Media and Protest Logics in the Digital Era

"For 79 days in late 2014, Hong Kong became the focus of international attention due to a public demonstration for "genuine democracy" that would become known as the Umbrella Movement. During this time, twenty percent of the local population would join the demonstration, the most large-scale and sustained act of civil disobedience in Hong Kong's history -- and the largest public protest campaign in China since the 1989 student movement in Beijing. On the surface this movement was not unlike other large-scale protest movements that have occurred around the world in recent years. But the authors argue that it was distinct in how bottom-up processes evolved into a centrally organized, programmatic movement with concrete policy demands. As well, they argue that the particular spark for the movement was a flourishing culture of protest in Hong Kong, but conditioned by a relatively conservative public ethos, in which order is paramount. Lee and Chan analyze how traditional mass media institutions and digital media combined with on-the-ground networks in such a way as to propel citizen participation and the evolution of the movement as a whole. As such they argue that the Umbrella Movement is important in the way it sheds light on the rise of digital-media-enabled social movements, the relationship between digital media platforms and legacy media institutions, the power and limitations of such occupation protests and new "action logics," and the continual significance of 'old' protest logics of resource mobilization and collective action frames"--