Scientific Journal of PPI-UKM Social and Economic Sciences Vol. 3 (2016) No. 2 ISSN No. 2356 - 2536 77 Forming Group Identity through Shared Hashtag on Facebook: A Preliminary Study on Malaysian Universities Iza Sharina Sallehuddin a *, Raja Rodziah Raja Zainal Hassan a , Anita Morah Abas a Edaline Audrey Spykerman b , Ashwinder Kaur a/p Gurbanjan Singh a a Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Sg. Long 43000, Malaysia b National Chengchi University, 11605, Taiwan Abstract The hashtag has become an essential part of communication for those who Tweet and use Facebook. It allows media users to share information and interact with each other as part of a series of overlapping social networks. This article examines how Malay, Chinese and Indian Malaysian universities students use the hashtag to form a group identity. The analysis is based on the used and sharing of hashtags by students in Facebook during several catastrophic events which took place between 2014 and 2015 in Malaysia. Social categorization, social identification, and social comparison were analysed in this research. This study analysed data from a survey of 255 Malaysian universities students. Findings disclosed that most of the Malay, Chinese and Indian students were aware of the official hashtag used on Facebook and majority they agree that it shows their support to the group when posting with the official hashtag. Most of the Malay, Chinese and Indian students felt that they are part of the group when they use the official hashtag, and as the in-group, the use of official hashtag was part of the shared information, being supportive, and cooperative to the community. Keywords: Hashtag, Facebook, Group Identity, Social Identification, Social Comparison Received 25 April 2016; Accepted 27 July 2016 *Corresponding author. Tel: +60196975559; fax: +60390198868. E-mail: izas@utar.edu.my DOI: 10.21752/sjppi-ukm/ses/a27062016 1. Introduction Research on communication technology is growing over the years. It has been proven that one does not have to be physically present in order for a fruitful communication or community building to take place [1]. In order for social media to work, it has to incorporate “collective efforts and interdependence between two or more people” [2]. Today, the social media provides people across the world a space to express themselves in forms of communication, enjoyment and also political expression [3] As the world moves towards a more technological advancement era, social networking sites such as Facebook has up their effort for "collective action" as it enables their subscribers with similar ideals and values to come together on a platform that is not only cost-efficient but also efficient for both communication and information dispersion [4]. Facebook has a tremendous presence online. By August 2013, Facebook also known as (FB) showed a record of having 1.5 billion users [5]. That goes to show the vast reach and popularity of the gigantic social networking site. A large number of its users (approximately 90 percent) belong to the age group of 18-29 years old (a safe indication of most of them being students [5]. Hence, this information reveals that a huge percentage of students in their tertiary education are extremely familiar with Facebook and its users. Students have seen login into the social networking site several times in a day with most of them "practically" living with Facebook [6]. The various activities carried out by Facebook users, such as getting connected to others, updating their status or stating their preference out loud virtually has opened doors to researchers to study how people get abreast with one another, the diffusion of the social network as well as how are identities disclosed can now be investigated. Critics argue that these social networking sites do not reflect a sense of the "real world", but this cannot possibly be true when millions of people across the globe has integrated their online and offline world so much so that that their online world now reflects their offline world [7]. In 2013, hashtags were introduced in Facebook as a new feature that allows its users to "follow specific topics of conversation within a social network's ever-changing stream of user comments" [8]. The efficiency, affordance and interesting nature of hashtags enable users to engage in hashtags on the daily note. Hashtags allow users maximized organization and navigation through tons of information available on the Internet to a specific topic of