Digital Disobedience and the Limits of Persuasion: Social Media Activism in Hong Kong’s 2014 Umbrella Movement

Abstract

This article probes the catalytic features of social media in civic participation and mass civil disobedience in Hong Kong’s 2014 protests, and conceptualizes digital activism in terms of mobilization, organization, and persuasion. It makes use of in-depth interviews, in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese, with 40 of the leading users of social media during the protests. These included, first and foremost, student activists, as well as opposition figures and journalists who reported on the protests. The article finds that the velocity and scale of social media have strengthened protesters’ ability to mobilize and organize, on the Internet and in the streets. Yet, these advantages have not carried over into persuasion of previously uncommitted individuals. Protesters encountered two main obstacles to persuasion via social media: the multitude of messages enabled by social media and the age segmentation of media. As a result, the movement’s social media efforts generated new attention and created digital space for activism, but did not persuade a durable majority of Hongkongers of the movement’s legitimacy. The Umbrella Movement may not have persuaded Hongkongers that their movement and tactics were valid or wise, but the existence of social media allowed protest leaders to document their motivations and conduct, and blunt less flattering narratives in legacy media.

Rebel reviewers: Social media review pages as sites of Confederate memorial discourses

“…Moreover, only members in one of the four political groups studied (Podemos, a leftist party) showed significantly greater ratios of engagement with users that did not share their political views [28]. Agur and Frisch's (2019) study of Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement found that the student political activists were unable to persuade others to join their cause, which was not surprising given polarization of Internet discourse related to their movement [29]. Recent findings on "echo chambers" reveals "the popular saying that 'haters gonna hate' and 'lovers gonna love,' regardless of which media they rely on the most, is a more accurate description" of political expression in online social networks (Nguyen and Tien Vu, 2019).…”

Youth-Led Social Identity and Movements: A Case Study of Youth Activism in Hong Kong

“…Cheng (2016) notes that after the widespread of the image, one third of the protesters reported they were motivated to join the occupation protest by deep-rooted factors of Hong Kong's politics and seeing direct resistance from youth protesters. As the numbers of protesters grew, the police became more violent to attempt to control the masses, which in turn angered and attracted more protesters (Agur & Frisch 2019).…”

Peer Production and Collective Action

“…These imaginaries of grassroots organizing typically travel well across geographies and cultural preferences as they build on the shared experience of commercial social media services. Think of the 2014 Hong Kong protest wave that became known as the "umbrella movement," where social media worked as a catalyzing agent (Agur & Frisch, 2019).…”