CHICAGO TWEET ME: Using Social Media to Mobilize People #SMWTweetMe September 24, 2014 #SMWCHICAGO
Dec 02, 2014
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