Online Media and the Emergence of Young Vietnamese Citizens as Environmental Activists A Case Study of the ‘Save Son Doong’ Movement By Ly Thi-Cam Nguyen A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of International Communication Unitec Institution of Technology, New Zealand, 2017 ABSTRACT Various youth initiated grassroots environmental campaigns have emerged within Vietnam’s complicated political and media context over the past few years. This raises questions regarding how Vietnamese youth have taken advantage of the Internet to protect the environment. Guided by the research question “How do young Vietnamese citizens use online media for environmental activism?” and using the ‘Save Son Doong’ movement as the case study, this research evaluates the effort of the ‘Save Son Doong’ activists in using online media to run the movement. This research also generally explores the opportunities and challenges for grassroots groups to run environmental movements in the Vietnamese context. In-depth individual interviews and a focus group with the ‘Save Son Doong’ activists were employed as the main data collection methods. Content mapping and content analysis were also applied in order to produce a comprehensive assessment of the movement activities. Research findings indicate that young, highly educated and tech savvy activists have been very diligent in taking advantage of the Internet to circumvent the state-controlled mainstream media system and lack of resources to run the ‘Save Son Doong’ movement. By employing online media to organize advocacy activities (petitioning, media advocacy and obtaining endorsement from well-known people), social mobilization activities (building coalition and mobilizing resources) and public will campaigns, they succeeded in raising public awareness, provoking public discourse about the issue, stimulating the mainstream media into massively covering the story and pressuring the decision makers into responding to the matter. However, their weak-tie connections, as well as the shortage of finance and human resources, are reasons for the unsustainability of the movement. It is recommended that the ‘Save Son Doong’ working group consider institutionalizing their organization. The ‘Save Son Doong’ movement has become an inspiration for other online grassroots movements to emerge in Vietnam. However, activists will most likely ii encounter some obstacles including hacking, the digital divide, state cyber surveillance or the illegitimacy of online activism in Vietnam. The research’s focus has been on discovering the ‘Save Son Doong’ activists’ methods and perceptions of online activism. An evaluation of the impact of the movement from the perspective(s) of the public audience, as well as the mainstream media, would be helpful, as it will provide a more objective view of how effectively the activists have used online media in this movement. Future research can also expand on this topic by scaling up the case study, or by adopting a quantitative method that supplies scholars and activists with a broader view of the Vietnamese context of citizen online activism in general, and grassroots environmental activism in particular. iii DECLARATION Name of candidate: Ly Thi-Cam Nguyen This thesis entitled: "Online media and the emergence of young Vietnamese citizens as environmental activists – a case study of the ‘Save Son Doong’ movement” is submitted in partial fulfillment for the requirements for the Unitec degree of: Master of International Communication CANDIDATE’S DECLARATION I confirm that: • This Thesis/Dissertation/Research Project represents my own work; • The contribution of supervisors and others to this work was consistent with the Unitec Regulations and Policies. • Research for this work has been conducted in accordance with the Unitec Research Ethics Committee Policy and Procedures, and has fulfilled any requirements set for this project by the Unitec Research Ethics Committee. Research Ethics Committee Approval Number: 2016-1010 Candidate Signature: ............................................... Date: 18 April 2017 Student number: 1426166 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Nothing has been more challenging to me than writing this thesis. For the moment, I can feel proud of completing a 40,000-word paper, which is far beyond what I thought I could achieve when I enrolled in the program. First of all, I would like to express my greatest appreciation to my supervisors, Associate Professor Evangelia Papoutsaki and Dr Giles Dodson, who have both travelled with me such a long way on this journey. I am extremely thankful for their guidance, attentiveness and patience during the past year. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the ‘Save Son Doong’ activists for participating in the individual interviews and the focus group. Without their help, this project would not have been completed. Thanks are due to the leader and staff of Unitec’s Department of Communication Studies Dr Elena Kolesova, Dr Philip Cass and Deborah Rolland. I am grateful for their lectures and constant support throughout my Master’s program. A special thanks goes to New Zealand ASEAN Scholar Awards for giving me an opportunity to live and study in the most beautiful country on Earth. My sincere thanks go to Raewyn Castle (who has recently retired) from Unitec’s International Office and Juressa Lee from Unitec’s Student Administration, for your support during my time in Auckland. I would also like to thank Laura Stephenson for helping me with proofreading at the end of the writing process. Thank you my dear friends, anh Linh, chị Nhi, Châu and Quỳnh for taking time to give advice on my thesis and for proofreading my research proposal. I am lucky to have Anh, my other half, who always reminded me to focus on the thesis but made sure that I stayed in a good mood during stressful periods. Last but not least, many thanks to my dear family, without whose unconditional support I could not have made it this far. This great achievement is for them, especially my mother. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii DECLARATION iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENT v LISTS ix CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 1 1.1 Overview .................................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 The Vietnamese context of online activism ............................................................................... 3 1.2.1 Lack of democracy, inadequacy of human rights, and tight control of the Internet in Vietnam ....................................................................................................................................... 4 1.2.2 The development of Internet and young population of Internet users in Vietnam ............ 5 1.2.3 Vietnamese social media users’ growing concerns for the national security and development issues ..................................................................................................................... 7 1.2.4 Environmental issues and youth environmental activism in Vietnam ................................ 9 1.3 The ‘Save Son Doong’ movement ........................................................................................... 11 1.3.1 Son Doong – The world’s largest cave ............................................................................. 11 1.3.2 Projected cable car construction into Son Doong Cave ................................................... 14 1.3.3 The ‘Save Son Doong’ movement .................................................................................... 15 1.4 Summary ................................................................................................................................. 16 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................. 18 2.1 Overview ................................................................................................................................. 18 2.2 The Internet and grassroots activism ..................................................................................... 19 2.2.1 Green public sphere ......................................................................................................... 19 2.2.2 Web 2.0 and the new paradigm of social movement ...................................................... 21 2.3 Impacts of online activism ...................................................................................................... 28 2.3.1 Influence of social media on contemporary youth political engagement ........................... 28 2.3.2. Influence of blogs and social media on the media agenda setting process .................... 29 2.4 Critiques of online activism .................................................................................................... 30 2.4.1 Slacktivism ....................................................................................................................... 30 2.4.2 Weak-ties ......................................................................................................................... 31 2.4.3 Dangers and obstacles to the activists ............................................................................ 33 2.4.4 Defenders of online activism ........................................................................................... 34 2.5 Approaches of communication for social change ..................................................................