The network analytic approach to the debates about selective exposure in political communication research

24/01/2018 (Thursday) 13:00-14:00 E21B-G002

Following the advancement of the Internet and social media, the concept of selective exposure has recaptured scholars’ attention and interests. Political communication researchers have debated in the past decade the degree to which selective exposure exists and influences the formation of public opinion. At the same time, communication researchers have been trying to employ new analytical methods to examine the issues of selective exposure. This talk will discuss what political communication research has informed us about selective exposure, and it would introduce, with a case study of online and offline newspaper readership in Hong Kong, how the method of social network analysis and the concept of audience duplication can be employed to tackle the problematic.

Francis L.F. Lee is Director and Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He works in journalism studies, political communication, public opinion, and media and social movements. He is the lead or sole author of Media and Protest Logics in the Digital Era: The Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong (Oxford University Press, 2018), Talk Radio, the Mainstream Press and Public Opinion in Hong Kong (Hong Kong University Press, 2014), and Media, Social Mobilization, and Mass Protests in Post-colonial Hong Kong (Routledge, 2011). He is currently chief editor of the Chinese Journal of Communication and associate editor of Mass Communication & Society.