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Change of Hong Kong Protests with the Emergence of Web 2.0: The Case Studies of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement and the Hong Kong leftist riots
Name: Hansung Ryu Student Number: 11806214
Email address: 1999rhsisf@gmail.com University name: University of Amsterdam Name of programme: Media and Information Date: 15/12/19
Name supervisor: Bogna Konior Word count: 9354
Keyword: Facebook, Twitter, political movement, web 2.0, Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, Hong Kong leftist riots.
[2] Abstract
With the development of web 2.0, people have gained the chance to share information and communicate with other people in the world of the Internet. At the same time, with the new way of low-cost and time-saving communication, people started to use web 2.0 not only just for sharing information, but also for sharing the messages in the political and social field. In the example of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement in 2014, Hong Kong citizens showed how the forms of protest have changed with the use of social media platforms as a tool for political movements. The protesters in Hong Kong shared their messages through Facebook and Twitter and kept delivering the information about the current situation in Hong Kong. In order to more precisely identify the role of political movements in social media platforms, this research paper aims to compare two different types of protests that happened in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong leftist riots happened in 1967, mobilized by leftists in Hong Kong against British colonial rule. This riot is the movement that occurred before the invention of web 2.0.
In contrast to leftist riots, as mentioned above, the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement has been selected as the case study of movement with the use of political movements in social media platforms. After the explanation of these political movements, I compared these two movements and identified how these movements show different characteristics such as organizations, mobilizations of people for protests, and analyzed how the use of social media platforms influenced these characteristics. This process can be done by the use of a historically-oriented and political communication method. This research paper contributes to a comparative analysis of two political movements in Hong Kong in different periods. Therefore, this paper will be able to provide what kind of ways of using social media platforms for protest are useful for people.
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Table of Content
1. Introduction ... 4
2. Theoretical Framework and methodology ... 6
2.1 Web 2.0 ... 6
2.2 Interface of Twitter and Facebook. ... 6
2.2.1 Twitter ... 7
2.2.2 Facebook ... 7
2.3 protest ... 8
2.4 New form of political movement in 21st century ... 8
3. Historical background ... 10
3.1 The Hong Kong Umbrella movement in 2014 ... 10
3.2 The leftists Hong Kong riots in 1967. ... 12
4. Discussion ... 15
4.1 Mobilization ... 15
4.2 Strong, weak ties ... 16
4.3 Persuasion for participation ... 16
4.4 leadership ... 18
4.5 Young generation ... 19
4.6 Social media as IPS (communication) ... 20
4.7 Attention from other countries ... 22
5. Conclusion ... 24
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1. Introduction
Recently, it is already a well-known fact that there is a gradually increasing number of people participating in the web 2.0 world. Under the unique characteristics of web 2.0, users of web 2.0 people get the chance to more easily and quickly communicate with people all over the world. Naturally, as time goes on, this development enables communication not only within the Internet world but also shape and influence society. In this sense, nowadays, Web 2.0 has a great influence on society more than other traditional broadcasting devices such as TV or radio. There are tons of information being shared daily by people in the Internet world that can influence the thoughts of people. Not only that, the trends or memes quickly spread around the internet that shapes the behavior of people. Web 2.0 also influences politics when people started to discuss political issues in web 2.0. People communicate and share ideas of politics and post information about politics. This behavior of people started a remarkable change in politics as people were able to create a new space for political discussion without the need for assembling or meeting. Therefore, it is possible to say there is a strong relationship between society and web 2.0 in the field of politics.
To give a specific example, the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement is the political movement mobilized by Hong Kong citizens against the decision of NPCSC in 2014. The citizens were exasperated by the change of the Hong Kong electoral system structure for chief executive in 2017.1 Protesters, especially the workers and students, went to strike and
mobilized a non-violent campaign and the protest grew its size that made the foreign countries pay attention to the protest. The Hong Kong Umbrella Movement has a unique characteristic in compared to other political movements as protesters have used social media as a tool for increasing the size of the protest. Therefore, this movement is one of the movements that raise the question of the role of social media platforms in political fields in society. The protesters in Hong Kong kept spreading their words through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and chatting platforms such as Whatsapp by spreading the photos and videos of protests and tried to communicate with the world (Hui 2015). Although Hong Kong is the place where several political movements occur due to its political relationships with other giant countries, the use of social media platforms during the Umbrella Movement shown its distinctiveness compared to other protests, especially before the 21st century. One of the political movements in Hong Kong that can be mentioned as the example of the protest not using social media is the Hong Kong leftist riots that occurred in 1967.
The Hong Kong leftist riots in 1967 occurred by the pro-communists against the decision of the British government, which attempted to increase the fare of star ferry to 25%.2 Nevertheless, in the previous years, the communists had been planning for beginning the riots in order to move away the British government from Hong Kong. With the beginning of cultural revolution in the mainland China, communists in Hong Kong were in desire to change Hong
1Hui, Victoria Tin-bor. 2015. ‘Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement: Authoritarianism Goes Global: The Protests and Beyond.’ Journal of Democracy 26, no. 2: 111-121, doi:10.1353/jod.2015.0030.
2 Smart, Alan. 2010. ‘Hong Kong’s Watershed: The 1967 Riots by Gary Ka-Wai Cheung’. The China Journal 64: 226–27, https://doi.org/10.2307/20749260.
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Kong into a communist city like their mainland. Although this leftist riots failed to make Hong Kong be controlled under communism, this political movement changed the policies of the British government toward Hong Kong as well as the thoughts of the citizens in Hong Kong.
Therefore, the research question is: How has the form of protests changed by the use of social media during the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement in 2014 in compared to the Hong Kong leftist riots in 1967? The most crucial objective of this research paper is the analysis of the relationship between web 2.0 and society nowadays. Besides, this analysis should be accompanied by the comparison of case studies which are the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement and the Hong Kong leftist riots. Because two political movements represent the periods after and before the emergence of web 2.0 in Hong Kong, the comparison of those movements is helpful for the understanding of change in protest by the use of social media. By doing so, it is possible to identify what factors of protests have been changed by the use of social media platforms. Therefore, in the research paper, it is vital to be well aware of what happened in Hong Kong in 1967 and 2014 and the basic concepts of social media platforms.
The research paper will start with the general introduction of web 2.0 and political movements. The introduction of the basic concept of research will provide the general structure of how the research paper will be processed. The concept web 2.0 is analyzed with the focus on the political communication of ordinary people in the world of web 2.0. Also, two of the most well-known social media platforms, Facebook and Twitter, have been chosen to investigate what features a social media platform possesses. Moreover, there is an investigation of what factors enable people to communicate with each other politically. Besides, the analysis of the term protest helps the investigation of historical aspects of political movements in history. Next, it is significant to analyze two political protests that happened in Hong Kong in a different era in a historical manner, which are the Hong Kong leftist riots in 1967 and the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement in 2014. This section is crucial for research as the most significant aim of this research is the comparison between these political movements in the aspect of social media platforms. Furthermore, in the discussion section, based on two political events, the analysis of how the emergence of web 2.0 has changed the form of political movements will be done. This analysis is the main argument of the research paper, which can answer the research question as well. The discussion of the changes of protest by the use of social media can be well supported by the proper reference of the case studies in Hong Kong.
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2. Theoretical Framework and methodology
In this section, the analysis of three general concepts that build up the research paper will be made. This sections are divided into three concepts, which are ‘web 2.0 and social
media platforms’, ‘Communication tools of Twitter and Facebook,’ and ‘political movements’.
In order to start the research, it is significant to research the primary term of web 2.0, which is the tool that allows the creation of platforms within the Internet. Not only that, the analysis of the features and effects of web 2.0 to society gives an understanding of how web 2.0 works nowadays.
2.1 Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is the second phase of the web, which focuses on the interaction and
engagement of users themselves to develop web 2.0 (O’Reilly, 2005). Web 2.0 started its place when O’Reilly and a company called ‘MediaLive International’ paid attention to the future potential of the web (O’Reilly, 2005). The difference between web 2.0 and web 1.0 is that web 2.0 more highly lets the active engagement of users on the web. With the development of web 2.0 overtime, web 2.0 has become the place that provides the space for users to access the information and share the information with other users. The communication between the users is possible within the social media of web 2.0. Web 2.0 provides technologies to users to build social media, which is the platform enabling the communication of the users. Facebook and Twitter the examples of social media platforms within web 2.0.
Besides, it is important to discuss social media platforms and social networking sites and the difference between social media and social networks. Although both are the platforms created by users within web 2.0, the way they are utilized is different. Within social media, people aim to share and communicate for the public (Edosomwan et al., 2011). People have used social media as the service delivering news and information, which is similar to the newspaper. On the other hand, social networks lead people group for common interests and build relationships through the community (Edosomwan et al., 2011). Within social networks, the focus is more on the maintenance of relationships between users online. Nevertheless, the concept of social networking platforms also belongs to the concept of social media platforms. Facebook, is the example of a platform in web 2.0 that possesses both characteristics of social networking and media platforms as Facebook promote not only personal communication between users, but also the sharing of information and news to the public.
2.2 Interface of Twitter and Facebook.
In this research, two social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook are selected to discuss the political activities of within the Internet world more precisely. Twitter and Facebook both show their characteristics in terms of communication among users within each platform. Therefore, it is important to analyze the interface and tools provided by Twitter and Facebook, which allow the communication between the users. This analysis can help the understanding of how social media works during protests.
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2.2.1 Twitter
Twitter is a social media platform in which users can post their “expressions of a moment or idea” with the limited word counts each other in the form of a message (Hung et al., 2015). Twitter offers several methods of interaction among users. Posting a message is not only the way of sharing the ideas, but also the use of a hashtag, comment or retweet can also lead users to actively communicate within Twitter. Besides, not only that, but following someone’s account can also be the way to communicate with a particular account.
Posting a message on Twitter is a way to express the writer’s thoughts and ideas in the form of writing, photos, or videos. The word limit for posting a message is limited to 140 words, which makes the writer briefly deliver the message to others (Maclean., 2013). In addition, users are not only able to post a message but also reply to a message by someone else. Replying to a message, the communication about a particular topic becomes possible between the writer and the replier (Maclean., 2013). Next, a hashtag is probably the tool that spreads most quickly and easily. When using a hashtag, users are supposed to put ‘#’ and write a keyword right next to ‘#’ (Maclean., 2013). Then, when another user types the keyword, the messages with the hashtag are provided to the users, which is an effective way to spread a particular message to others. Besides, the retweet button is used when a user wants to spread the message of someone else (Maclean., 2013). For example, if there is any breaking news written by a user, then other users are able to retweet the message in order to spread the words so that other users get a higher chance of reading the message. Last of all, following someone’s Twitter account, does not provide the direct way of communication but suggest the tools that enable communication (Maclean., 2013). To give a specific example, when users follow others’ accounts, they are able to see the messages whenever the users post their messages. Thus, the following allows a quicker connection to others’ accounts.
2.2.2 Facebook
Facebook began in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, who was a Harvard student aiming to connect with other students within the Internet world (Caers et al., 2013). Now, Facebook became the online platform in which possesses 200 million active users worldwide. Facebook provides unique forms enabling communication such as sending a message, a like button, or posting on feed.
Users are able to do a posting on their profile, which is the same as posting a message on Twitter. Nevertheless, there is no word count limit for writing, which makes the users writer with the extended amount (Caers et al., 2013). On top of that, sharing on Facebook means that Facebook enables a user to share the post of someone with other users. The sharing tool shows efficiency when spreading a piece of particular news or information to others (Caers et al., 2013). Besides, similar to Twitter, users can leave a comment on a post of someone else, which allows the direct interaction between the user who wrote the post and other users about a particular issue (Caers et al., 2013). To move on, when a user presses a like button on a
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et al., 2013). The Like button consists of many different types of emoticons showing different feelings. By not just texting or saying to someone else, with the use of a button, it is possible to express the opinion of other users about a particular post. Lastly, Facebook provides its
messenger app in which the users can text messages for the purpose of communication. 2.3 protest
Protests are inspired by the objectives of citizens demanding against the government, such as labour strikes (Doherty 2009). Throughout history, protests have always been an efficient tool for citizens to express their thoughts to the public with a group of people
possessing the same ideas. The term protest was firstly used in 1913 when there was an attempt to name the civil obedience campaign organized by Gandhi in India (Doherty 2009).
Nevertheless, the period when the term ‘protest’ was officially named in western European countries is in the 1950s and 1960s. In these decades, several political behaviors against legal and customary regime norms occurred (Doherty 2009). Klimke and Scharloth (2008) discuss the protests that happened in 1968 and claim that it is the year that symbolized protest movements in many parts of Europe. One of the political movements that are significant to mention is the movement occurred in Germany on June 2nd, 1967, when West German police officer Karl-Heinz Kurras killed a student called Benno Ohnesorg with a shot during a demonstration in western berlin against the shah of Persia.3
Doherty (2009) provides three reasons for people protesting. First of all, when people are dissatisfied with the political system, they protest. Next, the more high-educated people in society exist, there is more disaffection of people toward the political system, which leads to the protest. Lastly, protesters vary according to the issue, and the organizers. Not only that, the expansion of education has created a more cognitively skilled and demanding set of critical citizens who use protest instrumentally as a means to advance their interests (Doherty 2009). Protesters vary contextually according to the issue and the organizers. We might then expect different kinds of protesters to attend a far-right demonstration (Klimke et al., 2008). Political movement and protest do not have the same meanings as protest is the objections of people against a political system, and political movement is a mobilization of people in a group. Therefore, the political or social movement is the result of the protest (Doherty 2009). Besides, a campaign such as a strike or demonstration has belonged to the ways people protest.
2.4 New form of political movement in 21st century
Based on the basic concepts explained above, the leading theory of research is the relationships between social media and political movements along with the use of case study in the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement in 2014 and the Hong Kong leftist riots in 1967. This study focuses on the comparison of two different political movements from the perspective of history and politics. The comparison of two political movements in different periods will help a
3 Klimke & Martin & Palgrave Connect (Online service) & Joachim Scharloth. 2008. ‘1968 in Europe : A History of Protest and Activism, 1956–1977’. Palgrave Macmillan Transnational History Series. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan. Vol. 1st ed,
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better understanding of the role of social media in changing the form of political movements nowadays. To build up the main argument for this research, the features of social media platforms are analyzed from the perspective of the political field. Besides, the analysis of the historical aspects of two different political movements can provide evidence of the relations between social media and protest. Since the 21st century, the significant development of social media has inspired people to use social media in various ways within society. This development can be seen in the number of political movements such as the Arab Spring or candlelight Revolution in South Korea, which are well-known for utilizing social media as the tool for their protests4. These events made many scholars to think about the role and the impact of social media in today’s protests. The scholars discuss how the forms of protests have changed with the theories.
According to the study by Poell and van Dijck (2018), fast-pace social media can impact the activism of protesters where the infrastructure for communication among protesters has been facilitated, which led to faster information sharing, political expression, and
mobilization. Besides, Castells (2012) emphasizes that the structure of protests is affected by social media as social media breaks the wall between offline and online behavior of users. The activities done online can directly influence offline and vice versa (Poell et al., 2018). During protests, the protesters always carry their phones to keep trying to share the contents related to the protest. Castells (2012) also discusses the creation of collectivity among the protesters on social media, which provides the space for sharing thoughts and ideas. Besides, the social media platforms enabled the distributed and bottom-up mobilization and organizations of protest (Margetts et al., 2016). Lowering cost and easier access to information for political activities led more people to get engaged with self-activities. Similarly, Benett and Segerberg (2012) discuss the change of leadership due to the emergence of social media. The self-motivated behavior of the users in social media such as posting a message or sharing the information, leads to less need for leadership during mobilization. (Poell et al., 2016).
4 Poell, Thomas & van Dijck, J. 2018. “’Social media and new protest movements.’ The SAGE Handbook of Social Media’” 546-561. London: SAGE reference,
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3. Historical background
In this section, the analysis of two Hong Kong political movement, the Umbrella Movement and the leftist riots will be done. As case studies, the investigation of the background, key events, and results of those protests will be discussed historically can contribute to the better understanding of the relations between social media and protests.
3.1 The Hong Kong Umbrella movement in 2014
The Hong Kong Umbrella Movement is the political movement formed by Hong Kong citizens, which arose against the police force by China. The first movement started on 26th September 2014 when a protest from students faced a conflict against the police in the Civic Square outside the Central Government Offices. On 28th September, when protesters used umbrellas in order to protect their bodies from pepper spray and tear gas, people started to name the protest as the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement.5 The movement lasted for 79 days when the authorities cleared the last protesters in the glitzy Causeway Bay Shopping district on Hong Kong Island’s north side. The Hong Kong Umbrella Movement was a considerable movement in Hong Kong as 1.2 million out of the total population, 7.2 million have participated in the protests in various forms.6
The demand for this political movement was the need for improvement of the electoral system in Hong Kong. The rule of the electoral system in Hong Kong is traced back to 1997 when the United Kingdom returned Hong Kong to China. In 1984, there was a Sino-British joint Declaration made between the UK and China, which was to establish a ‘one country, two
systems’ in Hong Kong from 1997 until 2047.7 What this means is that the social and economic system and lifestyle of Hong Kong should remain the same, even for 50 years. Therefore, Hong Kong could have remained as democracy and capitalist economy. However, the citizens in Hong Kong demanded more freedom from China since they thought China is interrupting their democracy system. One of the examples can be the electoral system of chief executives of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). The National People's Congress decided on the guidelines for the 2017 Chief executives of Hong Kong election on 31st August 2014. The decision says that the nominees will be selected from the 1200-member nominating committee who are appointed by Central People's government.8
There was an effort of Hong Kong citizens to grow the size of the movement not only as a ‘people power’ but also with their abilities. To give a specific example, doctors and nurses
5 Hui, Victoria Tin-bor. 2015. ‘Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement: Authoritarianism Goes Global: The Protests and Beyond.’ Journal of Democracy 26, no. 2: 111-121, doi:10.1353/jod.2015.0030.
6 Hui, Victoria Tin-bor. 2015. ‘Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement: Authoritarianism Goes Global: The Protests and Beyond.’ Journal of Democracy 26, no. 2: 111-121, doi:10.1353/jod.2015.0030.
7 So, Alvin. 2011. “’One Country, Two Systems’ and Hong Kong-China National Integration: A Crisis-Transformation Perspective.” Journal of Contemporary Asia - J CONTEMP ASIA. 41. 99-116, DOI: 10.1080/00472336.2011.530039.
8 Hui, Victoria Tin-bor. 2015. ‘Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement: Authoritarianism Goes Global: The Protests and Beyond.’ Journal of Democracy 26, no. 2: 111-121, doi:10.1353/jod.2015.0030.
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cooperated for medical service for protesters. Teachers and professors ceaselessly worked for spreading the information for other citizens, and art students created artworks for their protests and created works that tell the story of police of China (Hui 2015). The ordinary citizens helped the protest with their abilities. There was also the contribution of other organizations which grew the mobilization of the umbrella movement. The Hong Kong Federation of students consisting of representatives from student unions and Scholarism, which is organized by high-school students, contributed heavily to let the citizens protest on the street. Occupy Central with Love and Peace (OCLP) is the civil disobedience movement formed by activists supporting democracy on 27th March 2013. This movement was formed by two professors, Benny Tai, Chan Kin-man, and a church minister called Chu Yiu-ming, who started the non-violent demonstration on 1st October during the Umbrella Movement. During the protest, protesters gathered in Central district street and demanding the reform of the electoral system for chief executive.Not only that, OCLP even made some rules for protesters not to insult or attack back to the police, which was to sustain the peaceful and non-violent demonstrations during the protest.9 This campaign in earnest pulled the trigger of the arises of demonstrations within Hong Kong.
Undoubtedly, the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement would not have risen in this large-scale without the activism of students in Hong Kong. During the Umbrella Movement,
Scholarism and the Hong Kong Federation of Students were the major student organizations that promoted the political movement. Joshua Chi-Fung formed Scholarism with two main aims. Firstly, Scholarism wants the elimination of the official curriculum under the control of mainland China. Besides, the second aim is to emphasize the importance of the power of youth generation in the field of politics (Wong et al., 2016). The focus of Scholarism was not only on the hunger strike in 2014 against the national education curriculum but also on the policy of the voting system of chief executives by launching the class boycott with the Hong Kong
Federation of Students (Wong 2016). When firstly created in 1958, the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS) was a pro-communist organization by university students. However, during the 1990s, their interests moved on to the protection of the civil rights of Hong Kong. During the Umbrella Movement, HKFS supported the Occupy Central against the undemocratic decision made by Beijing authorities. While supporting the Occupy Central, HKFS also cooperated with other civil society groups.10
The Umbrella Movement was the occupation for 79 days that officially ended on 15th December 2014, which is the date when the last three camps got destroyed. In the glitzy Causeway Bay shopping district on Hong Kong Island's north side, the small size of protesters has placed the tents on the street and protested until the cranes destroyed the last tent. Some of the protesters were under arrest after they had refused to move away from the site. The Chinese
9 Chan, Kin-man. 2015. ‘Occupying Hong Kong’, SUR 21, https://sur.conectas.org/en/occupying-hong-kong/. 10 Wong, Benson & Chung, Sanho. 2016. ‘Scholarism and Hong Kong Federation of Students: Comparative Analysis of Their Developments after the Umbrella Movement.’ Contemporary Chinese Political Economy and
Strategic Relations. 2. 865-884,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327337693_Scholarism_and_Hong_Kong_Federation_of_Students_Compa rative_Analysis_of_Their_Developments_after_the_Umbrella_Movement.
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government did not refuse to withdraw the decision for the new electoral system despite the massive protest of Hong Kong citizens against the decision.11 However, Samson Yuen (2015) claims that although the protest could not stop the decision of electoral system reform from the national people’s congress, the protest made the Hong Kong citizens, especially the youngsters, more active before the protest.12 Ruehlig Tim (2014) also points out that young people started to possess local identity as a Hong Kong citizen.
3.2 The leftists Hong Kong riots in 1967.
The Hong Kong leftist riots in 1967 were one of the biggest protests which lasted longer than six months. The protest was organized by pro-communists who have dissatisfied the British colonial rule. There were several strikes, demonstrations, and violent actions of the protesters, which led to the fearful mood for Hong Kong citizens. The violent movements made by leftist extremists such as planting bombs on streets resulted in high casualties in Hong Kong.13
The great proletarian cultural revolution in China began by the Chairman Mao Zedong on 5 August 1966 when he claimed the development of communism against the bourgeoise, which is capitalism and the traditions in China.14 This revolution began after the failure of Mao Zedong’s policy Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1960, which attempted to make a plan developing the Chinese economy and industry. The failure of the policy Great Leap Forward led him think of the necessity of his stabilized position as the leader. Therefore, he started another plan that attempted to pull down the power of traditions and bourgeois in China (Bendini 2016). This revolution caused the death of more than thousands and ended ten years later in 1976 when Mao Zedong passed away. During the cultural revolution, more than a million people died, and 16 million had to move to other sides with the suffer from property or torture from others.15 This cultural revolution also influenced Hong Kong politically as it produced a number of communist sympathizers to act for Mao-Zedong.
11 Rühlig, Tim. 2014. ‘Hong Kong's umbrella movement in search of self-determination’ the Swedish institute of
international affairs,
https://www.ui.se/butiken/uis-publikationer/ui-paper/2015/hong-kongs-umbrella-movement-in-search-of-self-determination/.
12 Rühlig, Tim. 2014. ‘Hong Kong's umbrella movement in search of self-determination’ the Swedish institute of
international affairs,
https://www.ui.se/butiken/uis-publikationer/ui-paper/2015/hong-kongs-umbrella-movement-in-search-of-self-determination/.
13 Lawrence, Ho Ka Ki. 2009. ‘policing the 1967 riots in Hong Kong: Strategies, rationales, and Implications’. The
University of Hong Kong, http://dx.doi.org/10.5353/th_b4419393.
14 Bendini, Roberto. 2016. ‘The Cultural Revolution in China: its 50th anniversary was ignored but its legacy lives on today’ European Parilament,
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=EXPO_IDA(2016)570470.
15 Bendini, Roberto. 2016. ‘The Cultural Revolution in China: its 50th anniversary was ignored but its legacy lives on today’ European Parilament,
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The official beginning of the 1967 riots occurred at an artificial flower factory in Kowloon when an industrial dispute led to a riot.16 Before this riot, there were several fires from factory workers demanding better living and working environments for workers. The activism of workers led the Federation of Trade Unions, comprised mainly of communists participate in the riot for the workers at the factory and thus became the huge political
phenomenon (Kelvin 2012). Also, they made four demands: the release of arrested workers, the safety of workers, no intervention of police in any dispute, and the punishment of evildoers.17 The riots of the Federation of Trade Unions are inspired by the previous successful riots that had occurred in Macau in November 1966. In Macau, the communist riots made the Macau government let the leftists participate in the administration. The Hong Kong leftists desired to achieve the same thing as in Macau (Kelvin 2012). The riots caused serious casualties of people due to the use of weapons such as bombs. The aggressive behavior of the leftists went even more prominent after the response of the Hong Kong government, which arrested leftist activists and searched the buildings of leftists. The leftists placed real and faked bombs in public space as well as in the buildings of the government.
Zhou was the Chinese premier who disagreed with the armed struggled in Hong Kong organized by communists. When the communist party’s Hong Kong and Macau Work
Committee requested the approval of the Chinese government to allow the attack on police posts and police officers, he rejected the idea as ‘anarchism.’ He was afraid that the engagement of China in Hong Kong would worsen the relationship with Britain as Hong Kong was still under the control of British rule (Kelvin 2012). On top of that, Zhou apologized to the British government when the office of the British charge d’affaires got burned on 1st November 1972.18 With the refusal of the Central government to help the leftists for riots, the struggle got quickly diminished. On 31st August, 1978, Qi Feng, the deputy director of Xinhua’s Hong Kong branch, announced that the riots happened in Hong Kong, disturbed the policy of the Chinese
government in terms of Hong Kong.19 On top of the Chinese government, the British Hong Kong government also worked for ending the riot. The government gave special power to the Hong Kong police to suppress the riot with the emergency regulations. With the exclusive authority granted by the British government, the police, with the support of military force, arrested the leftist leaders. In addition, the government also closed down the leftist newspaper publishing companies alongside with leftist schools in order to prevent the further actions of leftists and the communication regarding communism among leftists.
16 Yep, Ray. 2008. ‘the 1967 riots in Hong Kong: The diplomatic and Domestic Fronts of the Colonia Governor.’
Cambridge University Press on behalf of the school of Oriental and African Studies. 122-139,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20192167.
17 Yep, Ray. 2008. ‘the 1967 riots in Hong Kong: The diplomatic and Domestic Fronts of the Colonia Governor.’
Cambridge University Press on behalf of the school of Oriental and African Studies. 122-139,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20192167.
18 Kelvin, Ip Kai Yiu. 2012. ‘leftist propaganda in the Hong Kong 1967 riots.’ University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam,
Hong Kong SAR, http://dx.doi.org/10.5353/th_b4961741.
19 Kelvin, Ip Kai Yiu. 2012. ‘leftist propaganda in the Hong Kong 1967 riots.’ University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam,
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As a result, it has been reported that 51 people got killed, and 1936 people were convicted. Among the 51 people, 15 died by the explosion of bombs. The riot also caused the injuries of 832 people and an arrest of 4979 people.20 The confrontation of the government to the leftists resulted in fatal casualties. Kelvin (2012) insists that although the leftists could earn the sympathy from people at Hong Kong in the beginning of the riots, as time passed on, the radical actions did not get support from the people. One of the significant changes due to the 1967 riots it the thoughts of the identity of Hong Kong citizens. They started to ask themselves where Hong Kong and they should belong. Also, they were also gradually trying to move away from the mainland style of living and constructing their own political identity (Lawrence 2009). Similarly, Nelson Chow Wing-sun, who is the professor at the University of Hong Kong, said that the 1967 riots made the Hong Kong people realize the importance of being united for the government. Not only that, they wanted to keep Hong Kong as the place apart from the cultural revolution. Nevertheless, the riots also resulted in too many casualties within Hong Kong.
20 Lawrence, Ho Ka Ki. 2009. ‘policing the 1967 riots in Hong Kong: Strategies, rationales, and Implications’.
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4. Discussion
The Hong Kong Umbrella Movement is well-known for the utilization of social media during the movement, which provides different forms of communication for protest. The organizations such as Scholarism, OCLP, or the Hong Kong Federation of students pursued social media in order to develop their protest. On the other hand, during the 1967 leftist riots, the era before the invention of web 2.0, the protester relied on traditional media such as
newspapers or radio talk shows in order to reach the public (Tong 2016). In the discussion part, based on the case studies of two Hong Kong political movements, the forms that have been changed by the use of social media will be discussed.
4.1 Mobilization
Mobilization is the method of people of the protests that can motivate and promote the physical and digital contribution to the protest. Nowadays, mobilizing people through social media has been the new method of mobilization in today’s protests. According to Weist (2011), communication on the Internet can share resources with people with no resources. This can result in an increase in the accessibility of people to protests. The essential process during the mobilization is that enough people in public are well-informed about an upcoming protest (Breuer et al., 2015). The more people do not get informed about the protest, the harder the protest will be due to the shortage of participants. In this sense, social media can play an essential role as a tool spreading the words of activists to the public. Bennet and Segerberg (2012) pay attention to self-organizing networks in social media. The user-generated data spread around through the communication between the individuals within social media with more diverse networks and information can reach the public, which can inspire more participation of people.
During the Umbrella Movement, social media platforms have been actively used as the mobilization tool for protesters. In case of the Facebook page run by Scholarism, the page gained 320,000 likes. Not only that, the number of posts containing the information about mobilization was 20.9%, which shows that the page contributed to the mobilization of people during the protest.21 In addition, this new way of mobilization brought a number of benefits for protesters in the example of reduced costs and easier participation to protests for people
(Gonzalez B et al., 2011). In terms of sharing information and interaction between protesters, social media played an important role as a moderator between protesters (Lee et al., 2017).
In contrast to the Umbrella Movement, during the leftist riots, the activists’ ways of mobilizing people were propaganda or the use of traditional media. The workers in department stores propagated by saying that ‘being patriotic is not a crime; conflicts against the murderers
are justified’ in order to justify their actions against the government (Larence 2009). Not only
that, students from leftist schools also took parts of propaganda by singing and dancing in the streets to voice their arguments. The leftists’ appeals during demonstrations could also
successfully mobilize the factory workers by gaining their sympathy. Their appeals were mainly
21 Lin, Zhongxuan. 2017. ‘Contextualized Transmedia Mobilization: Media Practices and Mobilizing Structures in the Umbrella Movement’. International Journal of Communication 11, 48–71,
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of higher wages and working and living conditions that were related to the lives of factory workers (Lawrence 2009).
4.2 Strong, weak ties
To move on, the emergence of social media results in the creation of weak ties among people while creating collective identities or mobilizing for protests. This argument of ties is related to the theory of Granovetter (1973), who claims the strength of weak ties, which makes the diffuse information spread around quickly and further to reach more people. Although Granovetter created this theory long before the invention of web 2.0, it is a useful theory that can be connected to today’s use of social media on protest. Nowadays, social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are able to provide an environment where people create a weak relationship with each other, which leads to the spread of diffuse information from diverse networks. Because of the natural and quick exposure of people to the information about protests, there is a higher chance of people organizing a protest (KhomKo and Maria 2015). On the other hand, a scholar is giving a different perspective on weak ties protests. Zeynep Tufekci (2017) warns the sustainability of political movements that are formed by weak ties of people. Although the use of social media can achieve to form a protest within a short amount of time, it is hard to sustain the protest for the long term. Not only that, the author points out that the weak-tied protest faces the problems of weak infrastructure and tactical shifts.
It is interpreted to say that the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement experienced both the advantages and disadvantages of protest with weak ties. Through active communication and share of information, people were able to create shared awareness with weak ties. This led to the high number of Hong Kong citizens to participate in the protest, which was 1.2 million out of 7.2 million, Hong Kong’s total population (Hui 2015). Because of the achievement of the Umbrella Movement in a remarkably short term, foreign countries could pay attention to the activism of Hong Kong citizens as well. Nevertheless, the protesters had difficulties with sustaining the protest for the long term as the protest lasted only 79 days. Seventy-nine days of protest might seem long in compared to other protests, but by the fact that the government has not approved the demands of the protesters, most protesters did not seem to be prepared enough to last the protest in a long-term. Besides, protesters with weak-ties and distributed systems of protest led to the instability of protest. One of the main tactics during the protest was the street occupation organized by the Occupy Central, which became ineffective when the confrontation between the government and the protesters went longer (Hui 2015). There was a lack of a tactic that can change the game.
On the other hand, the Hong Kong leftist riots were organized by communists with strong ties. The leftist riots lasted about three months longer than the Umbrella Movement. Not only that, the riots were organized not in a sudden but the gradual preparation from the communists in Hong Kong. Even before the riots, communists kept communicating with factory workers in order to gain their support (Kelvin 2012). Besides, the cultural revolution that began in the mainland even made the activists feel the strong ties among them to achieve the same plan as the mainland aims for.
4.3 Persuasion for participation
Next, social media has become the place where protesters persuade other people to join the protest. Persuasion is one of the most important factors as it is hard to mobilize people without the enough persuasion for participation in protest. In addition, gaining the support from
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the public means that protesters can sustain the protest longer (Agur et al., 2019). In many ways, persuasion via social media can be more beneficial than via traditional methods such as posters as social media provides cheaper and quicker ways to communicate with users in social media (Agur et al., 20190. In terms of communication, Brundidge and Papacharissi (Brundidge, 2010; Papacharissi, 2011), add their arguments by saying that social media allows the
persuasion in heterogeneous networks. The heterogeneous networks lead to communication with diverse groups, which can produce various views on a particular issue. Then, users who are exposed to various perspectives of views are likely to change their thoughts about the protest (Diehl et al., 2015).
Having compared the Umbrella Movement 2014 and 1967 leftist riots in Hong Kong, it is undeniable to say that the ways of activists persuading other public for participation have changed owing to the utilization of social media. For political movement, the active
participation of the public is crucial to the last protest as long as possible. Therefore, in both movements, the activists attempted to motivate other people, but by using different media. In the beginning of the Umbrella Movement, many Hong Kong citizens were skeptical of the civil disobedience campaign, although being aware of the political stance of Hong Kong against the Chinese government. Thus, the role of activists to successfully persuade the public was significant to counter the government. They created pages and posted their arguments on Facebook and spread out viral memes that can make inactive Hong Kong citizens feel sympathetic toward the protests (Agur et al., 2019). Besides, mobile chat groups such as Whatsapp were frequently used as a consideration of credible feelings while using mobile chat groups rather than radio or newspapers. Nevertheless, this frequent use of social media
indicated that the information spreading around social media does not reach older people who do not use social media in their life.22 Besides, as opposed to the protesters, the government also utilized social media as a way of communicating with the public. Through Whatsapp or WeChat, government kept telling news of the problems of protesters in Hong Kong (Agur 2019).
On the contrary, during the leftist riots, the leftists relied on traditional media such as newspapers or photos or providing better public service for persuasion. First, the leftists kept spreading the message to the public by claiming that the colonial government is mistreating the people in Hong Kong (Kelvin 2012). Also, Wen Wei Po and Ta-Kung Pao are the leftist
newspapers that contributed the persuasion by sending the photos of rioters who are seriously injured. Furthermore, the leftists gave the hope to the public that the leftists are going to win the battle against the colonial government. They emphasized the point that they are fully supported by mainland China and also within Hong Kong. Besides, the pro-Beijing press kept spreading the news about Mao-Zedong’s high power and the army that can manage to win the riot against the anti-riot squads. Next, the pro-communists put much effort into making Hong Kong people feel patriotism toward mainland China even before the beginning of the 1967 riots. Pro-communists helped the factory workers and created trade unions in order to guarantee better working conditions and a living environment for workers. The strategy for communists was to
22 Agur, Colin & Nicholas Frisch. 2019. ‘Digital Disobedience and the Limits of Persuasion: Social Media Activism in Hong Kong’s 2014 Umbrella Movement.’ Social Media + Society, doi:10.1177/2056305119827002.
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make workers feel thankful toward their motherland, China (Kelvin 2012). On top of that, leftists provided services and subsidies such as medical or low price catering services to workers. Several leftist schools were created with low prices of textbooks and school fees. The help of communists for workers for their living conditions and educations was intended to attract the workers. Therefore, it is interpreted to say that the attempts of leftists to persuade the public was the use of traditional media and public services that can enhance the living
conditions of ordinary people. 4.4 leadership
Furthermore, with the emergence of web 2.0, the engagement of people with social media led the leaders of organizations to play less role during protests, especially in the role of persuasion or mobilization in which the roles of leaders were crucial in the past. Castells writes a report about the undermining need of leadership during protests and the growing horizontal networks which encourage cooperation of people.23 In addition, according to Bennett and Segerberg, communication within social media communication among the public enables the collective actions which change the formal leadership and organization of protest nowadays.24 Social media enables the autonomous and equal hierarchical behavior of protesters rather than constructing of hierarchy among protesters. Guided by users in social media, people are able to form large communities within social media, which leads to autonomous interaction between each other. In addition, these autonomous individuals created collectivity within communities through consensus. Because people do the collectivity with no privilege or extraordinary power, the protests could have become ‘leaderless’ and ‘bottom-up’ movement.
On the other hand, there was a strong need for leadership during the leftist riots as some activities were only available for a limited number of communists. For example, at the beginning of the riots, the promise of the Chinese government to support the leftist riots encouraged the leftists to start the riots. Sin Chi Ming was the protester who said that ‘with the help of China, we did not think that we were going to lose.’25 Because the mainland was also in the cultural revolution, the aims of Chinese government and the leftists in Hong Kong, to spread communism, were the same. It shows that protesters were able to communicate and get the support from the Chinese government in terms of riots. Nevertheless, this way of
communication was limited to the citizens as they could not directly communicate with the Chinese government. Therefore, other protesters who are not able to get in touch with China should have been advised from the leaders who did communicate with China (Kelvin 2012). This phenomenon led to the need of a leader who knows the situation very well.
23 Poell, Thomas & Abdulla, Rasha & Rieder, Bernhard & Woltering, Robbert & Zack, Liesbeth. 2016. ‘Protest Leadership in the Age of Social Media.’ Information, Communication & Society 19, no. 7 :994–1014,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2015.1088049.
24 Poell, Thomas & Abdulla, Rasha & Rieder, Bernhard & Woltering, Robbert & Zack, Liesbeth. 2016. ‘Protest Leadership in the Age of Social Media.’ Information, Communication & Society 19, no. 7 :994–1014,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2015.1088049.
25 Kelvin, Ip Kai Yiu. 2012. ‘leftist propaganda in the Hong Kong 1967 riots.’ University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam,
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Nevertheless, the citizens during the Umbrella Movement were different from the citizens in the riots. They have enough amount of communication they can hear and share, which are distributed in social media, and they had abilities to be the ones who spread information to other users. This led to the collective actions of the public in which protesters collectively act on social media. The citizens themselves used social media every day that flourished online activism in social media (Ting 2019). Without the effort from leaders, citizens themselves kept creating the collective identity via an active usage of Whatsapp groups or Facebook pages (Ting 2019). According to Antu (2014), the Occupy Central with Love and Peace enjoyed its unique characteristic of protest, which is decentralized, bottom-up leadership and requires the power of the civil society. Hung Ho-Fung (2014) also agrees that the
movement has transformed the movement more democratic, which was possible by the autonomous civil society.
4.5 Young generation
With the development of social media, more and more young generation began to participate in protests not merely as supporters but as the members and leaders of the biggest organizations. Under this circumstance, the protest in the era of social media is greatly influenced by the participation of the young generation. The young generation gets more exposed to the digital environment than other generations as young people were born about the same time when social media was born. Therefore, Palfrey and Gasser (2008) discuss that there is no different identity between online and offline for the young generation nowadays as online is already part of their life.26 Thus, it can be told that there was a strong correlation between young people and social media during protests. People use social media to spread information and share ideas, which also makes the young generation get exposed to social media news and participate the social media. This also leads the young generation to utilize social media for protests more actively.
During the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, two of the most prominent organizations were formed by students or the young generation, which are Scholarism and the Hong Kong Federation of Students (HKFS). These organizations played an essential role in organizing campaigns such as demonstrations, boycott, or strikes. Scholarism is the organization mobilized by high-school students, which encouraged other students to participate in the protest and promoted active behavior in social media such as Facebook and Twitter. They also organized several strikes, such as a strike on 26th September 2014 in which the students from high school sit at the government headquarters. On top of that, Scholarism put effort into the creation of the Facebook page, which involved more than 80 schools.27 Besides, with the collaboration with
26 Palfrey, J. & Gasser, U. 2008. ‘Born digital: Understanding the first generation of digital natives.’ New York: Basic
Books,
https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=wWTI-DbeA7gC&oi=fnd&pg=PR2&ots=wHpA8JrVTF&sig=hCJSv1Xw8Fi4Zc0F54T1MSZ4XoU&redir_esc=y#v=onepa ge&q&f=false. .
27 Wong, Benson & Chung, Sanho. 2016. ‘Scholarism and Hong Kong Federation of Students: Comparative Analysis of Their Developments after the Umbrella Movement.’ Contemporary Chinese Political Economy and
Strategic Relations. 2. 865-884,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327337693_Scholarism_and_Hong_Kong_Federation_of_Students_Compa rative_Analysis_of_Their_Developments_after_the_Umbrella_Movement.
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other groups like Scholarism, HKFS also formed several campaigns during the protest, which assisted the activities and demonstrations. They were invited in the occupation area of
Admiralty to share their views on the attitude toward the Beijing authorities, SAR government and pro-communist media. HKFS leaders were invited to join the debate with the government officers in October.28
During the leftist riots, the protesters were mainly comprised of communists who are inspired by the cultural revolution and the Macau crisis and the workers in Hong Kong who got helped and persuaded by the communists and were suffered from a low living condition. In the middle of the 20th century, the basic rights and living conditions of factory workers in Hong Kong were very low. They were forced to work at least 12 hours per day with low income which increased the dissatisfaction of workers toward the Hong Kong government and led to protest.29 After the intervention of leftists who were inspired by the success of the leftists in Macau in 1966, the protests workers went bigger and more violent.30 There was also the participation of the youth generation from leftist schools. They were responsible for propaganda such as singing and dancing on the streets in order to publicize the conflicts (Lawrence 2009). Nevertheless, in the sense that the riots were mainly driven and led by communists and factory workers and the students supported and did propaganda for riots, it is possible to say that there was a less participation of youth generation to the leftist riots in compared to the Umbrella Movement in 2014 where students led two of the largest organizations.
4.6 Social media as IPS (communication)
Besides, social media becomes an insurgent public sphere (IPS) during the political movement. IPS is a public space in which people communicate, construct identity, and interact for a collective goal as opposed to any conflict in society.31 Besides, When there is any
substantial controversy over specific issues within society, IPS emerges. Paul Lee, Clement So, and Louis Leung (2015) discuss that the individuated networked structure of social media led social media to possess the role of IPS. On the Internet, individuals can share their ideas or information, which can reach a high number of other audiences easily and quickly. This leads social media to replace the role of mass media when spreading news and arguments. Compared to traditional media, within social media, people could more cheaply, efficiently, and quickly
28 Wong, Benson & Chung, Sanho. 2016. ‘Scholarism and Hong Kong Federation of Students: Comparative Analysis of Their Developments after the Umbrella Movement.’ Contemporary Chinese Political Economy and
Strategic Relations. 2. 865-884,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327337693_Scholarism_and_Hong_Kong_Federation_of_Students_Compa rative_Analysis_of_Their_Developments_after_the_Umbrella_Movement.
29 Smart, Alan. 2010. ‘Hong Kong’s Watershed: The 1967 Riots by Gary Ka-Wai Cheung’. The China Journal 64: 226–27, https://doi.org/10.2307/20749260.
30 Ye, Luofu. 2015. ‘Propaganda as Leftist Culture:: Hong Kong's Involvement in the Cultural Revolution.’
Comparative Literature Studies , Vol. 52, No. 1, Special Issue: Global Maoism and Cultural Revolution in the Global
Context, 80-96, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/complitstudies.52.1.0080.
31 Paul S. N. Lee, Clement Y. K. So & Louis Leung. 2015. ‘Social media and Umbrella Movement: insurgent public sphere in formation.’ Chinese Journal of Communication, 8:4,
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share information. In this sense, the authors propose a term called 'shared awareness.' The shared awareness is an essential factor that motivates the collective actions or identities as the shared awareness helps the better understanding of the actions of other people. It is claimed that this shared awareness frequently emerges in social media as the messages can rapidly get shared in SNS and social media platforms with the ignorance of hierarchy.
One of the examples of social media playing a role as IPS during the Umbrella
Movement can be seen in the activism of people on Facebook. The students at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) created a Facebook page called 'LIVE: Verified updates) which played a role as a journalism for the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. Within a few days after
established, the page's posts reached more than 100,000 likes from other Facebook users, which is a remarkable success.32 Using the Facebook page, the university students actively posted not only videos or pictures that tell the stories of the crisis but also share their own identities with the public to create shared awareness. Besides, the group of van drivers on a Facebook page voluntarily helped the protesters not only for the more comfortable transportation of people but also for the transportation of supplies to protesters, which helped to sustain the protest with the usage of social media.33
During the leftist riots, the time before the invention of web 2.0, the place for people to construct the collective identities or actions was limited. It is possible to say that to discuss a particular issue to the public, the activists relied on radio or newspapers. Therefore, it is possible to say that newspapers played a role in influencing people to make collective identity and creating thoughts. Nine pro-Beijing newspapers in Hong Kong spread the news to the public and promoted further communication toward them. As a result, more than 400,000 copies of newspapers were sold daily, which was a quarter of the total newspapers daily sold in Hong Kong.34 Nevertheless, the traditional media only allowed one-way communication as
communication was only possible from activists to the public, not the other way around. Other than the use of traditional media, leftists created the IPS offline in order to connect with factory workers. The leftists kept communicated with the factory workers and promoted the grievance and the anger toward the colonial government. Not only that, some leftist organizations and schools supported the activism of the workers to share the collective thoughts with the workers (Lawrence 2009).
32 Ting, Tin-Yuet. 2019. ‘Everyday networked activism in Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement: Expanding on contemporary practice theory to understand activist digital media usages.’ International Journal of Communication. 13. 3250-3269,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334658022_Everyday_networked_activism_in_Hong_Kong's_Umbrella_M ovement_Expanding_on_contemporary_practice_theory_to_understand_activist_digital_media_usages.
33 Ting, Tin-Yuet. 2019. ‘Everyday networked activism in Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement: Expanding on contemporary practice theory to understand activist digital media usages.’ International Journal of Communication. 13. 3250-3269,
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334658022_Everyday_networked_activism_in_Hong_Kong's_Umbrella_M ovement_Expanding_on_contemporary_practice_theory_to_understand_activist_digital_media_usages.
34 Tong, Clement. 2016. ‘The Hong Kong Week of 1967 and the Emergence of Hong Kong Identity Through Contradistinction.’ Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 56. 40-66,
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Hong-Kong-week-of-1967-and-the-emergence-of-the-Tong/be2ec86c6670975daec1e10e839794a718a8727d.
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4.7 Attention from other countries
This section discusses a similar concept as the section of ‘social media as IPS.’ This section deals with the role of social media in terms of communication but at the international level. Undoubtedly, the use of social media enabled the members of protests more easily get attention from international countries. With the faster-moving up of information sharing, which is allowed by the use of social media, people started to more easily and quickly crossed the borders to other countries for international communication (Dewey et al., 2012). Besides, hashtag plays a vital role in making communication between countries more accessible. For instance, the term ‘Umbrella Revolution’ became a well-known term for people in the world since the term has been used as a hashtag among Internet users (Yeung 2014). Howard (2010) discusses this phenomenon with the case study of Iranian insurgency, arguing that a political movement does allow not only communication with one country but also the rest of the world.35 On the other hand, the communication of traditional media at the international level is limited compared to social media as the traditional media does not allow the decentralized and open-source communication by the public. (Dewey et al., 2012).
One of the significant successes of this political movement is that the movement grabbed the attention of the world (Willy 2014). The ceaseless work of protesters to spared information about their protest to social media platforms was successful in reaching people in foreign countries and obtaining information about the current situation in Hong Kong. For example, when the images of protesters using their umbrellas in order to protect themselves against the pepper spray and tear gas, the international users were resent to the active repression of the police (Lee 2015). Also, the use of hashtags such as #hongkongprotests in Twitter made the visual discourse between foreign users and protesters possible, because users were able to get access to the images and videos with the hashtag #hongkongprotests. (Jenkins et al., 2013). Until 1997, it was only the US who always questioned the autonomy of Hong Kong from China. However, after the 87 rounds of tear gas was used toward the protesters on September 28, Ban KI-Moon, the UN secretary-general, warned to solve the trouble peacefully and following the democratic principles.36 On top of that, Joachim Gauck, the president of Germany, emphasized the importance of defending democracy by comparing the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement and the anti-Soviet protests in 1989.37
On the other hand, during the leftist riots, only two countries are known for paying attention to the crisis in Hong Kong, which are China and Great Britain. Those countries intervened during the leftist riots as they are politically and historically correlated with Hong Kong. At that time,
35 Dewey, Taylor & Kaden, Juliane & Marks, Miriam & Matsushima, Shun & Zhu, Beijing. 2012. ‘The Impact of Social Media on Social Unrest in the Arab Spring.’ Stanford University,
https://publicpolicy.stanford.edu/publications/impact-social-media-social-unrest-arab-spring. 36 LAM, Willy. 2014. ‘The Umbrella Revolution and the future of China-Hong Kong Relations. Ifri,
https://www.ifri.org/fr/publications/editoriaux/lettre-centre-asie/umbrella-revolution-and-future-china-hong-kong-relations.
37 LAM, Willy. 2014. ‘The Umbrella Revolution and the future of China-Hong Kong Relations. Ifri,
https://www.ifri.org/fr/publications/editoriaux/lettre-centre-asie/umbrella-revolution-and-future-china-hong-kong-relations.
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Hong Kong was under the control of the British government. In the case of China, the active interaction between the Chinese government and the Hong Kong communists made China pay attention to Hong Kong. Thus, it is interpreted to say that the leftist riots got less global attention compared to the Umbrella Movement in 2014.
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5. Conclusion
To sum up, there is a strong relationship between the emergence of social media and change of forms of protest nowadays. Besides, in general, it is interpreted that communication via social media is the major factor that changed and influenced protests. The factors mentioned above are all directly and indirectly related to the field of communication. The unique features of social media which allow the quicker and cost saving communication on Internet made people use social media in various ways.
First of all, social media provides new methods of persuading the public who has not yet participated the protest. The memes and the posts that the protesters post on social media can influence other users about their thoughts of the protest. In addition, social media has become the place where people communicate and share collective identities. The creation of the Facebook page called ‘LIVE: Verified updates’ inevitably provided the space for users on Facebook to create a shared awareness of the issues and information provided on the page. Not only that, young generation who actively use social media is able to obtain and get access to information about protest. This led to the higher chance of young generation to participate the protest. Next, due to the bottom-up activities of protesters in social media, the need of
leadership has been diminished. Protesters independently created shared awareness in the world of Internet and communicated with other users without any limitation. Besides, the term self-mobilization appeared when protesters themselves mobilized for campaigns. In addition, mobilizing via social media has some benefits with reduced costs, time saving, and easier participation. Not only that, it is estimated that the mobilization via social media creates weak ties among protesters which shows various effects. Lastly, communicating via social media, the information about protests is more likely to reach more users living in foreign countries. The Umbrella Movement received interests from politicians like Joachim Gauck even during the movement, which was possible due to the online activities of protesters to share their thoughts with other countries.
The Hong Kong Umbrella Movement and the Hong Kong leftist riots show a lot of different characteristics which indicates that the use of social media can lead to the totally different ways of people protesting. The comparison of these political movements contributed to the understanding of the relations between social media and protest as the proper evidence. Nevertheless, it is not to ignore that during the Umbrella Movement, the traditional way of protest was still used by protesters. People used posters or slogans during demonstrations and also utilized newspapers or TV for communication. Therefore, it is possible to say that although the traditional method of doing protest was not disappeared, the new ways of communication via social media were well-used and thus changed the forms of protests as well.
For future research, the one thing that scholars should keep in mind is that the forms of protest and social media are always evolving and changing. Therefore, one of the complications of this research is that there is a need of a frequent updating. When a social media platform produces a new feature to users, the ways of communication among the users within the social media platform can be changed due to the new feature. Not only that, it is significant for scholars to think about connecting the theories they propose to the case studies. A theory that is applicable to a case study might not be relevant to another case study.
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