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Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Study Background
Although many researcher have asserted that political participation plays an important role in democratic society (i.e. Putman, 2000), serious concerns have been raised over the low rate of political participation among the youth and future generations. Much research on political communication from the last decade showed increasing detachment of younger people from politics in Taiwan and other countries.
They concerned declining political interest, falling participation, and low turnout at elections among young people (i.e., Kaid, McKinney, & Tedesco, 2007; Chen & Chen, 2013). Bennett (2008) suggested that politics has become a dirty word rather than a commonly accepted moniker for personal expression. Recent reports in Taiwan have shown low levels of political participation among young adults in Taiwan (i.e. Shih, 2014; Chen & Huang, 2007). However, Chen & Huang’s (2007) study pointed out that the college students are not rarely low compared to national representative samples. It seems that not only young adults but the entire Taiwanese population is not actively involved in political participation.
However, the use of Social Networking Sites (SNS) as a political communication arena is a recent phenomenon among the youth. SNS have brought new hopes of reconnecting youth with offline political participation. Many creative forms of collective expression on SNS seems more appealing. SNS has kept young people informed, and enabled them to interact with others with political issues, and then further engage in collective actions (Valenzuela, Park, & Kee, 2009; Yamamoto, Kushin & Dalisay, 2013). Examples of Taiwanese student activism mobilized with the help of Facebook in Taiwan include two well-known incidents: The 2012 anti-media
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monopolization campaign1 and the “Sunflower Student Movement” in early 2014.
The latter protested the government’s attempt to forcibly pass the service trade pact, allegedly without some due process. From early March till April 2014, many students were very active in the movement. Online interactions were followed by a massive rally in front of the Taiwan’s Legislative building. An example of the intense online activities was that the Black Island Nation Youth (黑色島國青年) Facebook page had garnered over 300 thousand fans until September 20142. Young people had posted first-hand news about ongoing protest events in front of the Cabinet headquarters, called the Legislative Yuan in Taiwan. Members of Black Island Nation Youth even formed the research group disseminating the information on Facebook. They had collected articles, reports and statistics in an attempt to refute the government statements about the potential benefits of passing the services agreement with China (Chao, 2014). These younger SNS users shared issues and then initiated political discussions with their peers on these sites. With the mobilization, students proved their ability to turn the liking on the (their likes on) Facebook into action. There were approximately 110,000 demonstrators who rallied against the cross-strait service trade pact on March 30, according to the National Police Agency (Hsiao, 2014). It is a sign that the youth are changing from traditional “dutiful citizens” into “actualizing citizens” (Bennett, 2008). Compared to parties or civic organizations which use one-way conventional communication to mobilize supporters, young people currently favor loose networks of community action, maintained by utilizing interactive information technologies (Bennett, 2008). These groups, composed of student
1 “The protest on Nov. 26, when around 100 university students from the Youth Alliance Against Media Monsters (反媒體巨獸青年聯盟) staged an overnight, sit-in protest in front of the Executive Yuan.” (Yi, Feb. 14, 2013) Retrieved from:
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2013/02/14/2003554849
2 The Facebook Page of Black Island Nation Youth:
https://www.facebook.com/lslandnationyouth
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activists, do not have formal organizational structures. Rather, these student activists use Facebook to create an alternative public sphere as a voice of the Taiwanese, separated from mainstream media and party politics, with posts, shares, and likes.
(Harrison, 2014).
Also, it is noted that Facebook has engaged users with new opportunities for interactive, user-generated political experiences. It expands beyond basic forms of engagement to more dynamic and effective political behaviors (Yamamoto et al., 2013;
Vitak, Zube, Smock, Carr, Ellison, & Lampe, 2011). For instance, the fund-raising campaign “ice bucket challenge” went viral on Facebook from the U.S. to Taiwan in 2014, with many people dumping freezing buckets of water over their heads to draw attention to a paralyzing disease --- amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Not only Taiwanese celebrities but ordinary citizens, particularly the young people among them, enthusiastically participated in the social media campaign. The phenomenal success has made other charitable organizations rethink how they can connect with a younger generation of potential donors (C.F.Chen, 2014). During that time, the Newsfeed was flooded with videos of people drenching themselves in ice water, accompanied by the hashtag #icebucketchallenge3.
The challenger nominates participants to be filmed having a bucket of ice water poured on their heads and challenging others to do the same. The nominees have 24 hours to comply or make a charitable donation to the ALS or another charity group. The example showed that highly interactive nature of Facebook newsfeed linked Facebook activism with the offline fundraising campaign. Facebook offers young citizens an opportunity to access political opinions and beliefs through interaction with their peers, which could, in turn, stimulate their own interest and
3 A Hashtag ("#") is a form of metadata tag shown on SNS. Hashtags make it possible to group such messages, since one can search for the hashtag and get the set of messages that contain it
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knowledge (Vitak et al., 2011).
In response to growing social media use for political activities among the youth, the relationship between SNS and the youth’s political and civic participation has been extensively studied. Previous studies indicated that the factors influencing civic and political behaviors included the intensity of Facebook use (i.e. Valenzuela, et al., 2009), the reliance on SNS, (i.e. Zhang, et al. 2010), SNS use for News (i.e. Gil de Zúñiga, Jung, & Valenzuela, 2012), and online expression about campaign (i.e.
Kushin & Yamamoto, 2010). However, it is still debatable whether SNS use can enhance political or civic participation. The study on Facebook users’ political participation during the 2008 presidential election in the U.S. showed that there was no positive relationship between the intensity of Facebook use and political participation (Vitak et al., 2011). Due to lack of a commonly accepted conceptualization of Facebook/SNSs usage (As Table 1.1), the research findings of relationship between social media use and political participation differ (Tang & Lee, 2013). Tang & Lee (2013) argued that unlike conventional mass media, ‘‘using’’
Facebook or other SNS usage not only refers merely to exposure to content, but also varies along many dimensions such as the construction of personal profiles, consumption and/or production of shared materials, and commenting on or simply
‘‘liking’’ other people’s postings. Besides, Valenzuela (2013) suggested that there is no clear elaboration on how using social media translates into increased political activities. For these researchers, it is not the time spent with media that matters; rather, it is the specific ways in which individuals use the technology (Valenzuela, Park, &
Kee, 2009; Tang & Lee, 2013). For instance, compared to entertainment use of the Internet (i.e. online gaming), informational use (i.e. getting news online) can be more likely to promote civic participation (Valenzuela et al., 2009).
Therefore, it is crucial to examine the impact of social media use on political
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current study will adopt a multidimensional approach in its examination of the impact of Facebook use on political participation among the youth from the ages of 18 to 35 in Taiwan.Table 1.1 List of a selection of key studies on SNSs and offline political participation intensity of Facebook use and students’ life satisfaction, social trust, civic engagement, and political participation intensity of Facebook use and offline political participation reliance on SNS and civic
participation; rather than political use for news and social capital, civic and political participatory behaviors (online and offline)
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1.2 Purpose of the Study
As proposed above, the current study aims to answer how and under which conditions Facebook use is related to offline political participation by examining three forms of political activities for Facebook, namely, Facebook use for political information, political expression, and the connection with public political actors on Facebook in relation to political participation among the youth from the ages of 18 to 35 in Taiwan. It seeks to adopt a multidimensional approach to examine various aspects of Facebook use on political participation. A web survey of Taiwanese youth
from the ages of 18 to 35 was conducted to examine whether these variables can predict offline political participation.
Vitak et al. (2012) suggested that future studies should investigate whether certain members of users’ friend network would have a greater impact on one’s political participation since people are nested in a dynamic network. Therefore, the current study examined whether individuals, who are exposed to more politically active network members (i.e. political representatives, social movement activists, and media commenters), become more active political participants through “friending” or
“liking” these political actors. Taken together, the current study attempts to examine how the connection with public political actors will propel the followers to engage in political participation.
There are several factors that motivate the researcher investigating political activities within the context of Facebook. In regard to Facebook use among Taiwanese, Taiwan has the highest penetration rate of Facebook in the world. The population of active Facebook users in Taiwan has reached 15 million in the fourth quarter of 2013, which accounts for 65 percent of the country's population, according to Facebook data (Central News Agency, 2014). Facebook is also cited as the most-used social network site in Taiwan (95.8%) by a huge margin, with Google+
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(24.7 %) claiming a distant second, according to the report from the Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC) (Chung, 2014). With regard to Taiwanese Facebook demographics, the youth makes up the majority of Facebook users , with 31.7% of Facebook users being between 25 and 34 years old, followed by 21.5 % of users between the age of 18 and 24 years old (Socialbakers, 2014). These high rates among the youth highlight Facebook as an important social media site to study.
However, even with this growing popularity of Facebook use for political participation in Taiwan among the young generation, there is still limited empirical research predicting the effects of Facebook use on political behaviors. Besides, college students have a positive attitude towards civic participation but their actual involvement is limited, according to a survey on college students’ attitude and behavior in offline civic participation (Sun, 2008). Based on previous reasons, it is important that the current study is able to explore whether Facebook offers opportunities for new forms of political activities and its relevance for offline political participation. This study aims to use a multidimensional framework to examine the political use of Facebook and political participation among young adults in Taiwan.
Based on this, questions arise as to how far Facebook is used for political activities and whether the use of Facebook is affecting young generation’s behaviors of political participation.
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1.3 Organization of chapters
The chapters were organized as follows. For Chapter One, this study began with an introduction on the background of study and a brief overview of the social media use for political activities among the youth in Taiwan. Chapter Two is a review of the literature with respect to the following issues. The definitions, typologies, and the discourses regarding political participation were discussed firstly. The second part discusses the features of Facebook and its affordance for political activities. Three dimensions of Facebook use that influence political participation are reviewed, namely Facebook for political information, Facebook for political expression, and befriending political actors on Facebook. Control variables were discussed in the third part of this chapter, along with their relationship between different variables.
Chapter Three is about the method used in this research. This section covered the measurement, sampling plan, survey questionnaire design, and statistical method for analysis. Chapter Four reported major findings from the data collected, by means of utilizing correlation and linear hierarchical regression analyses. Lastly, the in-depth discussion about the findings, limitation of the study, practical contribution and implications for future research were covered in chapter Five.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Defining political participation
In this thesis, the researcher attempts to examine how Facebook political activities are related to offline political participation. Citizens’ participation in the political process has been considered a crucial element for a functioning and healthy democracy. Traditional definitions of political participation focus on voting and campaign activities. Verba, Schlozman, & Brady (1995) offered a canonical definition of political participation as a behavior that seeks to affect government action like public policy or selection of officials. In the same vein, Conway (1985) conceptualized political participation as activities that citizens perform in order to influence different levels of the government, such as its structure, policies, or officials.
In short, political participation can be referred to as public actions which intend to influence government through diverse voluntary involvement. Verba & Nie (1972)’s pioneering work systematically explored the categorization of political participation that covered turnout, campaigning, communal, and particularized contacting activities.
The communal activities refer to forming groups or contacting officials or political actors for solving social problems, while particularized contacting activities mean contacting officials for personal needs. Verba & Nie (1972) attempted to extend the concept of political participation into extra-institutional arena by including communal activities and particularized contacting activities.
Researchers have offered a variety of categorizations to update the definition of political participation. For instance, Teorell, Torcal, & Montero (2007) proposed a more extensive typology, classifying five main types of political participation:
electoral participation, party activities, protest activity, consumer participation (i.e.
donating money to charity and boycotting), and targeted forms of communication (i.e.
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contacting elected officials). The typology widened the extra-institutional forms of political action to include noninstitutionalized forms of political behavior like protesting, boycotting, and signing petitions.
For the purposes of this thesis, the researcher is most interested in forms of the youth’s offline political participation. Given that political participation of citizens is important in the functioning of a healthy democracy, there has been considerable research specifically concerning the disengagement of young people from the political system. The decline of youth political participation would negatively impact the governance of society, which highlights the need for the democratic participation by young people to be supported and encouraged (Banaji, 2008; Livingstone, Bober, &
Helsper, 2005). The pioneering work by Verbal et al. (1995) argued that there are three reasons people might not become active in politics. Firstly, they can’t.
Individuals lack time, money, or skills, which may make it difficult for them to take part. Secondly, they don’t want to. People may not be concerned about political issues and thus not interested in political participation. Lastly, nobody asked. Citizens may not be exposed to those who attempt to mobilize them to political action. However, Zukin, Keeter, Andolina, Jenkins, & Delli Carpini (2006) proposed that young people are less attracted by traditional forms of political engagement such as voting and other election affairs, but are more likely to engage in civic involvement such as voluntary activities or boycotting. Such assertions have called for a broader and more contemporary approach toward political participation (Livingstone et al., 2005;
Bennett, 1998). Livingstone et al. (2005) suggested that politics can be defined broadly by including identity politics, civic activities, and social movement issues.
Drawing on the typology presented by Teorell et al. (2007), Ekman & Amnå (2012) developed a new framework of political participation which makes a clear distinction between manifest “political participation” (formal political behavior as well as protest
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or extra-parliamentary political action) and less direct or “latent” forms of participation, conceptualized as “civic engagement.” Manifest political participation refers to all actions directed towards influencing governmental decisions and political outcomes; while latent political participation, or so-called civic participation, includes individual or collective actions intended to influence circumstances in society that are of relevance to others, outside one’s own family and circle of friends. Civic participation enables young people to learn skills and develop networks of necessity in political activity (Ekman & Amnå, 2012).
In sum, the researcher measures offline political participation including manifest political participation as electoral participation, contact activity and party activity, protest, and civic actions.
2.2 Facebook and political activities
Considering Facebook is the most-used SNS in Taiwan, the current study focuses on Facebook as the context of research and presents an investigation of political activities on Facebook. boyd & Ellison (2007) defined SNS as “web-based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their lists of connections and those made by others within the system” (p.211). In other words, these characteristics include the creation of a user profile, a list of users with whom one is connected, and the ability to view a list of one’s connections and the connections of others within one’s network. This way, users form visible network connections through displaying users’ interpersonal networks on SNS. Also, research showed that connections among users on these sites typically represent preexisting offline relationships (boyd & Ellison, 2007; Ellison,
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Steinfield, & Lampe,2007).
As for the structure of Facebook, there are two main pages, namely “profile”
and “home”. The profile page, also called “the wall”, is where users present themselves. It contains the area of “status updates”: users can post anything they want in their status, and friends can respond to this statement by text comments or by liking it (shown directly below the status). On the home page, also often called “news feed,”
users are informed on the status updates and other activities (joining groups or becoming a fan of something they like) from their friends. It thus automatically and chronologically reflects the highlights of what friends have been doing in the past hours (Caers, et al., 2013). The highly interactive nature of Facebook’s news feed encourages users to become more active political participants and possibly expand beyond basic forms of engagement to more dynamic and effective political ones. For instance, Facebook users can monitor their personal contacts and stay updated about what is going on with them on their news feed. Users can view their friends’ activities by scrolling through the news feed on their homepage, and they can comment on friends’ posts, thus engaging in active conversation about political issues. With these functions, SNS can reinforce existing ties and communities by keeping users constantly updated about what is going on with their contacts (Park, Kee, &
Valenzuela, 2009).
The affordances of SNS suggest that they might be well suited to develop new forms of online political behaviors. Conroy, Feezell, & Guerrero (2012) summarized five main features of Facebook which can be used for political communication : (1) group: members are connected based on shared common political interest and they can directly communicate with each other via private messages; (2) wall: users can post messages on their profile page to present their opinion publicly; (3) notes: users can share their views with blog-like posts; (4) share: users can post links to external
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websites on their profile; (5) fan pages: users can show support for a public figure.
Taken together, Facebook offers a number of methods through which users can immerse themselves in political context. With their visible network connections
Taken together, Facebook offers a number of methods through which users can immerse themselves in political context. With their visible network connections