From asymmetric dependency to discursive disengagement: How social movements and the media/public talked past each other

Abstract

Social movement-media/public interaction has been largely examined from the lens of “asymmetric dependency” in which both movements’ representation and self-understanding are mainly shaped by their media and public opinion environment. The introduction of digital technologies, however, has diversified this discursive environment and seemed to reverse the uneven dynamics. Using a case study of a protest campaign organized by Chinese American immigrants, this study demonstrates a new pattern of movement-media/public dynamics that goes beyond the “asymmetric dependency” model or its obverse. In the aftermath of a Chinese American police officer who shot a black man to death, Chinese immigrants stood with him and deliberated on WeChat, a China-based digital platform engineered like a “walled garden.” The technolinguistic enclosure of the platform facilitated the development of a separate interpretative universe in the WeChatsphere vis-à-vis the one in the mediasphere. Later, even when immigrant protesters confronted the public in the Twittersphere, they continued talking past each other. By unpacking the decoupling processes between movements and the media/public, this study shifts the research focus from understanding their interaction to examining their disengagement, as well as the “filter bubble” effects that contribute to contemporary fragmentation and polarization in political and civic engagements.