Social movement, net activism and urban governance : a case of Choi Yuen Village incident

Abstract

Urban social movements become one of the major forms of participation of urban governance of the public in recent years. Social values changed dramatically after the handover that people started to concern their right to the city. They demand for more power and influence in the formulation of urban policies and development strategy. However, urban governance in Hong Kong did not change with the time and resisted changes. This thus widened the gap of urban meaning between the formal government and the public. The conflict of their urban meanings thus led to urban social movement which aim to transform the urban governance. This also reinforce by the presence of new media in the mobilization of the movement. This dissertation aims to investigate how the changes of social values affect the conflict of urban meaning between urban actors and the impact on the urban governance in Hong Kong through analysing the framing of activists and urban managers.

Choi Yuen Village Incident is chosen as case study to examine how different urban actors frame the issue and the implied urban meaning in the framing. This would reveal the conflict of urban meaning and the root of the occurrence of urban social movements in Hong Kong.