evidence from Hong Kong 141
only constitutes one single item, all other three categories involve a number of participatory
items that share the same set of characteristics. To better illustrate the impacts brought about
by the Internet and social media on political participation, the author further categorizes the
four perspectives into individual-based and group-based modes. Individual-based modes mean
that participants of those actions are very likely participating as separate individuals instead
of as a member of a cohesive and well-organized group. Individuals can just go in and out of
the action or movement easily. On the other hand, group-based modes refer to participants
are acting as one organized group to fight for a common goal. According to this conceptual-
ization, voting and cause-oriented behaviors should belong to individual-based modes while
campaign-oriented and civic-oriented behaviors should be put under group-based modes.
With this framework in mind, Table 8.6 exhibits a very clear picture that political partici-
pation in Hong Kong is now dominated by individual-based behaviors and their group-based
counterparts are quite weak. Higher rankings (including numbers 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8) are all
occupied by individual-based items. Even rankings 3 and 4 belong to campaign-oriented and
civic-oriented items respectively, they do not necessarily have any positive implications to
group-based behaviors. When the context of recent Hong Kong is considered, it would not be
difficult to interpret the item “worn or displayed a campaign badge” as likely related to the
Umbrella Movement, in which the displaying of “yellow ribbon” or “yellow umbrella” badges
was more a personal expression of support than an organized group behavior. Besides, being
142 Research handbook on e-government
a member of a religious group in today’s Hong Kong may have much less political implica-
tions than it may have in Western countries.
When the percentages of different items are considered, the upward trend of “organiza-
tionless” and “leaderless” modes of public participation of connective action of Hong Kong
people becomes even more visible. The two most performed participatory actions are all
individual-based. Up to 57.29% and 26.96% of respondents, respectively, have voted in the
last Legislative Council election and have signed one or more petitions during the last twelve
months. Other “individual-based” actions such as demonstrations, protests and personal con-
sumption patterns also gain considerable popularity among respondents, ranging from 9.62%
to 14.90%. In contrast, participatory items that demand more “group-based” involvement and
devotion, for example, volunteering for or being a member of political parties or political
groups, record low levels of participation at 1.59% and 0.95 respectively, and being ranked as
the two least commonly performed actions.
DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
As we shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 with the rise of social media, the literature review and
our case study in this chapter show that we are facing a more individualized and personalized
form of youth participation if not a more divided and even polarized world. Although find-
ings from the Umbrella Movement shown in this chapter are preliminary and more rigorous
statistical testing would be required to establish causal relations, together with the findings
with the literature review they serve the purpose of underlining the close relationship between
social media and youth participation which should never be ignored and underestimated in
both policy and research. When people may be more connected in the Internet age, under
the echo chamber effect, they are actually more connected to their own and self-constructed
conceptual and subjective world of virtual silos rather than to a real face-to-face community
in the traditional sense. Since the youth is the heaviest user of social media among all the age
groups, it is not surprising that there is a gap between the youth and the rest, particularly the
older generations on political views and pattern of political participation. It does not necessar-
ily mean that young people would not participate in politics. However, instead of participating
as a committed and loyal member of a well-organized group, they are often participating as
self-mobilized individuals.
The new logic of connective action in social movement and youth participation leads to
a new mode of collective action which should be taken seriously. Under this new logic, the
modes of participation mainly focus on individual-based participation rather than group-based
participation. It affects the conventional social movement by making the connection between
leaders and participants on reaching a consensus on common goals or strategies more difficult.
Connective action has blurred the line between leaders and followers and weakens the linkage
between institutions and participants as it transforms the mode of modern social movements.
This gives participants the freedom and the flexibility of going in and out of a movement easily
without any organizational barriers and constraints. However, this can be a double-edged
sword. For a movement, flexibility and unpredictability can be advantageous when it makes
government suppression more difficult, but it can also reduce the unity of the movement and
the amount of pressure it can put on government to realize its demands.
Youth participation and social media: evidence from Hong Kong 143
This new pattern of political participation may also have far broader policy and theoretical
implications. It can signal a global shift from the participation culture of “bowling alone”
(Putnam 2000) to the new phenomenon of “alone together” (Turkle, 2011). While there is
a rise of new political activism, it is not the same as the revival of civic culture and a net
increase of social capital as the bonding between leaders and participants is weaker than with
traditional collective action. It can be a problem of “more is less” in which more participation
does not necessarily bring a larger impact and higher solidarity in the movement. In order
to build a strong social movement in the social media age, the challenge for any meaningful
collective action is how to construct “One World, One Dream” shared by all participants.
To reach unity and create impact, movement participants must reach out to individuals with
somewhat different world views, but it is not clear if social media enhances or hinders such
outreach.
At a glance, it seems that social media is having a more dividing effect rather than uniting
effect on youth participation. But studies have shown that the actual outcome can be more
complicated than a simple dichotomy and its implications are far from conclusive, calling for
more rigorous long-term research. Evidence, including a new social movement, the Water
Movement in Hong Kong of 2019 which protested against the Extradition Bill, has suggested
that a leaderless and organizationless social media-enabled social movement could be as
effective as the conventional mode of leader-led and organizational-based movement. While
it is still too early to judge whether the new mode of political participation would be better or
worse, it should be advisable to adopt a prudent approach to find out its similarities and dif-
ferences from the older mode first. For example, studies should be conducted to find out more
about how youth-led social movements, as compared to the conventional social movements,
are mobilized and sustained under the mediation of the interactive social media.
Finally, building on the findings from the studies of social media and youth participation
at the current stage, to further resolve the research puzzle and to move the knowledge frontier
forward, two future directions are suggested. First, future studies should abandon the dichot-
omous approach and identify the specific conditions and actual contexts under which the
social-media-enabled youth participation is occurring. Second and likewise, under the new
mode of connective action in youth activism, it would be more productive to go beyond the
binary approach and not to assume social media must either enhance or hinder youth partici-
pation and formal political institutions. Social media might only change the means rather than
the ends; a new logic and a reinvented mode of participation with the same principles and goals
of driving social change.
ACKNOWLEDGEMNT
Research in this book chapter is supported by the GRF Grant of the Research Grants Council
of Hong Kong under the Project of “Social Media and Political Participation of the Youth in
Hong Kong” (Ref. CUHK14615917).
144 Research handbook on e-government
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