Digital media activities and mode of participation in a protest campaign: a study of the Umbrella Movement

ABSTRACT

Although digital media are widely recognized as a predictor of protest participation and a platform for the coordination of connective actions, few studies have examined how digital media activities systematically relate to protesters’ mode of participation in protest campaigns. This study aims at filling the research gap through analyzing the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. It identifies time spent in the occupied areas, participation leadership, and forms of actions undertaken as three aspects of a protester's mode of participation that can indicate a protester's degree of involvement in the movement. Analysis of a protester onsite survey shows that the protesters were active in four types of digital media activities: online expression, online debates, online explanatory activities, and mobile communication. Digital media activities are generally positively related to degree of involvement, but the four types of activities are also related to the three aspects of mode of participation differently. The findings illustrate how digital media activities are integrated into individualized mode of participation in contemporary connective actions.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital media activities
• mode of participation
• participation leadership
• frontline activism
• Umbrella Movement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Francis L. F. Lee is Professor and Head of Graduate Division at the School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University in Hong Kong. [email: [email protected]]

Joseph Man Chan is Chair Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong. [email: [email protected]]

Notes

1. A Hong Kong University opinion poll conducted between 20 and 23 October 2014 found that 18% of the respondents claimed to have participated in the movement, while a survey conducted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong between 8 and 12 December 2014 found that 20.1% of the respondents have participated.

2. The Umbrella Movement should not be seen as a prototypical case of networked social movement or crowd-enabled connective actions, however, because central organizers did exist, and the movement was programmatic and cannot be understood without referring to the plan of ‘Occupy Central' since early 2013 (Lee, 2015b).

3. Admiralty is a financial district marked with high-rise business buildings and five-star hotels, whereas MK is a grassroots residential area. Part of the differences in the characteristics of the participants and the atmosphere in the two areas arguably reflect the differences between the two districts.

4. The Cronbach's alphas are 0.87 for online expressions, 0.75 for online debates, 0.61 for online explanatory activities, and 0.79 for mobile communication.

5. The low alpha value for the index means that the participation in the four activities constituting the index actually do not strongly correlate with each other. The index was created nonetheless on the basis of conceptualization and the results of the factor analysis.

6. The Cronbach's alphas are 0.83 and 0.86 for perceived importance of digital media and perceived importance of mass media, respectively.