Post-materialism, New Media, and Protest in Hong Kong and Taiwan (Pre-Recorded)

• In Event: Protest, Democracy, and Autonomy: The Case of Hong Kong

Abstract

Over the past decade, Hong Kong and Taiwan have witnessed contentious social movements that mobilized a broad spectrum of people, many of which are triggered by China-related issues. Given Hong Kong and Taiwan’s deepening ties with China, what are the underlying factors that motivate ordinary citizens to protest? In this paper, we argue that post-materialism interacts with new media use to increase the propensity of protest participation in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Post-materialism explains why some people in the two societies perceive China as a political threat, thus facilitating citizens to protest on China-related issues. New modes of communications create favorable conditions for collective action via three mechanisms, including increasing expressive benefits, lowering coordination costs, and increasing beliefs of protest turnouts. For empirical analysis, we use the World Values Survey data to examine the effects of post-materialism and new media usage on the propensity to engage in protests in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Authors

• Theodore Charm, University of Texas at Austin

• Tse-min Lin, University of Texas, Austin