Social media isn\u2019t remarkable in its use as a tool that allows people a voice for social change. The history of communication innovation is also a history of new ways for ideas to spread. Just look at the centuries-long turmoil sparked by the invention of the printing press: Reformation, Enlightenment, and revolutions spread through illicit broadsides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Social media IS remarkable in its speed and spread \u2013 how\nquickly it can transmit voices for social change and how far. As a medium, it\nis unprecedented in both speed (near-instantaneous) and spread (world-wide.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a result, perhaps unsurprisingly, social media has\ndeveloped a reputation for supporting civic engagement and activism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Commentators have pointed to real social change coming about because of social media, such as the uprisings of the Arab Spring, the Black Lives Matter movement, and #metoo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other, more skeptical commentators have fretted over whether the bandwagon effect of social media criticism ever translates out of online “slacktivist” echo chambers into real, measurable change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Given how easy it is to retweet a post you agree with and call it a day, this skepticism is understandable. Are the majority of voices for social change on social media actually effecting any change in the real world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I share this conflicted attitude toward activism via social\nmedia (\u201cSo many possibilities for communication and change! But is it all just\na lot of hot air?\u201d) So, to get a better pulse on what might actually be taking\nplace, I decided to turn to the researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As you might expect, using social media for political protest is a flourishing area of research, attracting researchers from backgrounds ranging from statistical analysis to social science and psychology, and drawing on both qualitative and quantitative analysis methods in their effort to understand what social media for political protest looks like as well as its magnitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Skimming the research, one thing becomes clear: the majority of people conducting research on this topic agree that social media has a notable impact on some social movements and their related protests<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The successful use of social media fall into one of two categories:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Researchers have found that social media is an important element in:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, I think we can safely conclude from the\nliterature that there is<\/em> value in the argument that social media has true\npower in the realm of political protest and social change. The question is to\nwhat extent (remember: the online world does not operate in a vacuum, and for\nevery activist group there is likely to be an active counter-activist group\nposting media to discredit and undermine the first.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bastos, MT, and Mercea, D. (2015).\nSerial activists: Political Twitter beyond influentials and the twittertariate.\nNew Media & Society, 18<\/em>(10): 2359-2378.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bennett, W.L., and Segerberg, A.\n(2012). The logic of connective action: Digital media and the personalization\nof contentious politics. Information, Communication, & Society, 15<\/em>(5):\n739-768.<\/p>\n\n\n\n De Choudhury, M., Jhaver, S.,\nSugar, B., et al. (2016). Social media participation in an activist movement\nfor racial equality. In: Proceedings of the Tenth International AAAI\nConference on Web and Social Media,<\/em> Cologne, 17-20 May 2016. Available at http:\/\/www.munmund.net\/pubs\/BLM_ICWSM16.pdf<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earl, J., and Kimport, K. (2011). Digitally\nEnabled Social change: Activism in the Internet Age<\/em>. Cambridge, MA: The MIT\nPress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Freelon, D., McIlwain, C., and Clark, M. (2018). Quantifying the power and consequences of social media protest. New Media & Society<\/em>, 20<\/em>(3): 990-1011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gonzalez-Balion, S.,\nBorge-Holthoefer, J., and Moreno, Y. (2013). Broadcasters and hidden\ninfluentials in online protest diffusion. American Behavioral Scientist, 57<\/em>(7):\n934-965.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Shirky, C. (2011). The political\npower of social media: Technology, the public sphere, and political change. Foreign\nAffairs, 90<\/em>: 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Theocharis, Y. (2013). The wealth\nof (occupation) networks? Communication patterns and information distribution\nin a Twitter protest network. Journal of Information Technology &\nPolitics, 10<\/em>(1): 35-56.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tufekci, Z., and Wilson, C. (2012). Social\nmedia and the decision to participate in political protest: observations from\nTahrir Square. Journal of Communication, 62<\/em>(2): 363-379.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Valenzuela, S., Arriagada, A., and\nScherman, A. (2014). Facebook, Twitter, and youth engagement: A\nquasi-experimental study of social media use and protest behavior using\npropensity score matching. International Journal of Communication, 8<\/em>:\n25.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Social media isn\u2019t remarkable in its use as a tool that allows people a voice for social change. The history of communication innovation is also a history of new ways for ideas to spread. Just look at the centuries-long turmoil sparked by the invention of the printing press: Reformation, Enlightenment, and revolutions spread through illicit … Continue reading “Social Media for Political Protest: What Does the Research Say?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1102","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1102"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1109,"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1102\/revisions\/1109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joannadunlap.com\/5665fall19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n\n\n\nFurther Reading<\/h3>\n\n\n\n