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Social Media & Citizen Engagement:E Pluribus Pluribus?
Marko M. Skoric Associate Professor
City University of Hong KongHong Kong S.A.R., China
∗ 2.5+ billion people linked via social media globally∗ Only 4 degree of separation (Backstrom et al., 2012)∗ 500+ million Facebook users in Asia ∗ 900+ million WeChat users In China
∗ Networks centered around individualized citizens (egocentric) rather than around topics and communities∗ Citizens no longer anonymous online (pseudo-anonymity)
∗ Can social media promote expansion of human social networks and enhance citizen engagement?
The rise of “egocentric” social media networks
Why are people using social media?
∗ 2 main reasons:∗ Network maintenance (e.g. Facebook)
∗ Social surveillance – checking up on friends∗ Social grooming∗ Disclosure∗ Emotional support∗ Exchanging information
∗ Network extension (e.g. Linkedin, eHarmony)∗ Professional networking∗ Dating
Utility of (social) grooming
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_macaque
Utility of grooming
∗ Why do monkeys (and humans) groom each other?① To double-check the boundary of ingroup
- Who can be trusted?
② To maintain generalized reciprocity- X groom Y, Y groom Z, and Z groom X
∗ Grooming is physically constrained∗ Time, geographical area, energy, etc.∗ Humans invented “rumor” as a substitute
∗ The origins of language?
Live poll question #1
What’s a cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships?
In other words, how many real relationships can humans have?
Real friends (Offline)
Dunbar’s number = 148∗ "this limit is a direct function of relative
neocortex size, and that this in turn limits group size ... the limit imposed by neocortical processing capacity is simply on the number of individuals with whom a stable inter-personal relationship can be maintained.”∗ It takes about 2 hours/day to maintain a close
relationship
Social brain hypothesis
Dunbar’s law
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/andrewnflood/anarchist-organising-dunbars-number
Natural group sizes for human
∗ Cognitive and time constraints determine the size of our networks
∗ Relationships as a series of hierarchically organized layers∗ Natural scaling of approx. 3
∗ 5 (support clique)∗ 15 (sympathy group)∗ 50 (friends and cousins)∗ 150 (casual friends)∗ 500 (acquaintances)∗ 1500 (faces that we can connect to a name)
Live poll question #2
What is the average number of Facebook friends that people have?
# of “friends” on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-science/anatomy-of-facebook/10150388519243859/
721 million active Facebook users (more than 10% of the global population), with 69 billion friendships among them as of 2011.Mean = 190, Median = 100
# of “friends” on WeChat
https://chinachannel.co/1017-wechat-report-users/
Work-related contacts on WeChat
https://chinachannel.co/1017-wechat-report-users/
Technological affordances of social media
∗ Social media lower the barriers to social interaction and reduce the transaction cost∗ Managing large networks is cheap (free) and easy
∗ Reducing the cost in terms of time and effort?
∗ Social media allow users to actively manage their online “image”∗ Identity information is helpful for initiating a relationship
∗ Developing common ground (e.g. sports, political affiliation)
∗ “Bonds which are technically possible within the existing network structures, but which have not yet been activated” (Pearson, 2009)∗ 150 friends may be the maximum, but only at one time
∗ Social media provide the technical means for non-activated, latent ties to be activated into weak-tie relationships∗ So it’s a matter of activating the connection into weak ties
(aka casual acquaintances)
∗ Social media may slow down the decay of friendships
Social media friends – real friends = latent ties
Social capital
∗ Social capital as resources/outcomes stemming from relationships with people∗ Having a network is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for
reaping social capital benefits
∗ Bridging vs. bonding capital (Putnam, 2000)∗ “Weak ties” – loose connections between individuals
∗ Work colleagues, school friends, friends of friends, acquaintances, etc. ∗ Important in a multi-cultural, democratic society
∗ “Strong ties” – tightly knit, emotionally close relationships
∗ Family, close friends, etc.
Social media in organizations
∗ Most governments (and companies) trying to jump on the bandwagon∗ Actively engage citizens and collect feedback
∗ Highly skewed distribution of participation (e.g. 1/9/90)∗ Mechanisms and scale?
∗ People like learning about their colleagues’ lives∗ This information is used to facilitate social interactions
that directly and indirectly support job-related tasks∗ Still, many organizations are concerned about the loss
of productivity, leaking of information, PR blunders, etc.
Social media & politics
Popular discourses on social media
① Techno-optimism and utopianism∗ “The revolution will be twittered”∗ “People will rise and authoritarian regimes shall crumble”∗ “The army of Davids vs. Goliath”
② Techno-pessimism (Gladwell, Morozov)∗ Social media activism lacking in bonding social capital capital
and sacrificial elements∗ Slacktivism & narcissism∗ Social media improving capacity for surveillance & repression
Where is social media now?
∗ Lowering the barriers to participation∗ Reaching a large number of people quickly, with
minimal effort and at low cost∗ Offering new opportunities for engagement to
citizens disillusioned with traditional politics∗ Providing a space for practicing civic skills∗ Improving civic and political efficacy∗ Expanding social networks ∗ Context collapse -- mixing of personal, family and
professional circles and increasing information flow∗ Social capital gains
How can social media promote citizen participation?
∗ Context collapse and increase in weak ties∗ Greater access to public affairs information∗ Information expression talk participation? ∗ Decoupling of information production from established
media∗ More information greater need for curation and
filtering∗ Intelligent agents or social algorithm ∗ Human/manual filtering
∗ Selective affiliation∗ Post-hoc filtering – hiding content, unfollowing,
unfriending
Social media & political information
∗ Political expression on social media is one of the possible paths to inadvertent exposure to political differences (Brundidge, 2010)
∗ Political expression on social media is often meant for a specific audience (Papacharissi, 2012) ∗ Therefore, it could lead to disagreement when the
message(s) reach the unintended audiences
∗ Social network sites use has a direct effect on exposure to cross-cutting perspectives (Kim, 2011)∗ But, there is a shift towards more closed IM apps
Political expression on social media and exposure to disagreement
∗ People have a preference for opinion-reinforcing information in both traditional and online media environment
∗ Political differences and disagreement on social media may induce selective exposure
∗ People are actively shaping their own online social environment∗ Filtering and shielding?∗ Echo chambers?
Selective avoidance on social media
Political retweeting (Conover et al., 2010).
Echo chambers: Social media and search
Estimates of ideological segregation across communication channels (Flaxman, Goel, & Rao, 2016)
Invisible algorithmic filtering
Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook (Bakshy et al., 2015)
∗ Social media environment offers high degree of user control – selective avoidance
∗ Manual filtering: ∗ Unfriending (or unfollowing) – dissolution of social ties∗ Hiding content
29
Post-hoc manual filtering
Political Unfriending around the World
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
US'17 (post presidential election)
UK'17 (post Brexit referendum)
HK'17 (pre Chief Executive election)
FR'17 (post presidential election)
TW'16 (post general election)
Israeli-Gaza armed conflict 2014
HK "Umbrella Movement" 2014
% of social media users
∗ Weak ties are most likely to be broken∗ “Burning bridges”∗ Redundant ties provide multiple social reinforcement
(Centola & Macy, 2007)∗ Training social media algorithms ∗ Ideological extremity (e.g., Bode, 2016; Yang et al., 2017)
Why does it matter?
✗
∗ Homogeneous environments are ideal for encouraging political participation (i.e. voting), by reinforcing opinions and promoting recognition of common problems∗ Exposure to political difference depresses voting because of
increased social costs and political ambivalence (Mutz, 2002)∗ Exposure to countervailing views has a negative impact on
the likelihood of voting but encourages other forms of participation∗ e.g., voluntary activities and future involvement in either
political activism or party politics (Pattie & Johnston, 2009) ∗ Exposure to cross-cutting online networks may yield
different impact, depending on the forms of participation∗ Partisan-related activities vs. community-related engagement
Political disagreement and citizen participation
∗ Traditional collective action requires significant organizational resources, collective identities, & citizen contribution in terms of time, effort and money
∗ Connection action enabled by social media consists of more personalized and expressive acts of content co-production and sharing within the networks of trusted relationships (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012)∗ Reflecting a general shift toward more lifestyle-oriented politics
∗ Issue politics
∗ Movements can rapidly develop and scale-up more efficiently but may not achieve much! ∗ Lack of coherence, factionalism, radicalization
The logic of “connective action” on social media
Citizen Engagement in Asia
Citizen engagement across political systems (Pearson’s r correlations)
Category Type of political systems/states
Political expression
Political participation
Political systems
Authoritarian .41 (.00) .18 (.00)Hybrid .41 .27 (.01)Democratic .57 (.03) .31 (.02)
States
China .41 (.00) .18 (.00)
Hong Kong N/A .28 (.01)
Singapore .41 .24 (.01)
Taiwan .57 .46
South Korea .56 .22 (.01)
Skoric, M. M., Zhu, Q., Pang, N. (2016). Social media, political expression, and participation in Confucian Asia. Chinese Journal of Communication. doi:10.1080/17544750.2016.1143378
Selective avoidance and civic & political participation (Singapore 2013)
Have you ever unfriendedsomeone on Facebook because they did not share your views about current events?
No Yes
Civic participation
Low 93.4% 6.6%
High 95.2% 4.8%
Political participation
Low 95.6% 4.4%
High 91.2% 8.8%†
Have you ever hidden someone's comments from your Facebook feed because they did not share your views about current events?
No Yes
Civic participation
Low 90.1% 9.9%
High 91.1% 8.9%
Political participation
Low 93.2% 6.8%
High 81.3% 18.7%*
Selective avoidance and participation during the elections (Singapore 2015)
During the recent election, have you ever unfriendedor unfollowedsomeone on SNS (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)?
Yes No
10.3% 89.7%
Rally attendanceYes 15.7% 84.3%
No 8.3% 91.7%
Bought campaign products
Yes 31.5% 68.5%
No 8.6% 91.4%
Top reasons:① Published offensive
posts② Published content I
disagreed with③ Posted too much④ Published posts
that could offend my friends
Selective avoidance and protest attendance (Hong Kong Occupy Central 2014)
Yes No
Didn’t attend
9.5% 90.5%
Lowattendance
8.5% 91.5%
High attendance
17.7% * 82.3% Yes No
Didn’t attend
5.6% 94.4%
Lowattendance
5.1% 94.9%
High attendance
18.2% * 81.8%
Unfriending on Facebook
Hiding Facebook posts
∗ Exposure to diverse views and disagreement is good for democracy and engagement with community∗ But, partisan engagement and protest participation
need opinion reinforcement, not conflict or ambiguity
∗ Some contexts require more homophilic information environments∗ Social media platforms may increase the likelihood of
exposure to political difference and disagreement ∗ But, they also enable easy filtering and removal of content
(and people) when needed ∗ Disagreement is more tolerated among close ties
Discussion
∗ How can we prevent echo-chambers?∗ How to address (dis)unity in diversity?∗ Regulation?∗ Education?∗ Design & algorithms?
Discussion-continued
