Electoral Campaign on the Internet
in the Hong Kong and Macao Legislative Elections
Eilo Wing-yat YU
Department of Government and Public Administration
University of Macau
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become in widespread use on the interaction of people in modern society. They are a breakthrough from traditional communication means which focus on one-to-one and one-to-many channels, like letter, telephone, newspaper and television that facilitate platform with many-to-may as well as group interactions, such as electronic mail, cyber discussion group and teleconferencing.[1] Internet, which is regarded as a major component of ICTs, “reconfigured the geography and time horizons of access” for human interaction.[2] The use of internet and other ICTs means characterize the modern life of human beings. Yet, the impact of ICTs on political process has already been attended.[3]
This paper aims at understanding the use of internet in electoral campaign in the Hong Kong and Macao context. It will illustrate how candidates using internet in the 2004 and 2005 Legislative direct elections in Hong Kong and Macao respectively. By analyzing the kind of information and channel facilitated in candidates’ website, it will understand how candidates used the ICTs for their political communication with electorates. I will argue that the use of internet in electoral campaign in the two Special Administrative Regions (SARs) at the embryonic stage. Candidates did not get use of ICTs’ interactive function pursuing public deliberation in the political process and mobilizing mass support; instead most of them treated internet as traditional means with one-way communication. However, political participation in the internet is being cultivated in Hong Kong and Macao. Political authorities are pressured to reconfigure their political campaign in the cyber space; otherwise political and governance crisis will be a possible consequence.
Electoral Campaign and ICTs
According to Andrea Römmele, the way of political campaign evolved through three development stages.[4] The first stage was featured by the face-to-face interaction between parties and the mass, such as door-to-door campaign, rally and demonstration. The second stage was marked as the “modern era of campaigning”.[5] Political message was delivered with the use of “impersonal channel of the mass media”, like newspaper, radio as well as television. In the third stage, professionalization of electoral campaign as well as the use of ICTs is emphasized. On the other hand, electoral campaign has been organized by media professional as well as public relation consultants that they become the personnel dominating the campaign design. On the one hand, ICTs become the tools and means for campaigning. Negrine and Papathanassopoulos use the generic terms: Americanized style of campaign to delineate the development of campaign evolution.[6] In this stage, electoral campaign is approached to “business-like” activities.[7]
Categorizing the use of ICTs in political campaign, Römmele proposed three functions: 1) opinion formation, 2) interest mediation, 3) organization.[8] In terms of opinion formation, political parties and politicians can deliver their messages to citizens directly through ICTs. With the use of internet and electronic mail, they can control the content of information to public as well as to particular target groups.[9] Particularly, they design their online magazines, newsletters and bulletins, and update information in the cyber space frequently so that their target groups can be kept informed. Political parties and politicians can shape public opinion by sending apt information through ICTs.
Second, ICTs can enhance mass participation in the political process, and hence functioning for interest mediation. ICTs facilitate new channel for the political interaction between political parties and citizens. Citizens may not be effortable for the time and capacity for conventional forms of political interaction, such as face-to-face appointment and deliberation. Electronic mail, online chat room, discussion and bulletin boards facilitate convenience for the political input of citizens. Moreover, the form of communication under ICTs is not only bilateral but also multilateral that many actors can involve the deliberation at the same time. Römmele further argues that the multilateral communication on the internet will generate new group identities.[10] Members in these groups shape and consolidate their political views through their regular discussion on the internet. According to Pipa Norris, ICTs can “bridge” people in community without the geographical limitation and “bonding” their political views and opinions.[11] Ultimately, political parties and politicians can shape their political agenda accordingly.
Third, ICTs enhance the efficiency of party organization in the coordination of electoral campaign. ICTs facilitate “an organizational infrastructure that avoid the usual costs of regional headquarters and physical participation in the party organization.”[12] In an extreme situation, according to Römmele, there will be a “virtual” party organization. Internal communication inside political parties only bases on internet and there is no physical interaction between members. Party decision is made in the cyber world.[13] Regarding electoral campaign, the cyber infrastructure possesses mobilization function for voter’s support. ICTs facilitate channel and platform for informing and mobilizing mass participation in election campaign.
In sum, ICTs possesses three major functions in electoral campaign: 1) platform transmitting candidates’ information to electorates; 2) network for the interaction between candidates and voters; 3) mobilization channel for electorates’ support. In the following sector, I will adopt these three indicators to explore candidates’ websites in the 2004 Hong Kong and 2005 Macao Legislative direct elections.
Election Campaign on the Internet: Candidates’ Websites
During August 2004, I searched and visited websites of candidates in the 2004 Hong Kong Legislative Council direct elections. I also visited the various candidates’ websites in the 2005 Macao Legislative direct elections during September 2005. The website addresses were collected from two major means: 1) the campaign materials by candidates, and 2) the searching engines, namely the google.com and yahoo.com.hk. In the case of Hong Kong, the Election Affairs Department (EAD) kept copies of candidates’ campaign materials and I also search the website addresses from the EAD’s record.
In the 2004 Hong Kong Legislative direct elections, many candidates set up their homepages for electoral campaign. There were 35 candidate lists while 31 of them had their election homepages (88.6 percent). In the case of Macao, there were only 10 out of 18 candidate lists (55.5 percent) setting up their campaign websites. It is noted that both Hong Kong and Macao Legislative direct elections adopted the Proportional Representation (PR) system. Candidates ran elections as group and electorates cast their ballets to particular group of candidates. Seats would be distributed to candidate lists in accordance with their share of votes received.[14]
Regarding the function of candidates’ websites, most candidates in Hong Kong and Macao treated their homepages as platform delivering particular information to electorates. Specially, they would display their personal information and platform in their homepages. For instance, 30 out of 31 (96.8 percent) Hong Kong candidate lists and 8 out of 10 (80.0 percent) Macao candidate lists uploaded their personal information on their homepages (see Table 1). All Hong Kong candidate lists displayed their election platforms while there were 8 (or 80.0 percent) Macao candidate lists doing so. Other information being presented in candidates’ websites included candidates’ public speeches and articles, their reports on public service, campaign activity record, campaign materials, their news reports in mass media and list of their supporters etc. Some candidates tended to impress electorates by presenting songs and videos as well as allowing the latter downloading materials (such as games, videos, songs, wallpaper and other election materials). Interestingly, some candidates in Hong Kong, like the Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB) candidate lists as well as the Democratic Party Kowloon East candidate list led by Li Wah-ming, had special pages in their websites to introduce the electoral system and teach electorates how to vote. However, none of candidate website displayed this kind of information in Macao. Furthermore, the webpage of the Macao candidate list New Hope did not show any information but only uploaded a poster.
Nevertheless, candidates in Hong Kong and Macao did not pay much attention on treating internet as a mean for their interaction with electorates. In the case of Hong Kong, most candidates’ homepages mainly displayed their electronic-mail addresses, telephone and fax numbers for communication with electorates. However, this information would only constitute to one-to-one political interaction but could not result in many-to-many communication. Indeed, they would only tell how electorates could contact candidates. Political communication with ICTs, such as online chat room and discussion board, serve as platform for many-to-many interaction so as to enhance direct interaction between politicians and citizens, and consolidate their relationship. However, there were very few candidates installing multilateral communication element in their websites. 13 candidate lists provided message boards in their websites. Only 4 candidate lists had discussion boards and 2 had online chatting with electorates in their homepage.
Different to their Hong Kong counterparts, many candidates of Macao Legislative direct election did not post their contact information (electronic mail address, telephone number and fax number) in their homepages. There were only 40 percent of candidates showing their contact information in their websites while over 70 percent of Hong Kong candidates doing this. On the other hand, similar to their Hong Kong counterparts, only 4 out of 10 candidates setting multilateral communication channels in their homepages. Nevertheless, some Macao candidates seemed to pay more attention on these interactive platforms. For example, Leong Heng-teng, candidate of United Force, replied supporters’ comment on the discussion board in his website. One citizen criticized Leong Heng-teng in the United Force website that Leong did not performance well in helping clients of Bank of Delta Asia, which was accused of laundering money for the North Korea government by the US government in September 2005.[15] Leong thanked for the comment and replied that he would improve his performance in the future on the discussion board in his website. For another example, a campaign assistant of the pro-democracy candidate list New Democratic Macao Association, led by Antonio Ng Kuok-cheong, left a message on the Association’s website message board and mobilized supporters to vote for Ng on the election day.[16] Comparatively, Hong Kong candidates seemed to pay attention on the discussion in their website. According to the author’s observation, none of candidates in Hong Kong Legislative direct elections responded messages and comments in their website.[17] Overall, both Hong Kong and Macao candidates did not intend to have multilateral communication with citizens in internet.
Furthermore, candidates did not view ICTs as an important mean for political mobilization. For instance, there were only one Hong Kong and six Macao candidate lists informing electorates for their coming campaign activities—a measure for political mobilization in campaign activities. There was one Hong Kong candidate list’s website seeking for campaign volunteers as well as financial support in their homepages. Five of them asked for electorates’ electronic-mail addresses. However, there was no Macao candidate list’s website showing information from these three categories. This step implied that candidates would like to mobilize electorates through electronic-mail. However, few candidates would like to use internet to mobilize electorates in elections.
Hong Kong Candidates downplayed the ICTs’ interactive function was partly due to the restriction of the electoral guideline. According to the electoral guideline by the Electoral Affairs Commission, candidates had to declare and deposit their publicities with the Commission before they were distributed, including websites and electronic messages.[18] Lee Siu-wai, Director of Communications Department, Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong (DAB), indicated that the electoral guideline imposed by the EAC resisted political interaction between candidates and electorates in the cyberspace. She argued
if we follow the guideline strictly, we cannot have interactive elements, such as chat room and discussion board, on candidate homepages. It is because any change of homepage content has to be first declared to the EAC; otherwise we will violate the guideline. We cannot ask visitors to leave messages in the chat room or discuss board and post them on the page after declaring the message to the Commission. This is also meaningless for interaction with electorates. Moreover, it is impossible for us to declare the website content whenever there is a new message in the discussion board. Yet, the existing electoral guideline impedes political interaction on the internet.[19]
Andrew To Kwan-hang, who was the running mate of Albert Cheng Jinghan in the Kowloon East Geographical Constituency, also agreed that electoral guideline was not favorable for interactive elements on candidate website.[20] He criticized that the government did not response to the global trench for the use of internet. It did not adjust the electoral guideline in such a way encouraging the use internet to political participation. On the other hand, Hong Kong candidates’ hesitation interacting with electorates through ICTs was also because of the electorates attitude towards internet. Andrew To, candidate of the Kowloon East Geographical Constituency, regarded that internet was mainly for young electorate and had not yet been developed to a mainstream culture in political communication.[21] Therefore, candidate might not put much effort on campaigning in the cyber world.
The relatively few candidates campaigning with internet webpage in Macao may reflect the different campaign style to their Hong Kong counterparts. As indicated by Herbert Yee, Macao’s political system is characterized as “social group politics,” meaning that social groups are the major form for political participation.[22] Candidates intended to build up relationships with different social groups and appealed their supports for electoral mobilization. Yet, various social groups participated in the Macao elections and campaigned for candidates. For instance, the candidate list Macao United Citizens Association led by Chan Meng-kam received supported from Fujian clan associations which mobilized Fujianese to support Chan’s list. On Election Day, the Fujian clan associations provided free transportation to voters and organized them to vote.[23] Similarly, Feong Chi-keong from Love Macao General Union received support from various Guangdong clan associations which campaign for him in the elections. The Macao Development Alliance led by Angela Leong On-kei, who is the forth wife of Stanley Ho, gained the support by the staff associations of the Socidade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau (STDM) which is one of the major gambling groups controlled by Ho. The Macao Civil Servant’s Association campaigned for the candidate list New Hope led by Jose Maria Pereira Cautinho because the latter was the chairman of the Association. The Unite Force and Development Union were supported by the Kaifong Association and the Women Association of Macao as well as the Federation of Trade Unions respectively. Indeed, candidates tended to be more interested to appeal for electoral support from social groups and organizations which were considered as the most effective machinery for electoral mobilization. Therefore, some Macao candidates were not interested to use ICTs in their campaign.