In search of prosumption: Youth and the new media in Hong Kong

Abstract

This study addresses three research questions that aim to describe the media use patterns of young people in Hong Kong. In particular, four dimensions of media use are taken as preliminary indicators to determine whether young people fit the popular stereotype of active Internet users. The dimensions include their reasons for going online, their initiative for information management, their production of content, and their collaboration and sharing activities on the Internet.
 
 A self-administered semi-structured questionnaire was distributed to 649 sixth formers in 11 secondary schools in Hong Kong between December 2008 and February 2009. The survey found little support for popular claims that celebrate the active roles of participants in the new media culture. Despite growing up “digitally,” the young people in this study did not demonstrate markedly different characteristics in their media use. Indeed, instead of making the most out of the new media environment as “prosumers,” they remained passive consumers in most cases. These findings call for a more critical evaluation of terms such as “prosumption,” and of assumptions about generational differences in media use.

Classifying the Internet: Everyday Negotiations of Technology and Social Order

“…6 While the question of Internet-user agency is arguably more complex than this dichotomy (van Dijck, 2009), the ways in which the pair framed the classification of daily Internet use was indicative of the tension between the image of the Internet as a "user content-created community" (Sheila, Julie) and the reality of a consumptiondriven Internet use. Although the Internet, as a general and abstract object of knowledge, may be imagined as permeated by values such as freedom, collective intelligence, and equality, its concrete use by individuals in everyday life remains understood as the domain of the atomized, private consumption of information and communication (e.g., Chu, 2010).…”

Media awareness in the age of new media: A case study of Primary 4 students in Hong Kong

“…For example, media users play a more active role through blogging or they can upload videos onto websites like YouTube. The interaction between media users is also enhanced by social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter (Chu, 2010). The Internet may also promote collective behavior by providing a public space for people to gather.…”

“…Yet very little is known about young children in the context of media education as the participants of most studies were high school students (e.g. Leung, 2003; 2007; Chu, 2010). In such a complex new media environment, parents, educators and the society are anxious about the influence of the media on our digital natives.…”

Media Use Preference: The Mediating Role of Communication on Political Engagement

“…The younger generation, a group with increased exposure and application in online media, can be more expressive than the older generation, who have possibly less experience with online media. In this vein, we need to pay attention to the case in Hong Kong in which the younger generation did not show markedly different characteristics in online media use, which means that assumptions about generational differences in online media use is a topic that needs to be explored (Chu, 2010).…”

“…The younger generation, a group with increased exposure and application in online media, can be more expressive than the older generation, who have possibly less experience with online media. In this vein, we need to pay attention to the case in Hong Kong in which the younger generation did not show markedly different characteristics in online media use, which means that assumptions about generational differences in online media use is a topic that needs to be explored (Chu, 2010).From this perspective, the current research examined whether political efficacy can explain different uses of various online/offline media, and whether this, in turn, results in different levels of political engagement. Furthermore, patterns of such relations in different age groups are explored.…”