Protest Communication in Twitter: An Emergent Norm Perspective

Theorizing Protest Communication in Twitter: An Emergent Norm Perspective

[A Case of the Jan. 25th Egypt Protest]

K. Hazel Kwon, PhD. Arizona State Univ.

This Presentation Aims… •  To provide theory-driven analytic frameworks to

understand the flow of protest communication in social media

•  Protest as a type of crisis. •  To apply the frameworks to the context of Jan 25

protest.

Emergent Norm Theory

•  ENT: Turner & Killian (1957; 1987) •  Fundamental emphasis on the rapid,

transformative potential of words-of-mouth into collective behaviors

•  Process of diffusion of collective identity •  A “Forgotten” characteristic = protests as

collective behaviors (as opposed to actions)



• Informal, improvised social interactions with uncertainty as such as seeking and exchanging of situational information.





• Collective definition of situations & problems, development of a sense of collectivity •  “Emergent norms”(common vocabs, symbols, imageries)




•  “Diffuse Crowd” (p.114) Ø A special type of crowds Ø On one hand, the potential “recruits” are the

members of the physical, local communities where interpersonal contacts take place; On the other hand, the electronic communication bridges geographically separated communities and helps shape collective identity among dispersed citizens

Ø The role of mass communication

Limitations, though.

•  Too much emphasis on nonverbal and physical interactions during milling

•  Information verification implied as if an auxiliary product from milling

Theory Refinement for Operationalization

•  Improvisation (Milling) : A firsthand statement without presenting supporting materials created by others. (1) situational knowledge (2) tactical/skill knowledge sharing (3) interpersonal conversations


•  Verification : provision of credible (or seeming credible) information : provision of evidence or in-depth discussions by hyperlinking to resources


•  Keynoting : Emotive expressions of movement-supportive identities (a) a sense of belonging to protest or support communities (b) highlighting the goal of the protests (c) victory wishes

Possible Empirical Questions

1.  Can we distinguish different types of message flows temporally?

2.  Any geographical patterns? 3.  Different role takers emerged?

“Jan25” as a Pilot Exploration

•  Procedure: (1) real time collection btw Jan25-‐Fe17, (2) back-‐tracking based on user ID for earlier tweets, and (3) cleaning out irrelevant data

•  Jan23-‐25: N = 4,431 English (81.6%) and Arabic (11.7%) tweets

•  2, 925 tweets associated with location info. •  kappa alpha = .734, p < .001

Temporal Pattern? Friedman’s non-parametric test: 3 stages identified

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st1 st2 st3

Improvisa4on Verifica4on Keyno4ng

Improvisation Verification Keynoting Compared st1 vs. st2 st1 vs. st3 st2 vs. st1 st2 vs. st3 st3 vs. st2 st3 vs. st1

FRQ difference

-67 -88 80 -73 94 81

N 1368 1368 1368 1370 1368 1370 X2 6.04 10.88 9.48 7.66 14.13 19.39 Sig. .014* .001** .002** .006** .000*** .000*** Note. FRQ difference: - value = the earlier stage shows more frq than later stage; + value = the later stage shows more frq than eariler stage.

Geographic Patterns of IVK ?

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Improvisation Verification Solidification

Egypt Pan-Arab Non-Arab

Significantly different between the same colors at p < .001

Emergent Roles?

Discussions to be continued…

•  IVK as a global process for the emergence of conscience community

•  Possibility of applying the IVK model to analyze communication processes in various crisis contexts ?

•  How accurate/valid the temporal pattern might be? Is the temporal difference a coincident result from period selections?

Thank you!

Education

Protest Communication in Twitter: An Emergent Norm Perspective