23 Amplified messages: How hashtag activism and Twitter diplomacy converged at #
23 Amplified messages: How hashtag activism and Twitter diplomacy converged at #ThisIsACoup – and won
Wasim Ahmed, University of Sheffield
#ThisisACoup, born in Barcelona as a part of a collective campaign started by members of the public in protest of the stringent Greek bailout demands, drew tweets from the mainstream media, Nobel Prize winners, and current Prime Ministers, and attracted over 1.1 billion views globally in July 2015.
There are some that say hashtag activism is not intended to have any effect on the real world, nevertheless, #ThisIsACoup demonstrates the power of social media for signifying solidarity, raising awareness, and rapidly spreading information across the globe.
Social media scholars have conducted vast amounts of research across the broad spectrum of online activism. For example, research has considered whether new social media can have any real effect on contentious politics; other research has examined the links between social media and public space. Research has also suggested that social media may have played a central role in shaping Arab uprisings. Thus, developing a better understanding of online activism, in all its forms, is of relevance to social media scholars as it can help us to understand how users can engage with social media platforms.
Online Activism
Twitter boasts 316 million monthly active users with 500 million tweets per day, and its hashtags offer members of the public a route to signify solidarity, and raise awareness of events around the world in order to achieve Internet and hashtag activism.
Internet activism uses electronic communication most notably social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and citizen blogs among others to disseminate information to large audiences. Notable examples of Internet activism include social media’s role in the Arab Spring, and the Occupy Wall Street movements.
Hashtag activism, refers to the use of hashtags, in most instances Twitter hashtags, for the purposes of Internet activism. Notable examples of hashtag activism include: #BlackLivesMatter, #Kony2012,#StopGamerGate, and #IceBucketChallenge to name a few.
Twitter diplomacy is the use of social network and microblogging website Twitter by diplomats, heads of state, and leaders of intergovernmental organizations in order to perform outreach activities.
#ThisIsACoup
A recent high profile convergence of Internet activism, hashtag activism, and Twitter diplomacy is #ThisIsACoup. The motivations behind the hashtag, as explained by the organizers:
“We decided to support Francesca’s call to launch an online campaign to support the democratic will of the Greek people in the face of extortion by the Eurogroup in its negotiations with Syriza,” the statement continued. “The scandalous Eurogroup proposals yesterday made last night the ideal moment to create a hashtag to express and, above all, coordinate, our outrage at the extortion the Greek government and its people were being subject to. (quoted in th