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Nguyen, Thi Thuy Hien (2023) A study of the use of digital media in Vietnamese political dissent. Doctoral thesis, London Metropolitan University.
This thesis explores the rise in the use of digital media Vietnamese political dissent through an analysis of Facebook posts and comments on four distinctive issues. It focuses on four key areas: firstly, the nature of journalists' influence in establishing public discussions through their first telling posts; secondly, the nature of Vietnamese-speaking people's engagement in public deliberations on governance concerns using online social networking services in Vietnam and factors that influenced such engagement; thirdly, emotions communicated in online engagement in Vietnamese political dissent; lastly, the development of collective acts of political engagement in cyberspace through online engagement in Vietnam.
A mixed methodological approach was adopted to address the four critical areas mentioned above. Due to the nature of the research topic, the sample was selected purposively, following a non-probability sampling strategy. Data were then collected from online discussions that potentially reflect real-life practices of communities used to establish and reinforce the normative value of groups. A total of 134 first telling posts 'fed' by three high-profile users - former journalists, Le Nguyen Huong Tra, Manh Kim, Truong Huy San - together with 54,486 initial telling posts and comments made by Vietnamese netizens were collected regarding the Cutting Tree Scheme, the environmental crisis caused by the Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corporation, and a proposal to establish Special Economic Zones.
These cases took place between March and December 2015, April 2016 and December 2019, and May 2018 and December 2019 respectively. Due to the fact that they were written by former journalists, the first telling posts were scrutinised using implicit Vietnamese journalism codes of practice. Initial telling posts and comments were subjected to content and discourse analysis.
A framework focusing on the resonance of social media interactions was established to investigate this emerging phenomenon. It includes three main factors: discoverability, rhetorical content, and rhetorical style. Emotions communicated and the development of virtual social capital were also explored and discussed following this framework. The overall conclusion was that rhetorical content is more critical for the resonance of social media interactions than discoverability and rhetorical style in the Vietnamese socio-political context. How a message is worded can provoke emotional reactions from receivers, potentially building up and strengthening critical communities in the virtual public space. As such, the thesis introduces.a framework for understanding the relations between discoverability provided by social media affordances, rhetorical content and rhetorical style embedded in posts and comments, and how this relationship might facilitate the development of initial online engagement into collective acts of political engagement in cyberspace in Vietnam.
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