published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing in Advanced Practice

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Transport Policy and Planning / Master / Master of Arts in Transport Policy and Planning

published_or_final_version / Zoology / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Zoology / Master / Master of Philosophy

The use of online communication media has increased dramatically over recent years, with people from different age groups becoming users of online communication media. Many scholars have become interested in how online communication media influence or even reshape people's social networking practices and social networks. Most existing studies on the impacts of online communication media are based on the observation of online practices of the general population or the younger population, while older adults are rarely taken into consideration. An increasing number of elderly people have become active users of online communication media and they may differ from younger people in many aspects such as networking strategies. Studying the elderly population may therefore enhance our understanding of the utility of online connectivity. Based on 35 in-depth interviews of elderly WeChat users in urban China, which were conducted between December 2017 and March 2019, this study considers two major questions: (1) How do older adults use online communication media to network with their different social relations? (2) How do the online networking practices of older adults influence their social relations? The analysis focuses on two major issues to answer the second question: accessibility and the relational intimacy of social ties. By considering these two questions, this study aims to determine whether older adults become "networked individuals" or just stay "alone together" when they become active users of online communication media. My findings show that how elderly people use online communication media to interact with their social ties is different from younger users and their unique networking strategies have different digital impacts on their social relations. Elderly people often lack opportunities to socialise due to their age-related conditions. Online communication media can reduce their costs of manage social ties and serve an important channel to help many elderly users to (re)connect and develop their social ties, enhancing both the accessibility and relational intimacy of those social ties and help them to become "networked individuals"

Mak Wing-yan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-215). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.i / ACKNOWLEDGEMENT --- p.iv / CONTENTS --- p.vi / Chapter CHAPTER 1 --- Introduction: Problematic Endeavour of Identity in Old Age --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Prologue / Chapter 1.2 --- Segmentation of Life Stages / Chapter 1.3 --- Blurring of Life Stages / Chapter 1.4 --- Over Institutionalization: Sequestration of Experiences / Chapter 1.5 --- Relevance to Present Study / Chapter CHAPTER 2 --- "Literature Review: Old Age Identity in Structural, Institutional And Interactional Settings" --- p.11 / Chapter 2.1 --- Structural Dimension: Policy and Social Identity / Chapter 2.1.1 --- The development of social policy in Hong Kong / Chapter 2.1.2 --- "Problematic nature of ""care in community"" and the objectification of elderly" / Chapter 2.1.3 --- Stigmatization: delineation of the social position / Chapter 2.2 --- Institutional Dimension: Segregated Settings and Identity / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Segregated settings and social space / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Volunteering ´ؤ The interplay between policy and institutional forces / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Elder participation in volunteer working in Hong Kong / Chapter 2.3 --- Interactional Dimension: Discourse Analysis and Identity Negotiation / Chapter 2.4 --- Merging of the Streams of Thought / Chapter CHAPTER 3 --- Conceptual Framework --- p.40 / Chapter 3.1 --- Conceptual Discussion of Identity / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Presumptions of identity: relational approach / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Giddens: modernity and self-identity / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Goffman: stigma and the management of spoiled identity / Chapter 3.1.4 --- Identity and inter-group relation / Chapter 3.1.5 --- Relevance to present study / Chapter 3.2 --- Conceptual Discussion of Social Space / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Relationship between social space and social setting / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Features examined within social space / Chapter 3.3 --- Identity Constitution / Chapter 3.4 --- Possibilities for Identity: From Conceptual to Empirical / Chapter 3.5 --- Research Questions / Chapter CHAPTER 4 --- Methodology and Overview of the Field --- p.60 / Chapter 4.1 --- The Research / Chapter 4.2 --- An Overview of the Field / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Structure of membership / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Typology of volunteering activities / Chapter CHAPTER 5 --- Positioning of the Age Identity --- p.71 / Chapter 5.1 --- Meaning for Joining the Volunteer Group / Chapter 5.1.1 --- Reasons of entry from the professional point of view / Chapter 5.1.2 --- Meaning of entry from the volunteers' point of view / Chapter i. --- A cleavage from disturbing life event / Chapter ii. --- Concealment of stigma / Chapter iii. --- Conformity to the life stage arrangement / Chapter 5.1.3 --- Pain or pleasure / Chapter 5.2 --- Location of Reference Groups - Learning of Elderly Role / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Positive valuation on the present / Chapter i. --- Comparison with the past / Chapter ii. --- Projection over the future / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Accommodation of identity / Chapter 5.3 --- Concluding Remark: Motivations and Capacity for Identity Process / Chapter CHAPTER 6 --- Perception of the Context and the Projection of Actors' Agency --- p.92 / Chapter 6.1 --- User Participation: Social space as perceived by social workers / Chapter 6.2 --- Boundary Control: Defining Professional Realm of Reference / Chapter 6.3 --- Perception of Constrains and Possibilities / Chapter 6.4 --- Boundary Management: volunteers' realm of choice and control / Chapter 6.4.1 --- Personal choice / Chapter 6.4.2 --- "Defensive boundary control: managing their identity by securing their ""time""" / Chapter 6.5 --- Case Study: Nature of Relationships and Boundary Control / Chapter 6.5.1 --- Case 1: Heart-to-heart Programme (the Telephone Visit Team) / Chapter 6.5.2 --- Case 2: Visiting Pioneers (The visiting team) / Chapter 6.6 --- Concluding Remark: Horizon in Perceiving the Aging Process / Chapter CHAPTER 7: --- Consolidation of Identity: Dimensions of Identification --- p.117 / Chapter 7.1 --- Contours of Aging Experience: A Hypothetical Illustration / Chapter 7.2 --- The Vertical Identification: Keep Active / Chapter 7.2.1 --- Locating the volunteers: / Chapter 7.2.2 --- "The meanings of ""active""" / Chapter 7.2.3 --- "Reaffirmation from the structure and the reproduction of ""being active""" / Chapter 7.2.4 --- Dynamics for identification / Chapter 7.3 --- Volunteering and the Site for Social Exclusion / Chapter 7.3.1 --- "Exclusion: delineation of ""they"" and ""we""" / Chapter 7.4 --- Inclusionary Effort by the Volunteers: Sympathetic Attitude Towards the Elderly / Chapter 7.4.1 --- "The concept of ""care"" and ""concern""" / Chapter 7.4.2 --- "Cultivation of the sense of ""sameness"": proximity of experiences" / Chapter 7.5 --- Identity as a Politics: a Convergent Point Case study: The Community Forum / Chapter 7.6 --- Concluding Remarks / Chapter CHAPTER 8 --- "Conclusion and Discussion: ""Staying Active"" as a Theme in Aging Process" --- p.147 / Chapter 8.1 --- Summary of Arguments / Chapter 8.1.1 --- Schema for comparison: positioning and aging self in society / Chapter 8.1.2 --- "Negotiation, boundary control and shaping of identity" / Chapter 8.1.3 --- Consolidation of identity: Two paths for the same end / Chapter 8.2 --- Epilogue: Identity as a Cutting Point for Researching Old Age in Modern Society / Chapter 8.2.1 --- Nature of social space and the presentation of identity / Chapter 8.2.2 --- Rethinking the place of human action in theory of aging / Chapter 8.2.3 --- Identity as a politics / Chapter 8.2.4 --- Policy Reflections / Chapter 8.3 --- Outlook and Vision / APPENDICES / Figure 4.1 Organization Chart of the Service Center (In Chinese) --- p.172 / Figure 8.1 Model of Identity Constitution --- p.173 / Table 1.1 Major Events of Elderly Issues --- p.174 / Table 4.1 Elderly Population --- p.181 / Table 4.2 Summary of Activities --- p.182 / Table 4.3 Profiles of Informants --- p.184 / Table 4.4 Summary of Respondents --- p.186 / Table 5.1 Summary of Core Questions --- p.188 / Table 8.1 Control of Boundary --- p.196 / Document 4.1 Guiding Questions for Interviews --- p.197 / Document 5.1 Promotion Leaflet of the Service Center (In Chinese) --- p.199 / Document 6.1 Report of Implementation of User-Participation (In Chinese) --- p.203 / Document 6.2 Promotion Leaflet of the Community Support Service of Elderly (In Chinese) --- p.206 / BIBIOGRAPHY --- p.207

By making use of the virtual community, older netizens can accumulate and maintain their social capital in various ways: namely, improving their self-identities through online collective problem-solving; developing collective identification with the community through sharing collective memories with their peers online; exchanging intellectual capital for social resources offline during their social engagement; providing emotional support to their net friends; and increasing the density of their networks of social relationships through interacting with their net friends both online and offline. / Data collection is mainly based on ethnographic work, including online and offline participant observation between September 2008 and July 2009. The data collection was later supplemented with semi-structured in-depth interview (on 37 OldKids members) and textual analysis. When analyzing how the virtual community interacts with older netizens' social capital, the study introduces a theoretical framework that, illustrates the acquisition of social capital on its cognitive, behavioral, structural and relational dimensions. / Existing literature reveals that netizens augment their social capital upon joining social networking sites. But most studies focus on analyzing youth behaviors, neglecting older adults, who are often labeled as laggards in taking up new technologies. Because social capita is a resource which can be mobilized to provide network-mediated benefits beyond the immediate family; it is especially important for disadvantaged groups (i.e. older generation) who lack social support. In Chinese society, older adults' social capital shrinks dramatically after their retirement; therefore it is of practical significance for this study to explore how virtual communities provide older people with opportunities to regain and enhance social capital. / This study also reveals that the online roles and social status of the older netizens, together with the external social context of OldKids website, influence how the virtual community influence social capital. In other words, social capital does not distribute evenly among virtual community members. The netizen who takes on more active and responsible roles can accrue more social capital than other members. / This study reveals that OldKids virtual community and its offline communities (OldKids club and OldKids salons) act as platforms and at the same time are driving forces for the older netizens to develop their social capital: it provides them access to cyberspace through encouraging knowledge sharing online and designing offline computer training for the elderly; it encourages its members to shape collective memory through organizing ritual-like online and offline activities; it facilitates members' social engagements by obtaining resources from local government and traditional media; finally, it promotes the flow and exchange of members' social capital resources between online and offline communities. / Under the background of worldwide aged tendency of population, this thesis explores how virtual communities provide social resources to disadvantaged groups. Using the OldKids website (headquartered in Shanghai, China) as a case study, the research investigates how this virtual community assists its members to mobilize social capital, a valuable productive resource inheres in social relations. / 吳歡. / Adviser: Anthony Y. H. Fung. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-01, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 287-301). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English, partial text includes English translation. / Wu Huan.

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Sciences