Chinese American Social Movement in the Era of Social Media: Making of Pro-Peter Liang Movement

• In Event: 3181 - Section on Asia and Asian America Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 04. Government and Civil Society

Abstract

After more than two decades’ lull, the Asian American movement (AAM) was suddenly revitalized by New York Police Officer Peter Liang in 2016. The former rookie Officer Peter Liang was charged with and tried for second-degree manslaughter and other severe crimes. However, in prior cases, white police officers were acquitted by the grand jury and released without any indictment. Therefore, the sharp contrast motivated tens of thousands of people to assemble in streets, protesting against unjust trial and racial discrimination against Asian Americans. This national level demonstration inherited the values from former AAM from 1960s-1990s and manifested a new distinctive feature, involvement of social media, including WeChat, Facebook and Twitter. As an indispensible constituent of this demonstration, social media’s role deserves special attention because it not only facilitated the occurrence of the demonstration but also influenced Chinese Americans regardless of physical boundaries by constructing shared identities and issue framing. Hence, an in-depth analysis may produce critical insights into the social media’s influence on the demonstration.
This paper chooses the posts or tweets from the Civil Rights group account on WeChat, Facebook (@FreePeterLiang) and Twitter (@FreePeterLiang), combining descriptive analysis, discourse analysis, resource mobilization theory, and the concepts of identity construction and issue framing to delve into: 1) how moral, cultural, human and material resources were mobilized through posts and tweets from Civil Rights account on WeChat, Facebook (@FreePeterLiang) and Twitter (@FreePeterLiang); 2) what identities and frames have been constructed to motivate people to the streets through social media volunteers; 3) what are the function commonalities and distinctions among WeChat, Facebook and Twitter during the demonstration?

Author

• Keqing Zhang