11/30/2022 0 Comments Simple and sinister pdf download![]() ![]() Tufekci ( 2017) argues that left-wing activism has effectively used Twitter to gain rapid attention, but struggles to maintain that message across time. Rapidly mobilized attention can rapidly fade, while a suitable framing can prolong moderate engagement. Wu ( 2017) notes that “…in the battle for our attention, there is a particular importance in who gets there first or most often.” Yet speed and endurance can dissociate. Twitter played a vital role in that increased engagement. Although the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag was first coined in 2013 as a response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin (Lebron, 2017), the murder of George Floyd by police in May 2020 catalyzed the movement both online and on the streets. ( 2022) have suggested that increased online attention has made the movement widely visible. ![]() Twitter has been used both to draw attention to the movement’s core ideas and to mobilize supporters for protests (Ince et al., 2017). The online platform Twitter has played a central role in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement (Tufekci, 2017). The study thus sheds light on the complex network and rhetorical effects that drive the struggle for online attention to the BLM movement. Most notably, the murder of George Floyd appears to have solidified a right-wing counter-framing of protests as arising from dangerous “terrorist” actors. ![]() Topic modeling reveals differences in how different political groups talk about BLM. Timeseries analysis reveals that activists are better at mobilizing rapid attention, whereas right-wing accounts show a pattern of moderate but more sustained activity driven by reaction to political opponents. The present study examines 2 years worth of tweets about BLM (about 118 million in total). The ability to bring about social change depends on the balance of these two forces, and in particular which side can capture and maintain sustained attention. Twitter has also played an important role in the right-wing reaction to BLM, providing a means to reframe and recontextualize activists’ claims in a more sinister light. The immediate, flexible nature of tweets plays a crucial role both in spreading information about the movement’s aims and in organizing individual protests. The social media platform Twitter platform has played a crucial role in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. ![]()
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