Social Media and the Dynamics of Protests

Boyer, Pierre C.; Delemotte, Thomas; Gauthier, Germain; Rollet, Vincent; Schmutz, Benoît

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3618851

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 54 publications

(29 reference statements)

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“…Initiated by an online petition posted in May 2018, this movement really emerged with mass demonstrations in mid-November 2018. Online and offline behaviors strongly interacted during this period, with social media acting as echo chambers to amplify mobilization toward radicalization (Boyer et al, 2022 ;Ramaciotti Morales et al, 2022). The protests were initially motivated by a hostile reaction to higher crude oil and fuel taxes, along with high cost of living and economic inequality.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is participatory democracy in line with social protest? Evidence from the French Yellow Vests movement

Monnery,

Wolff

2023

Public Choice

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Participatory democracy and public consultations are increasingly being used to shape public policy or resolve political issues. In France, the Grand Débat was launched in early 2019 as a democratic response to the Yellow Vests movement, a massive grassroots social protest. With more than 500,000 participants, the Grand Débat platform was interpreted as a popular success by the government and the media, but little is known about which citizens expressed their opinions online. Although participants on the platform were anonymous and only answered public policy questions, we are able to infer their support for the Yellow Vests movement by using a second platform (a Facebook app) that asks similar questions as well as support for the Yellow Vests. We find that a large majority of participants in the Grand Débat did not support the Yellow Vests movement, in contrast to the general population at the time. This is evidence of a strong self-selection of participants on political grounds, resulting in a biased representation of French public opinion.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is participatory democracy in line with social protest? Evidence from the French Yellow Vests movement

Monnery,

Wolff

2023

Public Choice

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“…Those new opportunities to communicate and coordinate promoted large-scale protests in non-democratic countries, for example in Egypt and Russia (Acemoglu et al, 2018;Enikolopov et al, 2020). Social media has also sparked radical and violent protests in countries that have enjoyed democratic institutions for a long time, for example the French Gilet jaunes movement (Boyer et al, 2020) or the far-right Pegida in Germany (Stier et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our paper is the first simultaneously investigating how online and offline networks influence the spread of protests. Previous studies have shown that internet access and social media promote protest voting (e.g., Falck et al, 2014;Miner, 2015;Campante et al, 2018;Gavazza et al, 2019;Donati, 2020;Guriev et al, 2021) and social networks (offline or online) mobilize citizens to join protests on the streets (e.g., Andrews and Biggs, 2006;Somma, 2010;Acemoglu et al, 2018;Mooijman et al, 2018;Boulianne et al, 2020;Boyer et al, 2020;Enikolopov et al, 2020;González, 2020;Zhuravskaya and Petrova, 2020;Bursztyn et al, 2021). 3 During the English Swing riots of 1830-31, the foundational case in the study of unrest in social history, personal and trade networks spread information about the riots, transport or mass media networks did not (Aidt et al, 2022;Aidt and Leon-Ablan, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%