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Comparing Social Media Political Activism in Hong Kong and Islamabad from the perspective of Political Participation Theory
Abstract
Hong Kong and Pakistan have the similarity of British colonial tradition of democracy, political activism is considered as manifestation of democratic value. Pakistan’s capital Islamabad and China’s special administrative region (SAR) Hong Kong observed this political expression of sit-inns in 2014 and 2015 by pro-democracy protesters of Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong and Pakistan Tehrek-e-Insaf(Pakistan Movement for Justice, political party). This study aims to analyse the Facebook and Twitter pages of both movements. Twenty pages selected from frequently reported activism and sit-inns during 2014 to 2015 in the months of October 1st to 31st March. Data collected through well-established coding sheet for content analysis to compare posts/tweets, likes/favourites, share/re-tweets and comments/conversation. Social participatory theory is the theoretical foundation of this study. The findings of the study revealed that protesters in Hong Kong are much frequently using pro-democracy propositions to criticise their government in comparison of Pakistani activists. Political mobilisation and activism of both countries are significantly dependent on FB and Twitter whereas the political activists from Pakistan significantly shared and expressed their thought during their sit-inn as compare to the activists of Hong Kong.
Authors
Saima Kausar
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication and Media Studies, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan
Mudassar Hussain Shah
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication and Media Studies, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan
Saqib Riaz
Chairman, Department of Mass Communication, Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad, Pakistan
Keywords
Facebook, Hong Kong, Islamabad, Political Activism, PTI, Twitter, UM
