Qinfeng Zhu

Social media and citizen engagement: A meta-analytic review

This meta-analytic study reviews empirical research published from 2007 to 2013 with an aim of providing robust conclusions about the relationship between social media use and citizen engagement. It includes 22 studies that used self-reported measures of social media use and participation, with a total of 116 relationships/effects. The results suggest that social media use generally has a positive relationship with engagement and its three sub-categories, that is, social capital, civic engagement, and political participation. More specifically, we find small-to-medium size positive relationships between expressive, informational, and relational uses of social media and the above indicators of citizen engagement. For identity- and entertainment-oriented uses of social media, our analyses find little evidence supporting their relationship with citizen engagement.

I Shield Myself From Thee: Selective Avoidance on Social Media During Political Protests

This study examines the phenomenon of politically motivated selective avoidance on Facebook in the context of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement protests in 2014. We conceptualize selective avoidance as individual choices that users make to shield themselves from undesirable dissonant views by removing unwanted information and breaking social ties that transmit such information. Given the political turmoil and high level of polarization during the protests, we argue that selective avoidance was related to the socio-psychological factor of perceived out-group threat. We present an analysis of a survey of 769 students from Hong Kong conducted at the height of the street protests. We find that 15.6% of the respondents removed content and/or unfriended a Facebook friend during the protests. The use of Facebook for protest-related information and expression was associated with higher likelihood of selective avoidance, which in turn predicted actual participation in the street protests. The level of perceived out-group threat strengthened the positive relationship between Facebook use and selective avoidance. We thus argue that group conflict in a time of political turmoil may catalyze selective avoidance, transforming a heterogeneous socio-informational environment into a more insulated gated community. Such acts may promote protest participation but also lead to a more fragmented and polarized citizenry.

Social media, political expression, and participation in Confucian Asia

This study reviews and analyzes the published empirical research on the role of social media in promoting political expression and participation in Confucian Asia, including China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. In addition to providing a narrative review of the literature, our analyses show clear numerical estimates of the relationships among different types of social media use (i.e., informational, expressive, relational, and recreational), political expression, and participation in Confucian states. The findings reiterate the importance of the expressive use of social media, showing its moderately strong relationship with participation. The findings also show weak positive relationships with informational and relational uses. We also examine the role of political systems in these relationships and conclude that the strongest relationships are in democratic states, followed by hybrid and authoritarian systems.

Citizen-Driven International Networks and Globalization of Social Movements on Twitter

Social media offer an avenue for the formation of citizen-driven global networks that are vital to mobilizing international support and curating global public discourse in social movements. This study looks into the global flow of information and communication about Hong Kongs Occupy Central Movement with a focus on the country/territory-level international network that emerged on Twitter. Drawing on the world systems theory and the literature on social movement, it examines whether the globalization of a local social movement via social media is circumscribed by the existing order of the world system (i.e., from the developed core countries/territories to the developing peripheral). It focuses its analysis on the network structure and the predictors of countries/territories’ centrality in the network. Findings of the social network analysis show that the structure of the international network still follows the existing order of the world system to a large extent. It is further supported by the result of the multivariate analysis that national income, a widely used benchmark for determining a country/territorys position in the world economy, is significantly and substantially related to centrality. However, national income does not have the largest predicting power. Instead, a country/territorys level of political grievances is found to be the strongest predictor. In addition, countries/territories with high Internet penetration rates tend to have high-centrality scores, and yet the effect size is smaller than the other predictors.

What Predicts Selective Avoidance on Social Media? A Study of Political Unfriending in Hong Kong and Taiwan:

One of the democratic promises of social media relies on the expectation that citizens will be exposed to more diverse sources of information and will consequently be more likely to encounter views that challenge their beliefs and opinions. Still, recent evidence suggests that although social media may increase exposure to difference, citizen also take active steps to reduce the dissonance they encounter by engaging in selective avoidance tactics such as political unfriending and unfollowing. We report the findings from the first comparative study of political unfriending conducted in Asia, which analyzes survey data from two Chinese societies, Hong Kong and Taiwan. We find that political interest, political discussion network size, and political discussion with distant others all predict the likelihood of engaging in selective avoidance on social media. The results also suggest that political interest is a stronger predictor of unfriending in Hong Kong, while social and psychological factors play a more important role in Taiwan.

The Role of ICTs in Adaptive and Persistent Authoritarianism: A Study of China at the Administrative Division Level

This study examines how the Chinese government adapts to the challenges posed by information and communication technologies (ICTs) by strengthening state capacity. Using secondary data, we quantitatively examine the relationship between ICT infrastructure and usage, public service delivery, and political control across 30 first-level administrative divisions in China. The results show that, on the one hand, administrative divisions with well-developed ICT infrastructure and high social media penetration are more likely to receive better public service than those with under-developed ICT infrastructure and low social media penetration. On the other hand, administrative divisions with good ICT infrastructure are found most likely to be subjected to greater political control. Furthermore, the governments provision of public services positively correlates to its implementation of political control. Such correlation seems to be stronger among the divisions with advanced ICT development than among the rest.