The impact of social media use on mass polarization in Hong Kong: Putting multiple identities into perspective

This study examines the role of social media in the growing affective polarization between proestablishment and prodemocracy citizens in Hong Kong. Because of their high-choice nature, social media facilitate selective exposure to information that is congruent with users’ identities, resulting in affective polarization. However, most previous studies presuppose two mutually exclusive partisan identities (e.g. Democrat vs. Republican in the US) and little is known about the role of more complex multiple identities coexisting within an individual. Focusing on Hong Kong, where Chinese and Hong Kong identities are dynamically constructed in a nonmutually exclusive way, this study advances our understanding of the connection between social media use and mass polarization.
An online survey was conducted in Hong Kong from November to December 2018 (N = 1,318). Quota sampling ensured that gender, age, and household income distribution of the sample approximated that of the population. The dependent variable is affective polarization, which was measured as the absolute difference between feeling thermometer scores of proestablishment and prodemocracy/localist people (range: 0–100, M = 29.74, SD = 28.72). The independent variable is political use of social media. Following Lee (2016), five items with five-point Likert scales measured variables such as frequency of obtaining public affairs or political information and expressing views on public affairs or politics via social media. Identity, the moderating variable, was measured with the four options of (1) Hong Kong (48.51%), (2) Hong Kong but also Chinese (41.74%), (3) Chinese but also Hong Kong (8.11%), and (4) Chinese (1.64%). As those who identified themselves as Chinese were few, a dichotomous variable was created between those who have a single Hong Kong identity coded as 0 and those who have a dual identity (either (2) or (3) above) coded as 1. Gender, age, educational level, household income, size of political discussion network, and mass media use (newspaper and TV) were employed as covariates. Ordinary least square regressions indicate that the political use of social media has a positive effect on affective polarization among those who have a single Hong Kong identity, but a negative effect among those with dual Hong Kong and Chinese identities.
These results suggest that social media allow those with a single Hong Kong identity to selectively receive information that supports their predispositions, which leads to affective polarization. In contrast, for those who have more complex dual identities, social media do not facilitate selective exposure and rather provide them with diverse information, which results in affective depolarization. In summary, the effect of social media use on affective polarization is strongly moderated by users’ identities. Moderation by identity has largely been overlooked in US-centered studies, which assume mutually exclusive partisan identities (i.e. Democrat vs. Republican). However, elaborating the role of multiple identities is crucial for understanding the contextualized effect of social media outside the US, and Hong Kong serves as the best case for that purpose.