The Conditional Indirect Effects of Political Social Media Information Seeking and Expression on Government Evaluation in Hong Kong: Revisiting the Communication Mediation Model

Abstract

In Hong Kong, public discontent against the government has evolved into a series of civil disobedience campaigns in the past few years, and digital communication platforms served to channel public sentiments and shape collective action. Grounded in the communication mediation model, this study analyzed the Asian Barometer Survey (ABS) data. Findings show that political social media expression was negatively associated with government evaluation. Moreover, internal political efficacy was negatively associated with government evaluation, and it also mediated the associations between both political social media information seeking and expression, and government evaluation. External political efficacy was positively associated with government evaluation, whereas it only mediated the association between information seeking and government evaluation. Furthermore, democratic preference was found to be a significant moderator upon which the association between expression and government evaluation operated via internal political efficacy was contingent. Our findings provide insights into understandings of social movements.