“Freedom is not free”: Visual activism and dispersed resistance in Hong Kong’s anti-extradition bill protests

Abstract

Graffiti is widely used in social movements globally, yet media and communication research disproportionately focus on the role of social and new media technologies in protest movements. In this paper I ask why university students – a tech-savvy generation – resorted to graffiti and why campus graffiti were not widely circulated on social media during the Hong Kong anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (ELAB) protests. I argue that graffiti enables dispersed resistance and is one way to mobilize, voice dissent, and preserve memory in an increasingly surveilled and evolving repressive media environment. I pursue this argument by analyzing graffiti photographed on university campuses during the anti-ELAB protests. Situating graffiti within protest culture in Hong Kong, I conclude that graffiti are not always circulated on digital/social media to reach a broader audience. In times of crises, not reaching a wider audience is a manifestation of dispersed resistance in a hybrid media environment.