Ma Lai Yee. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-109). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Acknowledgements --- p.i / Abstract (English version) --- p.ii / Abstract (Chinese version) --- p.iii / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction / Political use of the Internet: Utopian or distopian? --- p.1 / Virtual communities and social movements --- p.4 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Political and Technological Landscape in Hong Kong / Chapter I) --- Political Background / The Handover of Hong Kong to China in1997 --- p.7 / The Tradition of Pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong --- p.8 / The 1 July Rally in2003 --- p.9 / Chapter II) --- Technological Background / Internet Penetration in Hong Kong --- p.11 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Review of Literature / Chapter I) --- "Internet, Uses and Gratifications and political effects" / The Uses and Gratifications Approach: Theoretical assumptions --- p.14 / Uses and Gratifications and the Internet --- p.15 / Gratifications and Political media use --- p.17 / "Internet usage, Gratifications and Political effects" --- p.19 / Chapter II) --- "Social movement, collective identity and the Internet" / Social Movements in contemporary social context --- p.23 / Collective Identity in Social Movements --- p.26 / Identity Formation in Computer-mediated Communication --- p.28 / The Internet as a Social Movement Medium --- p.30 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Cyberactivism in Hong Kong / 1 July Protest and Cyber Activism in Hong Kong --- p.36 / The Case: Yumkung.com --- p.38 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- Methodology / Research Design and Sampling --- p.44 / Survey Sample Profile --- p.45 / Content Analysis --- p.46 / Textual Analysis --- p.47 / Measurements of variables --- p.48 / Analytical Procedures --- p.50 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Results and Interpretations / Gratifications of Yumkung.com from Survey --- p.52 / Gratifications of Yumkung. com from Content Analysis --- p.54 / Collective Identity from textual Analysis --- p.60 / Correlational Analysis of Collective Identity --- p.71 / Predictors of Collective Identity --- p.74 / Correlational Analysis of past political participations --- p.77 / Predictors of past political participations --- p.80 / Correlational Analysis of intentions for future political participations --- p.82 / Predictors of intentions for political participations --- p.85 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- Discussions and Conclusions / Uses and Gratifications and its Theoretical Contribution --- p.88 / Collective Identity Formation in Yumkung.com --- p.92 / Political Participations among Participants in Yumkung.com --- p.94 / Theoretical and Practical Implications --- p.99 / Chapter Chapter 8 --- Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research --- p.102 / References --- p.105 / Appendix 1 Questionnaire --- p.110 / Appendix 2 Coding Guide of Content Analysis --- p.115 / "Appendix 3 Invitation letter to Mr. Paul Lin, Yumkung.com's Webmaster" --- p.117

Thesis by publication. / Thesis (PhD) -- Macquarie University, Macquarie Graduate School of Management, 2008. / Bibliography: leaves 124-133. / Introduction - Literature review -- Online word-of-mouth: a comparison of American and Chinese discussion boards -- Electronic word-of-mouth: a comparison of stated and revealed behaviour on electronic discussion boards -- A cross-cultural comparison of electronic word-of-mouth and country-of-origin effects -- Conclusion. / The growth of electronic discussion boards has enabled consumers from different cultures to communicate with people of similar interests. Through this online channel, marketing concepts such as word-of-mouth (WOM) and country-of-origin (CoO) effects have the potential to become more important because of the potentially large number of participants involved. The US and China, being the largest and second-largest online population in the world respectively, are ideal countries to investigate the frequency and extent of these marketing concepts. --The thesis consists of three separate but inter-related papers which have been published in journals or have been accepted for publication. Each paper builds on the one before and analyses different aspects of online consumer behaviour such as information-giving, information-seeking and the CoO statements made by participants of discussion boards. By examining and comparing the frequency and content of discussion postings on discussion boards within US and China based websites, the thesis makes a comparison of the information-giving and information-seeking behaviour of the discussants and also looks at the extent and the content of CoO statements made. Online observation of discussion postings from six different discussion boards (three each from the US and China) was conducted over two 90-day period in 2004 and 2005 and a total of 5,993 discussion postings were downloaded for analysis. In addition, an online survey of 214 participants was conducted to compare the stated and actual (or "revealed") behaviour of discussants on the US and China based discussion boards. -- Overall, the findings indicate consistent differences over a 12-month period in the bahaviour of the US and Chinese discussants. The US discussants were found to provide more information than their Chinese counterparts while the Chinese discussants exhibited more information-seeking bahaviour on the discussion boards. The findings also indicate that the Chinese discussants demonstrated more negative CoO statements and these statements were observed to be related to Japan and/or brands that originated from Japan. The findings suggest that such negative CoO statements can increase rapidly online and it appears that the negative sentiments by the Chinese were apparently unrelated to product quality; instead they appear to have been predominantly associated with war related animosity. -- These findings have important implications for marketers selling to the Chinese as discussion boards appear to be more important as a source of information for the Chinese than the Americans. Also, given that the Chinese discussants demonstrated a high level of negative CoO statements relating to products from Japan, marketers selling Japanese products to the Chinese must understand the underlying issues related to these negativeCoO statements and take steps to prevent non-purchase of Japanese products. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / vii, 133 leaves ill