Analyzing protest mobilization on Telegram: The case of 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill movement in Hong Kong.

Online messaging app Telegram has increased in popularity in recent years surpassing Twitter and Snapchat by the number of active monthly users in late 2020. The messenger has also been crucial to protest movements in several countries in 2019-2020, including Belarus, Russia and Hong Kong. Yet, to d...

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Autores principales:	Aleksandra Urman, Justin Chun-Ting Ho, Stefan Katz
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/9fdd362ffefa4a8da0276f937878e6ed
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:9fdd362ffefa4a8da0276f937878e6ed2021-12-02T20:13:45ZAnalyzing protest mobilization on Telegram: The case of 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill movement in Hong Kong.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0256675https://doaj.org/article/9fdd362ffefa4a8da0276f937878e6ed2021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0256675https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Online messaging app Telegram has increased in popularity in recent years surpassing Twitter and Snapchat by the number of active monthly users in late 2020. The messenger has also been crucial to protest movements in several countries in 2019-2020, including Belarus, Russia and Hong Kong. Yet, to date only few studies examined online activities on Telegram and none have analyzed the platform with regard to the protest mobilization. In the present study, we address the existing gap by examining Telegram-based activities related to the 2019 protests in Hong Kong. With this paper we aim to provide an example of methodological tools that can be used to study protest mobilization and coordination on Telegram. We also contribute to the research on computational text analysis in Cantonese-one of the low-resource Asian languages,-as well as to the scholarship on Hong Kong protests and research on social media-based protest mobilization in general. 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 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.Aleksandra UrmanJustin Chun-Ting HoStefan KatzPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 10, p e0256675 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Aleksandra Urman Justin Chun-Ting Ho Stefan Katz Analyzing protest mobilization on Telegram: The case of 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill movement in Hong Kong.
description	Online messaging app Telegram has increased in popularity in recent years surpassing Twitter and Snapchat by the number of active monthly users in late 2020. The messenger has also been crucial to protest movements in several countries in 2019-2020, including Belarus, Russia and Hong Kong. Yet, to date only few studies examined online activities on Telegram and none have analyzed the platform with regard to the protest mobilization. In the present study, we address the existing gap by examining Telegram-based activities related to the 2019 protests in Hong Kong. With this paper we aim to provide an example of methodological tools that can be used to study protest mobilization and coordination on Telegram. We also contribute to the research on computational text analysis in Cantonese-one of the low-resource Asian languages,-as well as to the scholarship on Hong Kong protests and research on social media-based protest mobilization in general. 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 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.
format	article
author	Aleksandra Urman Justin Chun-Ting Ho Stefan Katz
author_facet	Aleksandra Urman Justin Chun-Ting Ho Stefan Katz
author_sort	Aleksandra Urman
title	Analyzing protest mobilization on Telegram: The case of 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill movement in Hong Kong.
title_short	Analyzing protest mobilization on Telegram: The case of 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill movement in Hong Kong.
title_full	Analyzing protest mobilization on Telegram: The case of 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill movement in Hong Kong.
title_fullStr	Analyzing protest mobilization on Telegram: The case of 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill movement in Hong Kong.
title_full_unstemmed	Analyzing protest mobilization on Telegram: The case of 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill movement in Hong Kong.
title_sort	analyzing protest mobilization on telegram: the case of 2019 anti-extradition bill movement in hong kong.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/9fdd362ffefa4a8da0276f937878e6ed
work_keys_str_mv	AT aleksandraurman analyzingprotestmobilizationontelegramthecaseof2019antiextraditionbillmovementinhongkong AT justinchuntingho analyzingprotestmobilizationontelegramthecaseof2019antiextraditionbillmovementinhongkong AT stefankatz analyzingprotestmobilizationontelegramthecaseof2019antiextraditionbillmovementinhongkong
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Analyzing protest mobilization on Telegram: The case of 2019 Anti-Extradition Bill movement in Hong Kong.

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