#Activism: Tracking Twitter's Impact on Campaigns for Political Change
Abstract
Since the turn of the century, the global community has experienced a constant wave
of popular uprisings and public protests. The “Arab Spring” triggered a chain reaction
that spread not just to the Eastern world, but also to many stable Western democracies,
including the indignados (indignant citizens) movement of Spain, the Portuguese Geração
a Rasca (desperate generation), and the Occupy campaigns worldwide (Theocharis et
al. 2014). Although these movements occurred in different places, addressed different
issues, and featured different demands, one common underlying pattern unites them
together: the use of social media to mobilize citizens and push for change.
Recent research on social movements has thus become increasingly devoted to understanding
the role of social media in facilitating citizen communication, coordination, and
organization. Scholars contend that the widespread popularity, expansive network reach,
and unique “feedback” engagement characteristics of social media mark it as particularly
well-suited for mobilizing systematic action (“Grassroots” 2012; Hampton et al. 2011;
Nisbet et al. 2012). Among this research, the microblogging platform Twitter has received
praise for its ability to simplify the complexities of mass protests and effectively
organize community action (Theocharis et al. 2014). Various interest groups have thus
increasingly begun to adopt social media – and Twitter in particular – as a means
to achieve institutional goals. However, as social communication has moved to online
networks, the scope and variety of information that citizens receive has begun to
shrink. Understanding how different groups have utilized social media has become imperative
to examining what messages people see, and as a result, how social media may change
activism in the future.
This study thus seeks to answer the following questions: How have interest groups
utilized social media, and Twitter in particular, to facilitate political change?
How does partisan affiliation affect and shape social media strategy?
Type
Honors thesisDepartment
Public Policy StudiesPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11583Citation
Brown, Erin (2016). #Activism: Tracking Twitter's Impact on Campaigns for Political Change. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/11583.Collections
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