Qinfeng Zhu

University of Groningen | RUG · Journalism and Media Studies

This study examines the phenomenon of politically motivated selective avoidance on Facebook in the context of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement protests in 2014. We conceptualize selective avoidance as individual choices that users make to shield themselves from undesirable dissonant views by removing unwanted information and breaking social ties tha...

This study examines whether disconnective practices on social media such as unfriending could constitute a form of selective avoidance and investigates its boundary conditions. To do so, we study whether, to what extent, and under which conditions exposure to disagreement on social media predicts politically motivated unfriending. Specifically, we...

This study examines the political implications of social media through the lens of digital disconnectivity. Specifically, it focuses on politically motivated unfriending and examines its influence on individuals’ political engagement, namely political expression and information consumption on social media. Furthermore, considering the importance of...

Recent years have seen a surging scholarly interest in disconnective political behaviors on social media, commonly termed "politically motivated unfriending." This study presents a systematic review of 28 articles (34 studies) on this topic. Through content analysis, it provides a robust synthesis of the trend, contexts, and focuses of the research...

Previous studies have identified various individual factors explaining news avoidance, but the understanding of how these factors function within the broader political information environment is limited. This study, leveraging a large-scale cross-national survey, reveals that the relationships between individual news interests, news trust, and news...

Los primeros estudios sobre redes sociales respaldaban visiones optimistas en relación con su impacto positivo en el desarrollo del capital social, y relacionaban su uso con la exposición a puntos de vista más diversos y a un mayor compromiso con la sociedad. Sin embargo, recientemente, los investigadores empezaron a analizar los comportamientos as...

Instant messaging (IM) platforms are believed to foster intimate and controlled conversations within small groups and hence provide safe social settings for political conversations, and yet we know little about how political talk emerges from the everyday social interactions in these environments. To fill the gap, this study examines how sociabilit...

Instant messaging (IM) platforms are believed to foster intimate and controlled conversations within small groups and hence provide safe social settings for political conversations, and yet we know little about how political talk emerges from the everyday social interactions in these environments. To fill the gap, this study examines how sociabilit...

While research on flagging misinformation and disinformation has received much attention, we know very little about how the flagging of propaganda sources could affect news sharing on social media. Using a quasi-experimental design, we test the effect of source flagging on people’s actual sharing behaviors. By analyzing tweets (N = 49,126) posted b...

This article examines citizens' use of the Internet as a popular feedback mechanism, and argues that it can help improve institutional performance. Specifically, it assesses the relationship between Internet penetration rate and public service delivery across 31 first-level administrative divisions in People's Republic of China from 1997 to 2014. A...

The Internet and social media create an environment in which individuals can selectively approach information supporting their political worldviews while also being incidentally exposed to socially shared information that challenges their beliefs. These competing information consumption patterns may help explain whether and how digital media contri...

This study examines the phenomena of political unfriending and content removal on social media in three Western democracies-France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We seek to understand the role of crosscutting discussion, confrontational discussion style, and ideological extremity in triggering unfriending and content removal on social...

Modern communication technologies have vastly increased the reach and influence of political rumors, with negative consequences for democratic political systems globally. Rumor communication can be theorized as a form of political talk that helps citizens grapple with the uncertainty inherent in politics, form opinions, and build solidarity with ot...

While E-participation promotes citizen participation in democratic decision-making processes, and often takes place through deliberation, citizens are expected to be cool-headed individuals equipped with reason and logic, insulating their actions from the impulse of emotion. However, research in neuroscience and cognitive science has found that emo...

This article examines citizens' use of the Internet as a popular feedback mechanism, and argues that it can help improve institutional performance. Specifically, it assesses the relationship between Internet penetration rate and public service delivery across 31 first-level administrative divisions in People's Republic of China from 1997 to 2014. A...

One of the democratic promises of social media relies on the expectation that citizens will be exposed to more diverse sources of information and will consequently be more likely to encounter views that challenge their beliefs and opinions. Still, recent evidence suggests that although social media may increase exposure to difference, citizen also...

This study reviews and analyzes the published empirical research on the role of social media in promoting political expression and participation in Confucian Asia, including China, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. In addition to providing a narrative review of the literature, our analyses show clear numerical estimates of the relation...

This meta-analytic study reviews empirical research published from 2007 to 2013 with an aim of providing robust conclusions about the relationship between social media use and citizen engagement. It includes 22 studies that used self-reported measures of social media use and participation, with a total of 116 relationships/effects. The results sugg...

Social media offer an avenue for the formation of citizen-driven global networks that are vital to mobilizing international support and curating global public discourse in social movements. This study looks into the global flow of information and communication about Hong Kong's Occupy Central Movement with a focus on the country/territory-level int...

This study examines how the Chinese government adapts to the challenges posed by information and communication technologies (ICTs) by strengthening state capacity. Using secondary data, we quantitatively examine the relationship between ICT infrastructure and usage, public service delivery, and political control across 30 first-level administrative...