Social media, political information cycle, and the evolution of news: The 2017 Chief Executive election in Hong Kong

Social media have become the main channel of news and public affairs information for the public. They have also become the platform on which new actors in public communication emerge. As the institutions of public communication are reconfigured, the way news flows and evolves also changes. This article draws upon and revises Chadwick’s conception of political information cycle and argues that news should be understood as circulating and evolving in the political information cycles embedded in an integrated media system. Within a political information cycle, various actors other than mainstream media outlets can serve as intermediaries and engage in agenda-steering and frame generation. The arguments are illustrated with a case study of the 2017 Chief Executive election in Hong Kong. An examination of the overall prominence of different types of actors in social media and analyses of a number of incidents during the election illustrate the multifarious ways the political information cycle can operate