From Clicks to Collective Action: Essays on Protest and Repression in the Internet Age
Open Access
- Author:
- Bestvater, Samuel
- Graduate Program:
- Political Science
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- January 07, 2021
- Committee Members:
- Lee Banaszak, Major Field Member
Cyanne Loyle, Co-Chair of Committee
Burt Monroe, Co-Chair & Dissertation Advisor
John Mccarthy, Outside Unit & Field Member
Michael J Nelson, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- protest
social movements
state repression
mobilization
social media - Abstract:
- How do individuals participate in collective action to challenge their government in an era of digitally-connected social movements? The internet has served as a central actor in the interplay between governments and the movements that seek to challenge them for long enough that we have come to understand many of the important ways in which new connected technologies change and do not change this relationship, on a large scale. We understand less about how the internet has changed the role individuals play in mass movements, as well as how individuals make decisions about when and how to participate. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of these phenomena by considering how online social networks can help create support for protest movements, how engaging in activism online can lead to physical protest participation, and what happens to digital dissent when the state responds to a digitally-connected movement with coercion. After a brief introduction in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 considers the role of online social network ties in the generation of support for digitally-connected protest movements. Since the emergence of social media as a ubiquitous tool for the creation and coordination of protest movements, significant scholarly attention has been devoted to the role of online social networks in diffusing protest-related information and driving rapid horizontal growth in modern, digitally-connected movements. However, more than just coordinating information diffuses throughout these networks. This study argues that the formation of opinions about protest movements is also a process of social contagion, where individuals develop and express support for a movement in response to the expressed opinions of their neighbors. This theory is evaluated through a descriptive analysis of evidence contained in the Twitter profiles of supporters of the 2019-2020 Anti-Extradition Bill (Anti-ELAB) protests in Hong Kong. Using machine learning and natural language processing techniques, I examine the characteristics of online support for these protests, as well as the structure of the online activist network surrounding the movement. A dynamic analysis of egocentric network data shows evidence consistent with a process of opinion diffusion, where individuals who are exposed to higher levels of overall movement support expressed by their neighbors in the online social network subsequently express increased levels of support for the protests themselves. Chapter 3 addresses the question of whether online activism motivates physical protest attendance. While social movements often use social media to inform and coordinate, critics suggest that online "slacktivism" can also provide less-engaged supporters with a low-cost protest alternative. This study challenges that notion, arguing that those who express greater support for a movement online are also more likely to physically protest, mobilized through the development of network ties to other supporters online. I test this theory by applying machine learning techniques to the Twitter profiles of supporters of the 2017 Women’s March, measuring individual movement support levels and identifying networked interactions between activists. I find that connections to movement supporters in the online social network significantly predict an individual’s event attendance, even when controlling for their own level of movement support. This paper joins the protest micromobilization literature with new social media analysis techniques, addressing an increasingly important question about how social media affects political participation. Finally, Chapter 4 considers how state repression affects online dissent. Significant scholarly attention has been devoted to the question of how protest movements respond to coercive state actions, sometimes demobilizing and sometimes escalating dissent. However, since the emergence of social media as a common tool for modern, digitally-connected protest movements, dissent occurs in both virtual and physical arenas. This study argues that in an ongoing protest campaign, repression has similar effects on digital activism as it does on physical protest. This theory is evaluated through an individual-level panel analysis of Twitter users who expressed support for the 2019-2020 Anti-Extradition Bill (Anti-ELAB) protests in Hong Kong. Using machine learning and natural language processing techniques, I examine the characteristics of these users' online engagement with the protests, and observe how their expressions of digital dissent vary along with the contours of the protest campaign and the repressive responses of government and police. I find that while less severe forms of repression targeting both physical and digital dissent increase levels of online activism, more severe forms of repression have a demobilizing effect. Contrary to expectations, these demobilizing effects of severe repression on digital activism are observed to be stronger for individuals who are highly connected to other activists online.