Social Media, Political Mobilization, and Citizen Engagement

On March 18, 2014, a group of student protestors raided and occupied the Legislative Yuan and later the Executive Yuan in Taiwan. The student-led movement lasted for about 3 weeks after Taiwan's President made significant concessions to change his non-transparent practices when signing the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA) with People's Republic of China. Mostly labelled as a movement of civil disobedience against government's dealings with China, the 318 Sunflower Student Movement is viewed as an important step toward the deepening of Taiwan's democratization process. Its repercussions were felt in Hong-Kong and Macao where similar civil disobedience movements had emerged. On the basis of the resource mobilization theory (RMT), the authors used a combination of case study and thematic analysis methods to examine the role of social media in political mobilization in Taiwan. This chapter identified two major recurrent themes as follows: challenging mainstream media and mobilizing multi-movement resources.

The Dutch Participation Society Needs Open Data, but What is Meant by Open?

Open data and citizen-led initiatives can be both friends and foes. Where it is available and ‘open', official data not only encourages increased public participation but can also generate the production and scrutiny of new material, potentially of benefit to the original provider and others, official or otherwise. In this way, official open data can be seen to improve democracy or, more accurately, the so-called ‘participative democracy'. On the other hand, the public is not always eager to share their personal information in the most open ways. Private and sometimes sensitive information however is required to initiate projects of societal benefit in difficult times. Many citizens appear content to channel personal information exchange via social media instead of putting it on public web sites. The perceived benefits from sharing and complete openness do not outweigh any disadvantages or fear of regulation. This is caused by various sources of contingency, such as the different appeals on citizens, construed in discourses on the participation society and the representative democracy, calling for social openness in the first and privacy protection in the latter. Moreover, the discourse on open data is an economic argument fighting the rules of privacy instead of the promotion of open data as one of the prerequisites for social action. Civil servants acknowledge that access to open data via all sorts of apps could contribute to the mushrooming of public initiatives, but are reluctant to release person-related sensitive information. The authors will describe and discuss this dilemma in the context of some recent case studies from the Netherlands concerning governmental programmes on open data and citizens' initiatives, to highlight both the governance constraints and uncertainties as well as citizens' concerns on data access and data sharing. It will be shown that openness has a different meaning and understanding in the participation society and representative democracy: i.e. the tension surrounding the sharing of private social information versus transparency. Looking from both sides at openness reveals double contingency: understanding and intentions on this openness invokes mutual enforcing uncertainties. This double contingency hampers citizens' eagerness to participate. The paper will conclude with a practical recommendation for improving data governance.

A Comparative View of Censored and Uncensored Political Discussion

Through a content analysis on Chinese online dissidents' social media discourses, this study examines the impact of Internet censorship on Chinese dissidents' political discourse in two social media platforms: Weibo and Twitter. Data was collected during a time period when China's Internet censorship was tightened. Results revealed that Chinese online dissidents are more likely to post critical opinions and direct criticism towards the Chinese government on Twitter. In addition, dissidents on Twitter are more likely to engage in discussing with others, while Weibo dissidents tend to adopt linguistic skills more often to bypass censorship. No difference was found in terms of dissidents' civility and rationality across the two platforms. Implications and future research are discussed in detail.

Citizen Journalism

Last decade has brought several advanced technologies for journalists. This in turn brought in a new era of revolutionary concepts of journalism. One among those concepts is citizen journalism. Citizen journalism is a concept in media that refers to journalistic activities of ordinary people. It means citizens themselves report the issues confronting them. Although the practice of citizen journalism existed even centuries before, it is the new media only that have accelerated its pace in contemporary times. The proposed chapter, ‘Citizen Journalism: News Gathering by Amateurs', presents a detailed description of various aspects of citizen journalism, including its concept, parameters, significance, limitations and types. It provides a detailed history and evolution of citizen journalism. It reveals that citizen journalism has a history older than professional journalism. The chapter also draws a comparison between citizen journalism and mainstream journalism. Moreover, it presents status of citizen journalism in India and Indian-administered Kashmir.

Citizen Engagement in Local Environmental Issues

The goal of this chapter is to draw attention to the interrelation of multiple mediatized relationships, including face-to-face interaction, in local citizen engagement around biodiversity/environmental information. The authors argue that it is possible to fruitfully theorize the relationship between public involvement and the media without focusing specifically on the type of media. Their argument is supported by three examples of participatory projects, all connected with environmental issues, and in which social media-based and face-to-face interactions are closely interrelated. This contribution highlights the local uses of social media and the Web, and shows how engagement plays out in the interaction of multiple channels for exchange and the use of resources in a variety of media formats. In particular, new media significantly alter the visibility of both local actions and of the resulting data.

Smartphones and their Increased Importance in U.S. Presidential Elections

Early researchers had predicted that the Internet might help to encourage political participation through its ability to make political information more accessible. Unfortunately, disparities in Internet access made it unlikely that the Internet would have much of an impact on voter turnout. Telecommunication technology has evolved and among these new advances is smartphones, which help to increase Internet access. The purpose of this chapter is to examine this argument by exploring the relationship between smartphone ownership and voting. This topic is explored using multivariate regression analysis and individual level data from the 2012 American National Election Studies. Findings suggest that smartphones are helping to increase voter turnout through their ability to facilitate other online activities such as visiting candidate websites and taking part in political discussion through social networking sites.

Occupy Rhetoric

By examining three major digital activist events—the Arab Spring, the indignados movement, and Occupy Wall Street—the authors illustrate that digital activism motivates and facilitates real offline behaviors beyond slacktivism by reviewing successful strategies and outcomes that were part of each movement. Moreover, in examining the issue of slacktivism, the authors demonstrate that slacktivism is not always digital, and that the power of weak ties has demonstrable effects in protester behavior and coordination. Finally, the rhetorical situations and exigencies of these major digital activist events are examined; this is an area ripe for more direct analysis and commentary. Understanding the rhetorical situations and exigencies involved in successful digital activist events allows researchers and practitioners a better understanding of integrated approaches to public involvement using social media.

Old Media, New Media, and Public Engagement with Science and Technology

Mass media are, collectively, an effective mechanism for the engagement of the general public in a debate and exchange of information related to science and technology innovations. Whether the aim is to affect change at the individual, population, or policy-making level, public understanding of science and interaction between experts and lay audiences are paramount. This chapter describes a case study of a cybersecurity forum that provided an opportunity for information technology experts to share their knowledge with studio and social media audiences. Reviewing conceptual and practical implications of the case study, the chapter discusses how public engagement efforts could capitalize on the strength of both traditional and online media and introduce interactive programs that cross these two media spaces.

Social Media and the Public Sphere in China

This chapter seeks to answer the question of whether microblog can function as a promising form of public sphere. Utilizing a combined framework of public sphere based on the theories of Mouffe (1995) and Dahlgren (2005), it examines the political discussion and interrogation on Sina Weibo, China's leading microblog site, concerning the Wenzhou high-speed train derailment accident in July of 2011 through a critical discourse analysis. Its results suggest that Weibo enables the creation of new social imaginary and genre of discourse as well as the construction of new social identities.

Social Media as Public Political Instrument

Due to its large number public cannot gather in one place and speak as a single voice, and consequently it cannot represent itself. However, public is always needed as political legitimation, therefore political forces compete to make their own definitions of public and use them as the basis of political claims. To make their definition of public close to the real people, democratic mechanisms have been developed. Once in a number of years, people elect candidates who will represent and govern them. But, most of the time they will be silent and ignored by the changing dynamics of politics. Conventional media does not help the public much to express its voice. Most often it becomes the tool of the elite for indoctrination or the mobilizing of bias. However, social media might empower people, because it allows them to voice their own concerns and to have conversation with each other. But, to have a real impact, the conversation must be directed to solve a real problem. Leadership is required to mobilize people's voice virtually and then turn it into a real political pressure.