Social media and human flesh search in Hong Kong

Abstract

This research seeks to explore what motivates people to engage in human flesh search, what are the justification of practice and ends of human flesh search and in what ways has social media shaped people’s notions of “truth”, “rightness” and “wrongness”. Durkheim (1893) used the term “public wrath” to link crime, punishment and communication together which builds a strong theoretical base in this research. However, the development and influence of the internet on crime and communication in the late modern society challenge the traditional notion of “public wrath”. Based on the textual analysis on 790 news reports by keyword search on the WiseNews database from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2014 as well as 2 semi-structured interviews with human flesh searchers, this research identified the motivations of human flesh search from the perspectives of mass media and the interviewees. Further, the research findings illustrated that interviewees justify their practice of human flesh search by the result of human flesh search. Besides, this research indicated that “rightness”, “wrongness” and “truth” are socially constructed by human flesh searchers. Through the number of “hits” and “share” on the internet, the notion of “truth” is redefined and reinforced.