Policy and Complex Systems
Understanding social media effect on social movements . With the ease of spreading information with the Internet and smart phone use , scholars began to pay more attention to the effect of social media on current political protests . For our research , there are three questions that arise : How does social media bring people together ? Does social media have an influence on participation rate to the protests ? When there is Internet censorship , how can protesters keep their communication channel alive ?
In the light of these questions , we introduce related works from social sciences . Centola ( 2013 ) suggests that in large groups , it is hard to find the initial source of power or specific contributor that serves as the catalyst . However , there can be a “ bandwagon ” effect that increases group cooperation . This means that when the first wagon starts to move , the others follow its lead . He provides examples of mass actions displaying this effect , such as large strikes , political protests , and violent revolutions . Centola ’ s point of view is helpful in constructing the main loop of our research , which is the effect of social media on protester interactions ( see Figure 3 ).
Figure 3 shows the feedback loop for the Homophily Effect on Protests . Homophily is the tendency for people to have social connections with people who are similar to them ( Centola , 2013 ). If the number of people who share similar grievance levels against the current regime increases , then the number of protesters will increase . Therefore , there will be more news about protests in social and mass media . With the help of this increase in communication channels through social media , more people with common interests or views about news can more into action . Their posts and / or tweets will increase the awareness on communication channels . People with similar interests might also start following each other on social media . This process can create increased homophily in society . There is a positive feedback loop for the effect of homophily on the number of people who share similar grievance levels against the current regime and government .
The attention toward social media effect on civil revolutions has increased since the Arab Spring . This subject has become interesting for scholars especially in social sciences . Little ( 2015 ) builds
Figure 3 . Feedback loop in our model for homophily effect on protests .
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