Digital Boomerangs: Affordable Alternatives for Transnational Advocacy in the Global South

• In Event: 30207 - Transnational Social Movements

Abstract

Dissidents from all over the world often engage in horizontal hashtag activism campaigns for global attention in English targeted towards a global audience in hope for immediate external support in times of crisis. This study first contextualizes this new tool in the greater transnational advocacy landscape and argues that as traditional strategies become obsolete or inaccessible due to hierarchies in global civil society and oppression, hashtag activism for global attention provides an accessible, relatively safe, and globally connected alternative. Further by quantifying the coverage of 153 Twitter hashtag activism campaigns by dissident Iranians in English from 2015-2022 on English news articles from all over the world using natural language processing methods, I identify the factors contributing to the “success” of a campaign. While success is rare, campaigns accompanied by offline protests are more successful. The positive effect is larger for women’s rights movements. Further media prefers horizontal campaigns over campaigns motivated by organizations or specific political groups. Externally, the United States politics play a crucial role. On a theoretical level, this study reflects on the unequal distribution of human rights support on a global scale and urges scholars to problematize access to transnational political opportunities in addition to their existence.

Author

• Danial Vahabli, Stony Brook University