1. Introduction
1.4 Literature Review
國
立 政 治 大 學
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N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
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live-streams helped to contain police force against protesters (How Technology and Citizen Media shaped Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement, 2014). The importance of social media during this movement is hard to deny and thus, requires further research.
1.3 Purpose of Research
My research will focus on the use of social media by the participants of the Sunflower Student movement and how exactly social media was involved in this mass mobilization. This research will also have a closer look at some established theories of social movements and communication strategies to explain the appeal of SNS for the activists in the Sunflower Movement. My research goal is to examine the complex role of social media in this protest movement. I want to investigate to what extent the Taiwanese student protesters used social media networks, such as Facebook, as tools for getting involved in the movement and raise political and social awareness to the case. In the first part of my thesis I will give an overview about the different theories on social media to underline my empirical study for this research. I will define the terms social media and social movements as well as present theories emphasizing the role and impact of the internet on participation in social movements. For this I will also have a look at recent social movements – the Arab Spring, Indignants Movement in Spain, and the Occpy Wall Street movement - and their use of social media. I will give an overview on the use of social media in Taiwan and outline the Sunflower Student Movement. In the second part of my thesis I will evaluate my interview results with participants of the movement as well as examine how far the social media played an important role in this movement. For my conclusion, I want to compare if and in how far the Sunflower Movement resembles recent internet-mediated movements in the West and Middle East and how social media may help to improve democratic mechanisms in Taiwan.
1.4 Literature Review
The following literature was reviewed due to its relevance to what will be studied in this thesis, i.e. collective action and social media as a mobilization tool. News articles dealing with the Sunflower Student Movement are numerous and can be found in
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Chinese and English. However, none of the papers so far have conducted any in-depth research regarding the activists’ use of social media during the movement. This section will give an overview on the interdependence between social media and social movements.
Back in the 20th century scholars were classifying social movements as unorganized mass protests without any clear goals. However, that changed in the 1960s when the middle-class took over the streets and scholars started to take social movements and its participants more serious (Donk et al., 2004). To understand why people participate in social movements many scholars focus on the theory of collective action proposed by Olson (1965). He argues that organizations such as labor unions, farm organizations, or the state all have one thing in common: they all further the common interests of their participants. But, when more individuals share the same ideas and interests, individual and unorganized action might not be able to pursue this interest in an adequate way. Organizations therefore serve as a tool to advance group and common interest. Arthur Bentley (1967) declares: “there is no group without its interest” (p. 211). In Olson’s theory it is said that collective action of a large group is difficult to achieve since they have to face high costs in organizing and mobilizing a group. The individuals in the group don’t want to pay the costs of providing a collective benefit. Olson argues that individuals in large groups are likely to “free-ride” since they still will get benefits from if the group is working to provide public goods. Thus, if the group mainly consist of free-riders it will be difficult for them to achieve their goal.
However, Olson’s theory is written in a more rational and economic point of view and thus lacks the psychological and emotional aspect that organized groups have. His model only gives explanation on why individuals do not participate in collective action.
He neglects the psychological aspect of collective behavior as to why people participate in group movements.
Social movements vary in their emergence and dynamics. Grievance is a driving force behind the occurrence of social movements but cannot be considered the only cause. In recent years, a certain interdependence between social movements and social media cannot be denied. Scholars have fierce debates whether social media, besides grievance, can actually cause social movements.
Social movements are not institutionalized but resemble more a network with collective identity as its core (Donk et al. 2004). Social movements cannot survive without communication between its actors. Therefore, the use of ICT, especially social
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media, is really appealing to social movement activists. Donk et al. (2004) argue that the internet became a new “strategic platform” that helps social movements to organize and mobilize.
There are different specific types of social movements that researchers like to focus on. Dalton (1994) made out five types of approaches on how to analyze movements: from the perspective of collective behavior, the resource-mobilization theory, political opportunity structure, the ideologically structured perspective, and the social constructionist perspective. Scholars from the field of psychology have criticized the rational choice approach for pushing the social movement into an economic corner, reducing it to nothing more than activists weigh up their pros and cons for participating in the movement (Donk et al., 2004). Advocates of the resource mobilization theory claimed that there can be observed a general trend towards organization-building in social movements. They measured the amount of money and numbers of staff and participants in the so-called “SMO”s (Social Movement Organizations) which were powerful instruments to organize and mobilize movements as well as gather and distribute information to other members of the movement (Donk et al.,2004).
In their essay “Social Media in the Egyptian Revolution: Reconsidering Resource Mobilization Theory” Eltantaway and Wiest (2011) use the Egyptian revolution in 2011 as their case study to prove that the resource mobilization theory is able to explain social movements and their use of social media. They cite Porta and Mosca (2005) who claim that ICT is an important resource for social movements implemented by “resource poor” actors. The resource mobilization theory states that the most important factors are the availability of resources and the actors’ efficient use of them. In the Egyptian revolution, protestors used social media as mobilization resource that also “address the world while events were unfolding” (p. 1215). Messages on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs also helped to develop and strengthen a collective identity among the participants.Van de Donk et al. (2004) criticize that the resource mobilization theory only focuses on ICT as an instrument to mobilize resources without considering the effect ICT can have on the organization of social movements in its whole structure.
The Sunflower Student Movement saw a huge participation rate of the young people and the “free-rider” problem overall could be avoided. One reason could be the psychological aspect that played into the mobilization of the movement. Manuel Castells (2012) states that social movements are emotional movements. Movements
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usually don’t start with a program. They have their origin in every individual’s emotion such as anxiety. Anxiety results from an external threat. Overcoming the fear eventually leads to another negative emotion: anger. Associated with anger is risk-taking behavior such as taking the action for social movements or protests. Olson’s model assumes that individuals act and make decisions on their own, isolated from other people. However, Castells (2012) argues, social movements require communication and sharing feelings with other individuals. Digital media allows individuals to realize that they share grievance and anger with other individuals. Social movements arise from a socio-political crisis in a country where society is having a deep distrust in the socio-political institutions and thus, the normal channels of communication are blocked. The trigger is anger or grievance. Therefore, people call for collective action (Castells, 2012).
Nowadays digital technologies like computer and mobile phone reduce the costs of gaining information and communicate with people from afar. Digital media in general reduces costs for political participation. Chen and Liao (2014) argue that digital media is the best platform to mobilize people and engage them in political activities.
Social media allows people who are separated through distance to connect with each other and to eventually mobilize. The problem of mobilization, however, is how people are assembled. Here the “logic of connective action”, proposed by Bennett and Segerberg (2013), comes into play. In this theory communication plays a crucial role for mass mobilization. “Connective action” highlights the role of communication as an organizing principle in personalized, digitally networked action (Bennett and Segerberg, 2013).
ICT reduced the costs for collective action, but it did not change the dynamics of group mobilization gradually. The “logic of connective action” argues that ICT indeed plays a crucial role in recent social movements. With the use of social media mass mobilization can take place without a strong organizational control. In the past, social movements mainly have been characterized by the logic of collective action. In contemporary society, however, the use of social networks mass movements cannot be described by the theory of collective action alone. Rather than focusing on the point if social media was essential to the movement, I want to analyze the activist’s use of social media in the Sunflower Student Movement with focus on their role as means of mobilization of collective action.
Atton (2003) says that new communication technologies can be “viewed” as a double response to informal capitalism and neoliberalism” (p. 4). The movement’s aims
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global community. Other countries can learn from these struggles and learn from them as well as show their moral and political support (Ibid.). So, with new ICT innovations, movements can spread all over the world and are not concentrated on one place anymore.Russell (2011) examines in her article “Extra-National Information Flows, Social Media, and the 2011 Egyptian Uprising” the communication theory in correlation with the Arab Spring. She describes that this revolution stands for two characteristics within contemporary internet-mediated movements: the protestors made the technology such as social media work to their advantage. Also, networked communication is increasing the formation of grassroots movements. She also expresses his fear that it is getting harder to keep control over ICT. She notes, as a result
“monopolies or near-monopolies on political news information has thinned” (Russell, p. 1239). Also, there has been a shift from traditional media to “what networked participants in the drama were reporting and saying about what was happening”
(Russell, p. 1239). As for the case of Egypt and the Arab Spring, citizens were not only challenging the policies of the government but also its monopoly on the traditional news outlet. Protestors used ICT and primarily social media such as Facebook and Twitter to provide the background and on-scene information and made themselves independent from the traditional news outlet.
After analyzing the protest of the “Indignants” in Spain, Anduiza et al. (2014) found characteristics in this movement that don’t correspond with the traditional paradigm of collective action. In particular, contemporary internet-mediated movements have a different organization since they are leaderless. Online social networks play a big part as a form of mobilization channel. Also, participants are
“younger, more educated and less politically involved” (p. 751). Digital media contributes to a higher participation of people who may not have been be politically involved before. The participation costs are reduced.
Bennett and Segerberg (2013) argue that before and during the economic crisis in 2008, protests were organized through non-governmental organizations (NGO).
However, for some time already, collective action was able to take place even without the involvement of NGO’s, i.e. in Spain: The “Indignants” movement in 2011, whose target the government was, stayed in contact and mobilized through interpersonal communication networks. Protestors used a mix of online media and offline activities
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that included face-to-face organizing, encampments in the city centers, and marches across the country. This case shows that there are indeed different forms of mobilization.
Bennett and Segerberg (2013) categorized them into organizationally enabled and crowd-enabled movements such as the “Indignants” and Sunflower Student Movement.
Crowd-enabled movements are characterized by technology platforms playing the role of virtual political organizations in coordinating the actions of people operating in geographically scattered face-to-face settings. In this digital network mode, political demands and grievances are often shared in very personalized accounts that travel over social networking platforms, email lists, and online coordinating platforms. I argue that this is exactly why the Sunflower Student Movement had that mass outrage. The students made use of ICT in a way that enabled this once small movement to transform into a mass movement recognized internationally. The protesters inside the Legislative Yuan did not have any formal organizational structure. They used global social media platforms to create different campaigns, Facebook pages and other websites (The Sunflower Movement in Taiwan, 2014.)
In recent years there has been a lot of studies about social movements such as the Arab Spring or the Occupy Wall Street movement and their use of social media.
Manuel Castells “Networks of Outrage and Hope” (2012) gives an overview on the role of social media in movements that emerged recently like the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street movement. He emphasizes the important role of the internet in contemporary movements. He claims that without the internet there would have been no Arab Spring or Occupy Wall Street Movement. It “creates the conditions for a form of shared practice that allows a leaderless movement to survive, deliberate, coordinate and expand (p. 229). Communication is crucial to the emergence of social movements and “the networked social movements of our time are largely based on the Internet, a necessary though not sufficient component of their collective action” (Casteells, p. 229).
Statements like this however, imply that the Internet is its own actor in the emergence of social movements. Castells (2012) fails to mention the individuals in front of the computer and the smartphone. The Internet alone is not able to be the spark of a revolution or movement. The best example is that even after the government shut down the internet in the Middle East the protest movements were still going on.
Donk et al. (2004) argue that social movements are prone to the use of ICT especially when they concern transnational problems like climate change. I can only partly agree with this argument. The Sunflower Student Movement was highly prone
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to the use of ICT, especially social media, also due to the fact that the movement was divided into two camps: one outside and one inside the Legislative Yuan. Therefore they relied on the Internet to disseminate information and mobilize the people outside.
Eventually, they also were able to mobilize groups from all parts of the globe to stand up with them and protest. I hypothesize that this movement was especially prone to the use of ICT because of the high Internet coverage of Taiwan as well as the high penetration rate of Facebook and usage of social media apps like LINE or PTT. The main concern of the protest was more or less a national one that didn’t tackle any global problems. Seen in a broader context the movement also used the slogan of “democracy”
to mobilize more members and also get the attention of international media.
However, in the beginning the problem itself only concerned the “black box policy” of the members of the Legislative Yuan and thus, didn’t really prove the argument of Donk et al. (2004) that extensive use of ICT is caused primarily because of cross-national cooperation. Social movements emerge due to economic crisis or mistrust between the citizens and the government. However, Donk et al. (2004) admit that social movements do not only arise because of those problems. The psychological aspect also plays an important role. Emotions such as anger, fear or hope help to contribute in the engagement of individuals in social movements. Other movements that were successful in achieving their proclaimed goals give encouragement to other individuals in other parts of the world who want to revolt against the government. Even though the socio-political environment or the reason for the uprisings may not be the same, one common feature can be found in today’s social movements: the involvement of ICT. Castells (2012) argues that the recent social movements all are network-based, online and offline, and they are all intertwined. Since these networks are leaderless and decentered they encourage more individuals to participate. The fear of repression also decreases because of that: they are no targets to attack – when it comes to online networks. The offline networks in form of occupied public spaces still can be removed by force e.g. police. (Castells, 2012). Another common feature is that all these movements have their beginning in the internet which eventually leads to the occupying of public squares or symbolic buildings.
Castells (2012) says that social movements are first concentrated in their own space and context. They address a local problem and start from that to build their own network. However, through connecting to the digital media, they can inspire individuals from other parts of the world and vis-versa. In addition, this linkage to the global
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community also raises awareness of social issues and problems in a large global context and eventually call for demonstrations and movements in other parts of the world.
Internet-mediated movements have a “cosmopolitan culture” as well as stay in a local specific identity (p. 223). YouTube videos haven been found crucial in social movements as a mean to mobilize the masses. The new generation of social movements is leaderless, so Castells, which might be due to the disapproval with the leaders and representatives in the government. Castells admits that there are certain dominant actors in movements, however, they are only accepted within the movement as long as they don’t make any major decisions. This “is setting the foundations of a future real democracy by practicing it in the movement” (Castells., p. 225). But he fails to explain what a “real democracy” is. He emphasizes that movements not come to be because of a community but of the feeling of “togetherness” created by online and offline networks (p. 225). The new social movements are “highly self-reflective” (p. 225). This means they are always in a constant process of change in terms of their demands. Through internet or blog discussions among participants and activists the movement is able to improve its strategies or change for the better. Social movements also use videos of police violence against the activists as means to increase sympathy for the movement and thus, support. According to Castells movements seldom follow a certain program
Internet-mediated movements have a “cosmopolitan culture” as well as stay in a local specific identity (p. 223). YouTube videos haven been found crucial in social movements as a mean to mobilize the masses. The new generation of social movements is leaderless, so Castells, which might be due to the disapproval with the leaders and representatives in the government. Castells admits that there are certain dominant actors in movements, however, they are only accepted within the movement as long as they don’t make any major decisions. This “is setting the foundations of a future real democracy by practicing it in the movement” (Castells., p. 225). But he fails to explain what a “real democracy” is. He emphasizes that movements not come to be because of a community but of the feeling of “togetherness” created by online and offline networks (p. 225). The new social movements are “highly self-reflective” (p. 225). This means they are always in a constant process of change in terms of their demands. Through internet or blog discussions among participants and activists the movement is able to improve its strategies or change for the better. Social movements also use videos of police violence against the activists as means to increase sympathy for the movement and thus, support. According to Castells movements seldom follow a certain program