Role of Social Media and Emotion in South Korea’s Presidential Impeachment Protests

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that social media is effective in large-scale mobilization, facilitating leaderless and more flexible forms of resistance. However, some scholars argue that this type of mobilization suffers from a lack of organizational form and collective identity. This paper shows that social media-centered networks can in fact promote collective actions powerful enough to challenge a corrupt president. We also prove the role of emotions in collective actions. Using an empirical analysis of the 2016 Presidential Impeachment Protests surrounding “Choi Soon-sil Gate,” we first demonstrate the effects of social media activities on participation in collective actions. Next, we explore the effects of anger on social media activities and participation. In short, this study reveals a new angle on social media’s influence in mobilizing collective actions by analyzing the effect of emotions on participation. In this process, social media activities are escalated by emotional outbreaks, and participation then increases throughout a given collective action.

Candlelight demonstrations and the presidential impeachment in South Korea

“…However, according to a survey on a representative sample of Korean electorate with a size of 1, 200 undertaken in December 2016, 23.9 percent of respondents replied that they participated in the demonstrations (Lee et al, 2017). Other research based on different surveysthus, different samplesreport similar results, for example Kim (2017) and Min and Yun (2019). An interesting finding in Lee et al (2017) is that they did not find big differences between the participants and ;non-participants in terms of demographic as well as socio-economic characteristics other than the fact that the respondents of 60s and older were not likely to participate in the demonstrations.…”

“…The voluntary citizens filled the rest. That is, the Action remained faithful to the role of the periphery, accepting the nature of diverse backgrounds and weak ties among the participants (Bennett and Segerberg, 2012;Min and Yun, 2019). It appears that what united the citizens with diverse backgrounds was the angermore precisely, the feeling of indignationwith Park Geun-hye and the way her administration worked, accumulated over the previous years and finally found a way out in the presence of hard evidence.…”

“…16. Min and Yun (2019) asked the same question in their own survey of 1,230 participants on the same day, November 26. 40.7 percent of their respondents chose "friends" and 30 percent "family members.…”

Neuromarketing as an Emotional Connection Tool Between Organizations and Audiences in Social Networks. A Theoretical Review

“…Meanwhile, Min and Yun (2019) focused on anger and determined, in the field of political communication and in South Korea, that this emotion plays a fundamental role in social networks when it comes to promoting or intensifying the force of social mobilizations. These authors concluded that the emergence of negative emotions, especially anger, is a more determining factor when the number of participants in a social protest increases, much more than the specific object of that protest or other factors, such as the personal agenda or the greater or lesser availability of the participants.…”

“…Business communication is presented as the main subject of research by Chmiel et al (2011) , de Vries et al (2012) , Teixeira et al (2012) , Cvijikj and Michahelles (2013) , Goh et al (2013) , Hollebeek and Chen (2014) , Hudson et al (2015) , Hudson et al (2016) , Kim et al (2015) , Khan et al (2016) , Marbach et al (2016) , Dessart (2017) , Kim and Yang (2017) , Schultz (2017) , Swani and Milne (2017) , Swani et al (2017) , Xu and Wu (2017) , Rout et al (2018) , Vignal Lambret and Barki (2018) , and Moussa (2019) . Personal communication is analyzed in studies by Mauri et al (2011) , Meshi et al (2013) , Nelson-Field et al (2013) , Brynielsson et al (2014) , Coviello et al (2014) , Tandoc et al (2014) , Carrillo et al (2015) , Ferrara and Yang (2015) , Lin and Utz (2015) , Lee and Hong (2016) , Wang et al (2017) , Fan et al (2018) , Ng and Kozlowski (2018) , Turel et al (2018) , Vermeulen et al (2018) , Barry et al (2019) , Min and Yun (2019) , Nash et al (2019) , Ranganathan and Tzacheva (2019) , and Sion (2019) .…”