Wan-Ying Lin’s research while affiliated with City University of Hong Kong and other places

The present study challenges prevailing beliefs and research on the role of social media in supporting deliberation and an active public sphere. Based on a two-wave online panel survey ( n = 791) of the adult population of Hong Kong, as one case of a politically polarized society, we examine the degree to which individuals disconnect from those with whom they politically disagree with on social media. The analysis indicates that exposure to disagreement does indeed lead people to filter their information repertoire by disconnecting from those with whom they disagree. A moderated mediation analysis finds that political disagreement indirectly influenced activist participation through information repertoire filtration. However, in contrast to expectations, this effect was stronger when individuals had a lower level of affective polarization. Our findings underscore the value of focusing on the behavior of users to complement research on access to information about politics.

This study seeks to increase knowledge regarding the consequences of deceptive self-presentation in the context of online dating. Specifically, this study investigates how online daters may react to different levels of misrepresentation in online dating and the role gender may play in the above situation. A two (degree of deception) by two (self-presenting content) by two (gender) between-subjects factorial experimental design was adopted to empirically test the cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes of self-presentation in online dating profiles. The results indicate that online daters showed stronger changes in emotions and action willingness when they discovered others engaging in higher degrees of deception. Women and men reacted differently when confronting misrepresentation.

Guided by communication infrastructure theory and social support theory, this study scrutinizes how the storytelling networks of marginalized communities, particularly migrant domestic workers (MDWs), provided social support amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Data obtained from in-depth interviews with 32 Indonesian MDWs in Hong Kong revealed that the community storytelling networks, comprising interpersonal relationships, community organizations, and media outlets, played an essential role in assisting the coping efforts of MDWs during the pandemic. These storytelling networks offered various types of social support, including informational, emotional, and instrumental or tangible assistance. However, these connections to the storytelling networks were also sources of the spread of misinformation. Theoretical and practical implications are further discussed.

Social movement has been recognized as a driving force of structural and/or policy changes in the broader society; however, its psychological effects on the movement participants have rarely been examined. Grounded in psychopolitical validity framework, the present study utilized a longitudinal prospective design to follow a group of civically engaged youth and examined how social movement participation is linked to their political efficacy and well-being. A total of 490 youth participating in the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong were recruited during the occupation period of the movement and were followed up for three times with a 4-month interval in the year following the movement. The results of latent profile analysis identified four types of participation, namely minimal participation, onsite participation, online participation, and avid participation. Subgroup analysis showed that youth with avid participation exhibited significantly higher levels of psychological and social well-being, stronger leadership competence and policy control, as well as lower perception of responsiveness of the governments during the period of occupation. In the year following the movement, youth with avid participation had a significant decline in psychological and social well-being compared with other groups of youth. Cross-lagged panel analysis showed that perceived responsiveness of the Hong Kong government explained the changes in their psychological and social well-being. Implications for civic engagement and democratic governance on youth’s political efficacy and well-being were discussed.

This study examines whether youths’ safer sex literacy and their intentions to share health-related information are affected by channel (websites vs. social networking sites) and content (fact-based vs. feeling-based content). A 2 × 2 factorial experiment with repeated measures was implemented in a large public university in Hong Kong. The results showed that website-based content facilitated respondents’ safer sex literacy and information sharing intentions more effectively than content based on social networking sites. The interaction effect suggests that feeling-based content yielded a stronger effect on information sharing intentions on the website than on the social networking site.

The present study examines the conditional and differential effects of social media use on elite-challenging political participation, such as petitions, demonstrations, and protests. It applies the Gamson hypothesis (i.e., a combination of high internal political efficacy and low political trust creates optimal conditions for political mobilization) and extends the differential political implications of new media. This study demonstrates how two types of social media use (i.e., capital-enhancing use and recreational use) and the trust-efficacy typology jointly affect political participation, with empirical reference to three Asian societies (i.e., mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). Results from a comparative survey echoed previous literature indicating that capital-enhancing social media use facilitated political engagement, whereas recreational use might dampen engagement. The Gamson hypothesis was supported in the Taiwan sample: Dissidents who had high political efficacy and low political trust were more politically active, and for these people, capital-enhancing social media had a stronger political impact. In mainland China, the recreational use of social media had a stronger political implication for Assureds, who were politically self-efficacious and had stronger political trust.

This study applied the spiral of silence theory to examine college students' willingness to speak up about the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong in both offline and online scenarios. The results largely confirmed the spiral of silence effect in the offline scenario, but not in the online scenario. The findings also suggested that, instead of considering the opinion climate of the general public as a whole, perceived opinion congruency with the peer group positively affected students' outspokenness in the offline setting. Other well-established influencing factors, such as fear of isolation and the awareness of consequence, were confirmed in the offline context as well. Moreover, alternative media exposure positively predicted one's willingness to speak up in both online and offline scenarios. Finally, the applicability of the spiral of silence hypothesis to cyberspace was discussed.

This study applies the contact hypothesis to computer-mediated communication (CMC) and examines whether intergroup computer-mediated contact can facilitate relationships between conflicting groups. The effectiveness of different CMC modes, text-based and video-based, in improving interpersonal and intergroup attitudes was compared. The results from an experiment indicated that video-based CMC exerted greater influence in improving participants’ attitudes towards a targeted outgroup member when compared to text-based CMC. However, text-based CMC produced a stronger effect than video-based CMC in improving one’s attitudes towards the outgroup as a whole.