Abstract
This thesis examines how gatekeeping mechanisms operate in online political communication, focusing on the ways digital platforms shape public discourse and political engagement. Moving beyond the traditional view of gatekeeping as a function of institutional media, it redefines gatekeeping as a dynamic and distributed process involving formal censorship, algorithmic infrastructures, social signals, and user behaviour. The study uses the 2014 Hong Kong Occupy Central (HKOC) movement as its central case and develops a comparative, multimethod approach to explore how state power, platform design, influencers, and users interact to manage the flow of political information.The research is structured around four empirical cases, each targeting a different aspect of digital gatekeeping. Chapter 4 examines democratic feedback mechanisms, illustrating how emotional reactions and engagement metrics influence public opinion and elite responsiveness. It highlights the platform’s role in reconfiguring perception through feedback loops and affective signals. Chapter 5 investigates algorithmic gatekeeping, focusing on how recommendation systems and social ties create and reinforce information cleavages. Rather than assuming passive exposure, it presents digital cleavage as the product of entropy-based filtering and the interaction between user behaviour and system logic. Chapter 6 explores the destabilising effect of organised information efforts (Lefebvre, 1984; Thomas, 2004; Chekinov & Bogdanov, 2013), including trolling and disinformation. Using reflexive control theory, it shows how both foreign and domestic actors manipulate trust and engagement signals to disrupt gatekeeping systems and polarise public discourse. Chapter 7 provides a cross-platform comparison of Facebook and Weibo during the HKOC period. It tests five hypotheses concerning content deletion, sentiment distribution, user engagement, and network centrality. The analysis reveals that platform architecture plays a critical role in shaping political discourse, even beyond state censorship. Chapter 8 turns to informal gatekeeping and self-censorship, showing how users internalise discursive norms and avoid sensitive issues without direct coercion. It argues that reputational concerns, influencer signalling, and platform culture contribute to the disappearance of political cleavages, even in open systems.
Together, these chapters offer a new understanding of gatekeeping in the digital age, where visibility, legitimacy, and repressibility are shaped not only by institutions but also by algorithmic logic and user interaction. The thesis contributes a revised gatekeeping model that accounts for structural control, technological mediation, and social dynamics across both authoritarian and democratic contexts.
| Date of Award | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Supervisor | Michael JENSEN (Supervisor) & Xiaodong GONG (Supervisor) |