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第13巻

 張 暁棟 Xiaodong Zhang
Politicians’ Posting Strategies on Facebook: The Case of Hong Kong.
Facebook における政治家の投稿戦略―香港を中心として―
2021年06月 発行

[ 要旨 ]

 本稿は2018年3月に行われた香港特別行政区立法会補欠選挙をケーススタディーとして、Facebook における親建制キャンプ(与党)と泛民主キャンプ(野党)の候補者の投稿を比較、分析した。香港は、その独自の選挙システムや中国の特別行政区である事実の故、政権交代はほぼ不可能なことに考えられる。この固定的な与野党システムの下、各キャンプの候補者の投稿戦略を明らかにするため、補欠選挙の直接選挙枠における両キャンプに所属する六人の候補者の投稿を収集し、コンテンツ分析を行い、選挙運動中にソーシャルメディアが果たす潜在的な役割に基づく分類・分析を行った。投稿内容を分析する結果、泛民主キャンプはオンラインとオンラインのキャンペーン・ツールの統合に関してより強く意識した。そして泛民主キャンプは単純化的且つ感情的なメッセージを多用し、香港政府と中央政府に対してネガティブキャンペーンを積極的に展開した。一方、親建制キャンプの候補者は有力政治家、官僚や有名人からの応援メッセージを多く披露し、相対的に節度のある投稿をした。


[ Abstract ]

 This paper investigated politicians' posting strategies on Facebook during election periods, using the March 2018 Hong Kong legislative by-elections as a case study. Because of Hong Kong's election system and its status as a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, a change of ruling parties is almost unthinkable, and the pro-democracy camp is consigned to permanent opposition. Given the special features of Hong Kong elections―fixed opposition (pro-democracy) and ruling (proestablishment) camps―a series of research questions was addressed concerning the strategic differences between the online election campaigns of the ruling and opposition camps. To answer these questions, this study used Facebook posts made by the six main candidates supported by the two camps in three geographical seats. I used content analysis and keyword splitting to establish a classification scheme based on the potential roles that social media plays during electoral campaigns. I analyzed the sharing of different varieties of posts and topics during distinct periods before the election and examined the frequency of negative posting toward rival candidates or the opposing camp. Results revealed that both camps focused on local affairs in their Facebook posts. The two camps also followed a similar chronological development in their Facebook campaigning, and they shared an overall analogous structure?especially concerning the changes in post categories from period to period. Despite that, there were also some differences. My findings suggest that in Hong Kong, the pro-democracy camp's online campaign heavily relied on taking extreme positions with appeals to voters' emotions and message simplification in negative campaigning against the Beijing and Hong Kong governments; however, the pro-establishment camp generally adopted relatively moderate positions calling for rational thinking. Both these strategies can probably be attributed to the unfair electoral system for opposition parties and the fixed ruling-opposition structure in Hong Kong.