Online versus offline: Which networks spur protests?

Does social media or real-life social contacts overcome collective action problems more effectively, when both types of networks are prevalent? We investigate non-violent protests against an economic reform in Austria—a country where one in two citizens uses Facebook but also one in two citizens is a member of a local club or civic organization. The reform only affected individual municipalities, while others remained unaffected. Our results show that protests spread more in reform-affected municipalities with strong offline networks such as village, folklore, or dialect clubs. We do not find that social media penetration intensifies local protests. Descriptive evidence from microdata corroborate these findings. We conclude that offline networks remain important in local contexts, even in an increasingly digital world.