CHICAGOTWEET ME: Using Social Media to Mobilize People#SMWTweetMeSeptember 24, 2014

#SMWCHICAGO

CHICAGO

Speakers

Prof. Libby HemphillIIT Lewis College of Human Sciences@libbyh

Prof. Edward LeeIIT Chicago-Kent College of Law@edleeprof

SOCIAL MEDIA IN POLITICAL PROTESTS

SOCIAL MEDIA NOT IMPACTFUL

skeptics’ view

“But weak ties [on social media] seldom lead to high-risk activism.”

“[W]e seem to have forgotten

what activism is.”

ARAB SPRING2011

http://www.tfreview.com/feature/regions/where-next-north-africa

Arab Spring: Egypt, Tunisia (400K Tweets)

* Lotan et al. (2011)

One person can influence

SOPA PROTEST2012

SOPA Protest (1.5M Tweets)

Tweet the decision makers

President Obama

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)

* Benenson (2012) Analyzing 80K tweets

NSA PROTESTS2014

SOCIAL MEDIA PROTESTS FAILED

skeptics’ view

DID THE PROTESTS REALLY FAIL?

our study

Day We Fight Back

February 11, 2014

Reset the Net

June 5, 2014

Our Study118 days around protest periods

3.9+ million tweets

Interviews with protest organizers

Takeaways

Social media protests…

• create high volume activity spikes

• involve many and diverse users

• reach huge audiences

• generate attention

DAY WE FIGHT BACK: #STOPTHENSA

1st Protest: February 11, 2014

SPIKES

Original Tweets

48,37449%

Retweets

50,14151%

USERS

most active tweeters

[TPMUInc]

tweeters with greatest reach

AUDIENCES

ATTENTION

most retweeted: Feb 11

most retweeted: Feb 11

most retweeted: after protest

most retweeted: after protest

most retweeted: after protest

#RESETTHENET2nd Protest: June 5, 2014

SPIKES

Original tweets

44,43057%

Retweets

33,87743%

USERS

most active tweeters

tweeters with greatest reach

AUDIENCES

ATTENTION

most retweeted: June 5

most retweeted: June 5@YourAnonNews: #ResetTheNet privacy pack infographic. Share this across the web to keep your friends safe http://t.co/b4KAoO80Uw

most retweeted: after protest

most retweeted: after protest

@RachelMajor2000: Fastest free #VPN service I ever used: http://t.co/MiD10zYuvO #privacy #nsa #[censored] #Dubai #proxy #webproxy #ublock

CHRONOLOGY OF A SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN

start with your base

• Email list• Followers• Friends

test your messages

broadly seek allies + influencers

carefully select hashtags

National Security Agency No Strings Attached

[censored]

use images + videos

be funny

make it easy to participate

react and interact in realtime

challenges

• sustaining or reviving activity over time– event hashtags die off

• motivating participants– political protests leverage principle

• overcoming aversion to commercial campaigns– authenticity

our future work

Develop set of criteria for measuring success of social media campaigns

our future work

compare organized campaigns with spontaneous topics

our future work

compare nonprofit campaigns with commercial campaigns

THANK YOUProf. Libby HemphillIIT Lewis College of Human Sciences@libbyh

Prof. Edward LeeIIT Chicago-Kent College of Law@edleeprof

CHICAGO

SUPPLEMENTAL SLIDES

resources

• Thuderclap: https://www.thunderclap.it/

• Optimizely: https://www.optimizely.com/

• TwitterGoggles:https://github.com/pmaconi/TwitterGoggles

• discovertext:https://discovertext.com/

most retweeted: Feb 11

most retweeted: Feb 11