Issues and place: the hyperlink network of homeowner forums and implications for collective action

Abstract

This paper explores the structure and the mechanisms involved in the formation of a hyperlink network of Guangzhou city's 118 homeowner forums in the context of a collective action by the homeowners. It develops a contextual analytical framework contending that the structure of the hyperlink network is influenced by utility values and utilization capability, as well as the media and social environments that shape these values, respectively. The results of the exponential random graph models support this framework. Specifically, hyperlinks are more likely to be created among neighborhood homeowner forums when the neighborhoods are located in the same administrative district, built by the same developers, and managed by the same property management companies. Unfavorable contexts that are prone to violent confrontation hamper the creation of cross-forum hyperlinks, but media visibility increases the odds of other forums hyperlinking to homeowner forums. In addition, high levels of online engagement are positively correlated with hyperlink formation. These findings suggest that although online platforms, such as homeowner forums, play a contributory role in collective action, they have limited power in fostering cross-neighborhood coalitions in urban China.

Keywords::

• internet
• hyperlink network
• collective action
• information diffusion
• network analysis

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Chinese National Social Science Foundation under Grant 12CSH043 and the Shanghai Pujiang Program under Grant 13PJC011.The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.

Notes

^1. The most prominent example is perhaps Google's page rank algorithm. More details can be found at http://infolab.stanford.edu/ ∼ backrub/google.html.

^2. The other widely used internet platforms are the QQ group (http://qun.qq.com/) and Weibo (www.weibo.com).

^3. In this study, network nodes are homeowner forums, and network relations are hyperlinks embedded in forum postings by members of these forums. In this definition, the existence of network relations indicates actual information flow (more details are given in the section describing data and methods).

^4. The resident committee is de jure an autonomous mass organization at the base level but de facto an administrative branch of street government.

^5. See http://ir.soufun.com/phoenix.zhtml?c = 233487&p = irol-homeProfile, accessed 18 January 2014.

^6. Besides information diffusion and online communication, the internet also contributes to contentious collective action through other processes, such as locating political opportunities, mobilization, and identity formation (Della Porta & Mosca, 2005; Diani, 2000; Garrett, 2006). For a different view of the significance of information diffusion, interested readers can refer to Earl (2010) for details.

^7. It is worth noting that not all forum postings embed hyperlinks to other homeowner forums. In fact, the majority of forum postings do not contain embedded hyperlinks.

^8. These keywords were carefully chosen after the authors examined a battery of forum postings relevant to homeowners’ collective actions.

^9. The cutting point of 1 was chosen because the original weighted network was sparse.

^10. It should be noted that this is also the most feasible way to construct an information flow among a group of homeowner forums. At first glance, information flow might be constructed according to the content and the timestamp of the postings. However, this alternative method could not rule out the possibility that two homeowner forums might independently repost an online posting from a third web page.

^11. It was difficult to measure all possible adversaries. However, the most common adversaries in housing-related disputes, according to the authors’ observations, were real estate developers, property management companies, and local governments. The effects of having the same developers and property management companies were explicitly modeled, while the effect of having the same government agencies was partially captured by the effect of geographical proximity (the “same district” term).

^12.http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2006-02-27/19119216096.shtml, accessed 16 January 2014.

^13.http://www.soufun.com/news/2007-01-11/920609.html; http://www.chinanews.com/estate/tswq/news/2007/07-12/977901.shtml; http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2008-12-24/080814928922s.shtml, accessed 16 January 2014.

^14.http://news.163.com/07/0731/15/3KO6CNQ7000120GU.html, accessed 16 January 2014.

^15.http://www.wisers.com

^16.http://gzbbs.soufun.com/2811066683∼-1∼440/49109053_49109053.htm, accessed 11 October 2010.

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^18.http://gzbbs.soufun.com/2811006771∼-1∼442/6073696_6078560_2.htm, accessed 2 November 2010.

^19.http://fengjinghuatinglg.soufun.com/bbs/2811454502∼-1∼3466/49503451_49503451.htm, accessed 31 May 2014.

^20.http://huananyujingyuan.soufun.com/bbs/2811065423∼-1∼447/44054470_44131738.htm, http://hongkanghuayuan020.soufun.com/bbs/2811206702∼-1∼2460/51639429_51639429.htm, accessed 31 May 2014.

^21.http://dongfangxiawanna.soufun.com/bbs/2811054813∼-1∼486/38709865_38709865.htm, accessed 31 May 2014.

^22.http://yicaixinshijie.soufun.com/bbs/2811021988∼-1∼452/9716595_9716595.htm, http://huananxincheng.soufun.com/bbs/2811020340∼-1∼429/6601122_6601122.htm, accessed 31 May 2014.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ronggui Huang

Ronggui Huang is an Assistant Professor in Department of Sociology, Fudan University. He researches contentious politics, internet studies, and neighborhood governance in China. He has recently published a monograph in Chinese, titled From Participation to Rights-protection: The Changes and Strategies of Homeowner's Actions in English. He is now working on a project entitled Social Media and Collective Action, which is sponsored by the Chinese National Social Science Foundation.

Xiaoyi Sun

Xiaoyi Sun is a postdoc fellow in the Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong. She is working on the project Environmental Risk and Collection Action in Urban China, which is sponsored by an AXA post-doctoral Fellowship. Her primary research interests are environmental movement, neighborhood studies, and state-society relations in urban China.