Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research

Center for Asian Public Opinion Research & Collaboration Initiative (충남대학교 아시아여론조사학회)
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How Facebook Functions in a Social Movement: An Examination Using the Web Mining Approach

  • Published : 2014.08.31
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Abstract

Social media is becoming more and more important in social movements. This study, adopting the web mining approach, attempts to investigate how social media, Facebook in particular, functioned in the "May 25 Protest" and the "May 27 Protest", two movements which broke out in Macao on 25 and 27 May 2014, respectively, against the Retirement Package Bill. In the two protests, Macao residents deployed Facebook to share information and motivated people's participation. Twelve events (181,106 people invited) and 36 groups/pages (41,266 members) related on Facebook were examined. Results showed that the information flow on Facebook fluctuated in accordance with the event development in reality. Multiple patterns of manifestation, such as video of adopted news or songs, designed profile (protest icon), original ironic pictures, self-organized clubs by undergraduates and white T-shirts as a symbol, among others, appeared online and interacted with offline actions. It was also found that social media assisted the information diffusion and provided persuasive reasons for netizens to join the movement. Social media helped to expand movement influence in providing a platform for diversified performances for actions taken in a protest, which could express and develop core and consistent movement repertoire.

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