One Step, Two Step, Network Step? Complementary Perspectives on Communication Flows in Twittered Citizen Protests (original) (raw)
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Paper prepared for delivery at the 41st ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops Johannes Gutenberg Universität, Mainz, 11-16 March 2013 Panel on ‘The Transnational Dimension of Protest: From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street’
The extensive use of Social Network Sites (SNS) for protests purposes was a distinctive featureof the protest events in Spain, Greece and the US. Like the Occupy protesters, the Indignant activists of Spain and Greece protested different manifestations of unjust, unequal and corruptedpolitical and economic institutions marked by the arrogance of those in power. But how did the networking capacities offered by the internet were utilised to diffuse cross-national solidarity and allow high-threshold, old-fashioned social movement tactics, such as occupations, to become a tactic that surpassed borders? A closer comparison of the content of the information exchange in SNS reveals not just similarities but also differences among the three movements, some clearly emerging due to the different national contexts. How common were the demands, practices, goals or political actions promoted by the three movements? We tackle these questions studying the communication patterns of people who tweeted about the movements. This paper presents the findings of a comparative content analysis that focuses on how Twitter was used by Spanish, Greek, and American citizens for exchanging information, organising protest events, mobilising participants and creating new, or supporting old, repertoires of engagement. Contrary to much of the recent theorising about the potential of social media, the results of our study indicate that although Twitter is used significantly for protest information diffusion, calls for participation are not predominant, while only a very small minority of tweets refer to protest organisation and coordination issues.
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The extensive use of social media for protest purposes was a distinctive feature of the recent protest events in Spain, Greece, and the United States. Like the Occupy Wall Street protesters in the United States, the indignant activists of Spain and Greece protested against unjust, unequal, and corrupt political and economic institutions marked by the arrogance of those in power. Social media can potentially change or contribute to the political communication, mobilization, and organization of social movements. To what extent did these three movements use social media in such ways? To answer this question a comparative content analysis of tweets sent during the heydays of each of the campaigns is conducted. The results indicate that, although Twitter was used significantly for political discussion and to communicate protest information, calls for participation were not predominant. Only a very small minority of tweets referred to protest organization and coordination issues. Furthermore, comparing the actual content of the Twitter information exchanges reveals similarities as well as differences among the three movements, which can be explained by the different national contexts.
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