Social media use on protest sites during the 2016–2017 candlelight vigils in Seoul

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine social media use during protest in the context of the candlelight vigils in 2016 and 2017 in Seoul. We explore the prevalence of social media use during these protests, how it differed by individual-level demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, how everyday use of social media was related to social media use at the protest sites, and how social media use during the protests was related to protest participation experiences (PPEs). Based on survey data from social media users who participated in the candlelight vigils, we found that approximately half of our respondents with experience of participating in the candlelight vigil protests had used social media to share check-in messages, texts, pictures, or videos. Everyday use of each social media platform was related to different types of social media use during protest. This pattern was more dramatic when we compare different age groups. We also found that entertaining PPE was most consistently and strongly associated with all types of social media use during protest. However, distributive PPE was negatively related to sharing check-in messages and had no significant relationship with other types of social media use during protest.