Affordances, movement dynamics, and a centralized digital communication platform in a networked movement

ABSTRACT

Much contemporary social mobilization is digitally enabled. Digital media may provide the communication platforms on which supporters deliberate movement goals, share information, discuss tactics, and generate discourses in response to ongoing happenings. Yet digital media’s capability to serve these functions should depend on platform-specific affordances and movement dynamics. Based on such premises, this article examines how the online forum LIHKG became the central communication platform in the Anti-Extradition Bill Movement in Hong Kong. Empirically, digital media and content analysis data help establish the forum’s prominence during the first few months of the movement, while analyses of protest onsite survey data show how the use of LIHKG systematically related to several movement-related attitudes among the protesters. The article highlights the affordances and movement dynamics that allow the forum to play the role. It contributes to understanding the factors that shape the role and impact of digital media platforms in social mobilization.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital media
• protest
• affordances
• movement dynamics
• radicalism
• Hong Kong
• Anti-ELABMovement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Based on in-depth interviews with movement participants and activists by the authors.

2 Based on in-depth interviews with movement participants and activists by the authors.

3 The protesters were young and educated. Usually around 45% of the respondents from a protest were 29 years old or below. Invariably more than two-thirds of the respondents from a protest had university education. Males slightly outnumbered females. Self-reported middle-class citizens slightly outnumbered self-reported lower class citizens.

4 The mean score for LIHKG went down somewhat in the September 28 rally, which commemorated the fifth anniversary of the Umbrella Movement and attracted fewer young people to join.

5 The discourse of mutual destruction was first promoted in mid-August. It may not be coincidental that the relationship was insignificant in late September, when the discourse has already spread so widely that adoption might no longer rely on the use of specific platforms.

6 The survey was commissioned by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work is partly supported by a grant from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (Ref. no. 11605820).

Notes on contributors

Francis L. F. Lee

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

Hai Liang

Hai Liang is an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong [email: [email protected]].

Edmund W. Cheng

Edmund W. Cheng is an associate professor at the Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong [email: [email protected]].

Gary K. Y. Tang

Gary K. Y. Tang is an assistant professor at the Department of Social Sciences, Hang Seng University of Hong Kong [email: [email protected]].

Samson Yuen

Samson Yuen is an assistant professor at the Department of Government and International Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University [email: [email protected]].