Who’s to blame for the political divide in Hong Kong? It’s partly Facebook, study says
HKU research finds trend of ‘echo chambers’ on social media and widening gap in society’s views to be correlated
For the first time in a local study, Facebook has been shown to have played a role in the political polarisation of Hong Kong with researchers warning that overreliance on social media for information could further widen the gap and fuel tensions.
The report by a doctorate student from the University of Hong Kong looked into how the city was affected by the online phenomenon known as “cyberbalkanisation” – where people only seek out others who are like-minded, creating an “echo chamber” and isolating themselves from those who do not hold the same views.
The study, co-authored with HKU’s journalism and media studies centre associate professor Fu King-wah, was published in an international academic journal earlier this month.
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Chan Chung-hong analysed 1,644 pages on Facebook, splitting them into 10 groups, ranging from activists to autonomists and conservatives. He then compared the findings with polarised results in popularity polls for the chief executive.
His analysis showed cyberbalkanisation preceded the opinion divide captured in polls, showing that online results and views in the city were correlated.
There are five million active Hong Kong users monthly on the social media platform.
An index to measure the degree of cyberbalkanisation was computed from the sharing of posts within the pages of these communities, and between the different groups.
All publicly available posts on the pages between July 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015 were used as samples.