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“No Central Stage”: Telegram-based activity during the 2019 protests in Hong Kong

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  • Urman, Aleksandra
  • Ho, Justin Chun-ting
  • Katz, Stefan

Abstract

We examine Telegram-based activities related to the 2019 protests in Hong Kong thus presenting the first study of a large Telegram-aided protest movement. We contribute to both - scholarship on Hong Kongese protests and research on social media-based protest mobilization. For that, we rely on the data collected through Telegram’s API and a combination of network analysis and computational text analysis. We find that the Telegram-based network was cohesive ensuring the efficient spread of protest-related information. Content spread through Telegram predominantly concerned discussions of future actions and protest-related on-site information (i.e., police presence in certain areas). We find that the Telegram network was dominated by different actors each month of the observation suggesting the absence of one single leader. Further, traditional protest leaders - those prominent during the 2014 Umbrella Movement, - such as media and civic organisations were less prominent in the network than local communities. Finally, we observe a cooldown in the level of Telegram activity after the enactment of the harsh National Security Law in July 2020. Further investigation is necessary to assess the persistence of this effect in a long-term perspective.

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  • Urman, Aleksandra & Ho, Justin Chun-ting & Katz, Stefan, 2020. "“No Central Stage”: Telegram-based activity during the 2019 protests in Hong Kong," SocArXiv ueds4, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:ueds4
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/ueds4
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    1. Morales, A.J. & Losada, J.C. & Benito, R.M., 2012. "Users structure and behavior on an online social network during a political protest," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(21), pages 5244-5253.
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    Cited by:

    1. Walk,Erin Elizabeth & Garimella,Kiran & Christia,Fotini, 2022. "Displacement and Return in the Internet Era : How Social Media Captures Migration Decisionsin Northern Syria," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10024, The World Bank.

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