In recent years, information and communications technology (ICT) has gone through a process of convergence due to dynamic marketing and technological development. However, signs of deconvergence have emerged during this ongoing process of ICT convergence, which requires close attention and critical reflection by ICT practitioners and educators. This article seeks to identify and critique the seemingly paradoxical trend of market convergence/deconvergence, technological convergence/deconvergence, and audience convergence/deconvergence in ICT. To achieve this goal, a focus group discussion with eight selected participants was adopted as the research method for this study. The data were then analysed using qualitative thematic analysis. The themes revealed in the focus group discussion not only reflect the trends in ICT convergence but also, from various perspectives, highlight the increasingly obvious phenomena of deconvergence. The findings should inform industrial practitioners about the rapidly changing ICT landscape and shed light on future ICT policy and industry directions.
Hong Kong's controversy over the Anti-extradition Bill Movement triggered a large-scale social movement, which gradually evolved from relatively peaceful demonstrations to a prolonged series of conflicts and even street violence. Hong Kong students are the most front-line participants. Social media are important platforms for youth political mobilization and organization. The growing political polarization on social media has led to a series of problems such as political unfriending and even cyberbullying. This study interviewed 96 students to investigate their practices of political unfriending on social media, to analyse the psychological pressure and possible cyberbullying caused by such online participatory action towards political dissidents, and to explore ways for government, schools, parents, and other stakeholders to guide students to break their information cocoons by exposing to different political ideologies in a more inclusive manner for a healthier development of democracy in Hong Kong.
The present study introduced the "Inoculated Spiral of Silence (ISoS)" effect in the context of Hong Kong, by exploring the effect of individual characteristics on the weaving relationship of inoculation and the spiral of silence associated with people's attitude change and behaviour intention. An experiment was conducted with a two-wave survey to test the effect on the controversial issue of Article 23 of the Hong Kong Basic Law. The core findings from data analysis indicated that inoculation would generate more resistance to attitude change and promote more willingness to speak out in public. Moreover, inoculation would grow more resistance to attitude change for people highly involved in the issues, but would produce lower resistance to attitude change for the hardcore resistors. As an innovation of the study, testing "hardcore characteristics" in effect was the first time crossed past literature on the spiral of silence and inoculation to consider such a concept. The present study could further provide a better understanding of both the ISoS effect and public opinion in Hong Kong, introducing a novel perspective for academics and professionals to address issues of controversy with effective communication strategies of persuasion in various fields, such as political campaigning and public policymaking.
Communication accommodation theory (CAT) describes the ways that people adjust their behavior while interacting with others, whether that is to gain approval or influence perception. CAT summarizes three adaption strategies: convergence, maintenance, and divergence. Convergence is used when we are seeking to connect with someone and gain their approval and divergence is used when we are trying to distance ourselves from others, seeking to maintain our social identity and voice. Co-cultural theory (CT) explores the communication strategies that non-dominant group members use when interacting within dominant society. CT proposes three preferred outcomes in co-cultural communication process: assimilation, accommodation, or separation. Assimilation means individuals attempt to "fit in" the dominant group while accommodation means individuals participate in the activities of the dominant group without losing their cultural identity. Separation means that the non-dominant individual resists interactions with the dominant groups. Both CAT and CT are widely applied to the studies of the lived experiences and the communicative interactions employed by members with different cultural backgrounds. The accommodation strategies obtained from the empirical studies using different theories are identical or similar in many ways. However, there are few attempts from scholars to integrate the existing CAT and CT accommodation strategies into a comprehensive and heuristic whole. The aim of this paper, based on a thorough review of the existing CAT and CT literature, is to identify and integrate the relevant accommodation strategies adopted by co-cultural members. The integrated co-cultural communication accommodation strategies will provide a practical theoretical framework for the future researches on the non-dominant group members with different cultural backgrounds in their communication accommodation process.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.