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The coup that flopped_ Facebook as a platform for emotional protest _ Švelch _ First Monday.pdf (693.84 kB)

The coup that flopped: Facebook as a platform for emotional protest

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journal contribution
posted on 2016-09-09, 11:10 authored by Jaroslav Svelch, Vaclav StetkaVaclav Stetka
This paper develops the idea that recent "networked" social movements are driven by emotions and provides an analysis of the role of emotions in movement mobilization. The case study focuses on the 2013 protests against a "coup" within the Czech Social Democratic Party. The protests had an immediate impact, resulting in a series of demonstrations, mainstream media attention and a successful overturning of the "coup". The movement's Facebook page served as an important catalyst for the protest. We argue that the movement's success can be explained by its emphasis on perceived issues of morality. As people tend to gather on Facebook to express their feelings, social media become a primary conduit for emotional protest, which can be subsequently taken to the streets.

Funding

This research was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR), Standard Grant number 14–05575S — “The role of social media in the transformation of political communication and citizen participation in the Czech Republic”.

History

School

  • Social Sciences

Department

  • Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies

Published in

First Monday

Volume

21

Issue

1

Citation

SVELCH, J. and STETKA, V., 2016. The coup that flopped: Facebook as a platform for emotional protest. First Monday, 21 (1), doi: 10.5210/fm.v21i1.6333.

Publisher

University of Illinois (© the authors)

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Publication date

2016-01-31

ISSN

1396-0466

Language

  • en