Examining the Connectedness of Connective Action: The Participant-Initiated Facebook Pages in Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement

Abstract

Contemporary large-scale protest campaigns are often marked by the presence of a wide array of individual- and small-group-based actions initiated by the participants themselves. However, scholars have rarely examined whether and how the participant-initiated actions are connected with each other, whether and how they are connected to the movement leaders, and whether the interconnections among the participant-initiated actions relate to existing divisions within a protest. This study examines 138 participant-initiated Facebook pages established during the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong in 2014. The analysis shows limited connections among the pages on social media, and limited connections between these pages and the leading groups. Nonetheless, pages sharing the same thematic concern were more likely to be connected with each other through page liking and content sharing. Pages sharing the same ideological predilections were more likely to be connected through page liking, yet less likely to be connected through content sharing. Implications of the findings are discussed.