Facebook

Facebook is more similar to Twitter than it is Instagram. Through the use of Facebook events, users can increase the public’s engagement with a movement and recruit new participants and initiate, support and coordinate in-person action.

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In a study conducted to analyze the role of online communication in citizen activism, the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan was analyzed. The study found that the main forms of offline action in the movement, namely, protesting, sit-ins, and the occupation of the Legislative Yuan, were largely coordinated and supported through Facebook. "Facebook enabled movement activists to connect not only with their friends’ groups and the relevant movement community but also with online groups and networks that were diverse and often vague in nature, form, and purpose. The interviewees were also able to connect with the broader public via Facebook. The picture the interviewees drew of Facebook presented possible qualities of an online public sphere, such as free exchange of ideas and multi-layered processes of co-learning and deliberation." The authors emphasize that the findings presented in their paper should be compared to research accounts of the role of online communication in other recent cases of citizen activism, such as the Arab Spring, another case that heavily utilized Facebook.

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Source: Tsatsou, P. (2018). Social Media and Informal Organisation of Citizen Activism: Lessons From the Use of Facebook in the Sunflower Movement. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117751384

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