Abstract In the popular massmind, “democracy” seems to mean different things to different people. For some, it is something worth fighting, and demonstrating and dying for. For others, they cannot be bothered to engage in the minimal civil duties of staying informed and voting. This chapter involves the study of 16 contemporaneous social media accounts that were surfaced in a search for “Hong Kong protests” on the Twitter microblogging site to understand expresses senses of “street democracy”. The resulting Tweets were analyzed for topical content, sentiment, and meaning, using a combination of human close reading and computational text analysis (in NVivo 12 Plus). What do the popular senses of “street democracy” around the pro-democracy Hong Kong protests on the Twitter microblogging site a suggest about (1) its meanings to the demonstrators, and then what are some of the implications to (2) strategic and tactical international or external “democratic promotion” in the U.S. context abroad generally and towards Hong Kong specifically?

 

Key Words

Street Democracy, External Democratic Promotion, International Democratic Promotion, Hong Kong Protests 2019, Anti-Extradition Movement, Twitter Microblogging Platform

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Introduction

From March 2019 through the present, initially tens of thousands but later hundreds of thousands of protesters amassed in Hong Kong to make various political demands of both their government and that of the simultaneously remote and close-in government of Beijing. This former British colony returned to China on July 1, 1997, under a “one country, two systems” concept, with a fair amount of relative autonomy for this capitalist enclave, partially to protect its various affordances as a center of global finance and trade. The mass demonstrations were sparked by a proposed extradition law for those accused of serious crimes in Hong Kong to be tried in mainland China. The “Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill 2019” was thought by many to enable Beijing to quash political dissent in Hong Kong (2019 Hong Kong Extradition Bill, Oct. 23, 2019). The ostensible original case for this proposed legislation was that of 19-year-old Chan Tong-kai, accused of murdering his pregnant girlfriend Poon Hiu-wing in Taiwan and then fleeing to Hong Kong in February 2018 (Tan, Oct. 24, 2019; 2019 Hong Kong Extradition Bill, Oct. 23, 2019).

Initial demands were for the withdrawal of the proposed legislation. The bill was suspended June 15, 2019. Over time, five additional demands were made by this alleged “leaderless” movement (more so with anonymized leaders): “complete withdrawal of the extradition bill from the legislative process” (achieved October 23, 2019); retraction of the “riot” label on the demonstrations; “release and exoneration of arrested protesters”; “establishment of an independent commission of inquiry into police conduct and use of force during the protests”; and the “resignation of Carrie Lam and the implementation of universal suffrage for Legislative Council and Chief Executive elections” (2019 Hong Kong Protests, Oct. 24, 2019). Given the various levers of power and the political realities, each of the five points entail varying levels of practical difficulties. Whatever decisions are made will set some precedence and expectations for future actions. While police have used force, including causing a blinding of one demonstrator in one eye and shooting a protestor with live ammunition, there has been no major mass-death crackdown (as there was on June 3- 4, 1989 in the Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing, by the Chinese government’s military). While journalists may be writing an early or first draft of history, this work is focused on a much lesser element of the protests. Other accounts suggest a longer history of Hong Kong advocacy for democratic rights, going back from the early 1950s (Democratic development in Hong Kong, Oct. 23, 2019), when this “fragrant harbor” was still a British colony of linked islands and peninsulas. Some online reports suggest how to support Hong Kong citizens “in their defense of democratic values” (“Democratic crisis in Hong Kong: Recommendations for policymakers,” 2019). Hong Kong is seen to have experienced a decade of democratic declines and “deteriorating human rights conditions” through 2019 (“Democratic crisis in Hong Kong: Recommendations for policymakers,” 2019, p. 3). As yet, no final outcome has been determined except for a formal retraction of the original proposed legislation.

At the heart of the movement are calls for more democracy and human rights. “Democracy” has some baseline meanings in the political science literature, including “a form of government in which all constituents are able to participate by standing for election to public office and electing others to represent their interests” and includes “the right to challenge and/or call to account an existing government for actions that violate public trust” (Shirazi, Ngwenyama, & Morawczynski, 2010, p. 22). In a democracy, citizens have access to accurate information, from their government and from a powerful free press, so citizens may be sufficiently informed for accurate decision-making. In another sense, democracy is “a framework that seeks to resolve conflicts in society via consensus on core principles that limit the power of government and empower citizens” (Ariely, April 2015, p. 629). A “root meaning” of democracy is that power is held by “ordinary people” (or “government by the people”) (Alexander & Welzel, Apr. 2011, p. 271). Core elements of a basic democracy include (free and fair) “elections and political liberties” (Carothers, 2009, p. 5). Civil rights protect individuals against government oppression, and they ensure equal rights among people regardless of their gender (Ariely, April 2015, p. 633) and other factors. Democracy is seen as “a system of processing conflicts in which outcomes depend on what participants do, but no single force controls what occurs and its outcomes” (Democracy, Oct. 23, 2019). Here, power is not in the hands of individuals but more in process and in laws. In some cases, democracy is packaged also with the “free market”. A crowd-sourced encyclopedia reads: “No consensus exists on how to define democracy, but legal equality, political freedom and rule of law have been identified as important characteristics.” (Democracy, Oct. 23, 2019)

If democracy is aspirational, how it is actualized and operationalized matters to its citizenry. Within countries, there may be differing senses of how well the democratic government is functioning (Ariely, April 2015, pp. 632 – 633). In the popular massmind, there may be varying understandings of “street democracy” in a public and folk sense. The protests are widely understood as anti-government ones—adversarial, occasionally violent, and a direct challenge to the legitimacy and limits of the governments of Hong Kong and the People’s Republic of China. Widespread images of the demonstrations show the waving of various flags, including American ones. While a number of social media applications have been linked to the protests, the Twitter microblogging platform is an important part, with some participants using it for broadcasting on-ground information to news sources and others around the world and narrowcasting among smaller groups. The communications here are both strategic and tactical. They enable mediated situational awareness and a sense of immediacy.

The research questions involve multiple parts:

What do the popular senses of “street democracy” around the pro-democracy Hong Kong protests on the Twitter microblogging site a suggest about (1) its meanings to the demonstrators, and then what are some of the implications to (2) strategic and tactical international or external “democratic promotion” in the U.S. context abroad generally and towards Hong Kong specifically?

The software used to extract the information was NVivo 12 Plus, and more specifically, the NCapture web app. NodeXL was also used along with Excel for some data captures and data visualizations. Online tools used include Wikipedia, Google Books Ngram Viewer, Flickr, and other sources.

Review of the Literature

Historically, democracy has been “a deeply contested concept” (Kurki, 2010, p. 362) and unpopular “with both political leaders and philosophers” but in the 20^th century become “the world’s new universal religion” (Corcoran, 1983, p. 14, as cited in Kurki, 2010, p. 362). For many, democracy has “ideational dominance” as a desired form of governance. It carries the promise of both individual and group-level actualization (enabled by a non-interventionist non-intrusive government): full human self-expression, full human voice, and individualistic self-determination. Democracy is a form of what Walter James Shepard calls a “verbal stereotype,” a concept that is unthinkingly positive:

It arouses at once a favorable reaction in the popular mind. It is surrounded with an aura of sanctity. It immediately suggests the glorious achievement of independence by the American patriots of 1776. It calls forth visions of heroes such as Jefferson and Lincoln. It evokes as its antithesis concepts of despotism, of dictatorship, of absolute monarchy. To be a democrat is to be on the side of angels…It has constituted a basic faith which has oriented our thought and action in every direction. It has been the religion by which we have lived and for which we have been willing to die. To question the sacred principle of democracy has been to lay a profane hand upon the Ark of the Covenant. (Shepard, July 1935, p. 94)

With the widespread adoption of information and communications technology (ICT), citizens have experienced “rising aspirations, discontent with government, mistrust of government, and political apathy” and so put pressure on governments to improve their services (Lee-Geiller & Lee, 2019, p. 208). Advancing democracy is about increasing efficiencies in the provision of government services, with open and informational transparency, service quality, and the encouragement of citizen engagement (“collaboration, deliberation, political efficacy”) (Lee-Geiller & Lee, 2019, p. 221). The presence of “mobile telephones, SMS, and the Internet” also directly affect political activity (Shirazi, Ngwenyama, & Morawczynski, 2010, p. 21).

“…various states and international organizations, the United States, the European Union, and the UN” have advocated for democracy’s spread around the world (Kurki, 2010, p. 362). “External” and “international” democracy promotion refers to various endeavors to transition autocratic states to ones where the power is shared among the citizens. One researcher writes:

Democratization is a broad, irregular process of replacing authoritarian regimes with rule-bound competitive political systems. It is not a universal historical sequence. Many countries mix major elements of undemocratic and democratic practice. (Goldsmith, Fall 2008, p. 124)

“Democratization” necessarily depends “on the relations between domestic elites and the demos” (the common populace) (Beichelt, 2012, p. 4). External democracy promotion involves the support and promotion of democracy in other countries, involving support for a free press, support for voter rights, support for safe voting, fair voting (such as through international observers), selective election boycotts, promotion of the rule of law, promotion of civil rights, protection of various minorities, protection of populations against genocide, educational efforts, financial aid, technical aid, and other endeavors. “Strategic incumbents” who strive to retain power in non-democratic spaces may use various manipulations to forestall free and fair elections, such as engaging in a variety of strategic manipulations with intimidation, tampering with voter lists, releasing disinformation, deploying covert surveillance, and boycotting opposition parties (Beaulieu & Hyde, 2009, p. 401).

It is thought that some cultures are more amenable to democracy than others. Some aspects are historically and politically contingent: “Former British colonies were considerably more democratic than other countries immediately following independence, but subsequent democratic convergence has largely eliminated these differences in the post-Cold War period.” (Lee & Paine, 2019, p. 487) It is generally thought that societies may be in various states of readiness for transitioning from autocracy to democracy or to deepen democracy, depending on the readiness of the population, the social pluralism in society [“a large and diverse civil society” with cultural diversity (Bunce, Winter 2008, p. 25)], “stable state borders” (Bunce, Winter 2008, p. 25), the state of development (Feng & Zak, April 1999, p. 162) and the economy, and the state of the extant government (and its anti-democracy efforts), among others. Some have found that hearts and minds of a citizenry are less important than having working democratic institutions first in order to earn the confidence of the populace. Legitimacy attitudes towards democracy “are significantly shaped by the prior institutionalization of democracy” (Fails & Pierce, Mar. 2010, p. 174). Reaching into another society to promote a form of government is an exercise in power (Wolff, 2015), with the attendant moral and other implications. (A common accusation is that Western powers are engaging in “imperialism” and a misuse of “hegemonic power” in “interfering” in another sovereign nation’s politics. This is a framing of one of the counter-narratives.) Others have argued for the importance of understanding “the preferences of the target publics” (Obama, 2006, pp. 315 – 317, as cited in Kurki, 2010, p. 363). The motives and end goals for democratic promotion are also relevant (Wolff & Wurm, 2011, p. 79).

Coercively insisting on democracy may be counter-productive and unaligned with democratic principles (Goldsmith, Fall 2008, p. 147). Also, nation-states are in flux, and “democratic backsliding” may also occur in some cases…and democratic institutionalization in others. Democracy, as all forms of government, is revocable. There are different brands of international democracy promotion, like an “EU” type or an “American” type, depending on leadership, policies, resourcing, bureaucratic elements, and other factors. As an incentive to democratic reforms to neighboring countries, the EU has offered “partnership and cooperation,” something short of membership which has many strictures (Schimmelfennig & Scholtz, 2008, p. 187); EU leaders apply “political conditionality” to engagement (p. 190).

Modernization theory is interpreted by some to suggest that at a particular point in development, a country may convert to democracy. One authoring team writes, “With sufficient growth, nondemocratic governments almost always become democracies…” albeit with “significant variation across countries” (Feng & Zak, April 1999, p. 162). One model suggests that “the level of per capita income, education, the distribution of wealth, and the strength of preferences for political rights and civil liberties” are critical factors in this democratic transition (Feng & Zak, April 1999, p. 162). Democracy is thought to arise from “all sorts of conditions” (Munck, 2015, p. 97). Globalization itself, with the encouragement of transnational interactions, is also thought to promote democracy. Transnational relations between governmental and non-governmental actors and other exchanges (cultural, academic) are seen to promote democratization (Schimmelfennig & Scholtz, 2008, pp. 192 – 193).

However the transition works, the European Union as a group of nations, the U.S., and Western powers have all engaged in democratic promotion to help processes along. Having fellow democratic societies may reduce the costs of transactions because of some level of built in trust (Lektzian & Souva, Feb. 2001) and international cooperation. The EU’s uses of functional cooperation and integration with EU regulations is seen to create a “ring of friends” (Freyburg & Lavenex, 2018, p. 1) and expand the EU’s sphere of influence. A named strategy of the EU has been to expand its influence for its own political stability.

An “illiberal democracy” (or a “partial democracy”) may be a transitional state towards democracy or some other form of governance (“Illiberal democracy,” Oct. 13, 2019); a “liberal democracy” (or a “Western democracy”) is a more mature-state government with many of the bureaucratic elements that enable democratic civil freedoms for citizens and “universal suffrage” which allows all to vote (“Liberal democracy,” Oct. 23, 2019). There is a “big tent” approach in its definition:

A liberal democracy may take various constitutional forms as it may be a constitutional monarchy (such as Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom) or a republic (such as France, Germany, India, Italy, Ireland and the United States). It may have a parliamentary system (such as Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Israel, Ireland, Italy and the United Kingdom), a presidential system (such as Indonesia and the United States) or a semi-presidential system (such as France and Romania). (“Liberal democracy,” Oct. 23, 2019).

In the “hybrid zone” of partial democracies, between autocracy and “fully effective democracy,” the “ineffective” democracies fail to enforce the “rule of law” (Alexander & Welzel, Apr. 2011, p. 271). Democracy is not an overnight achievement but thought to advance in a gradual manner, with differing degrees of human rights granted depending on the state of that democracy (Alexander & Welzel, Apr. 2011, p. 273). Others have observed mixed political systems, with “semi-democratic” political systems (Goldsmith, Fall 2008, p. 124).

There are various conceptualizations of types of democracy, based on “a pluralism of governing structures” and differing “values” and instantiations in “time, space, and language” (Types of democracy, Oct, 23, 2019). There are different stages of democracies. Several thousand adjectives have been applied to the term “democracy” (Types of democracy, Oct. 23, 2019). Some of the diversities of democracies may be seen in the article-article network around “Types_of_democracy” on Wikipedia (Figure 1). As a side note, one uncited source suggests that there is “Confucian democracy,” and other works suggest “democracy with Chinese characteristics.” Terms can be defined in various ways.

 

Figure 1: “Types_of_democracy” Article-Article Network of Outlinks at One Degree on Wikipedia (horizontal sine wave)

 

Various components of a society may inform about the state of democracy in a particular polity. Freedom House, an organizational advocate for democracy, points to democratic norms, including “elections, term limits for executives, freedom of expression, rights of migrants, safety of expatriates, and (protection of peoples against) ethnic cleansing” (“Freedom in the World 2019: Democracy in Retreat,” 2019). The idea of the depth of democracy may be more complex than a “tick the boxes” approach based on predefined elements “in democracy promoters’ guidance documents” (Kurki, 2010, p. 380).

Journalism plays an important role in a democracy. In one direction, journalism enables a populace to be informed; in the other, journalism enables people’s voices to be heard “in the chambers of power” (“A new journalism for democracy…,” Feb 1, 2005). One important role of journalists in a democracy is to explain the reasons for protest for deeper understandings among the larger populace and polity (Myers, Jan. 2019). One risk is to have insufficient diversity to inform the judgment of what should be covered as news (Myers, Jan. 2019). Independent journalism helps mitigate some of the risks of having to depend on “political insiders for content” and from “the drive to attract an audience” (Schudson, Spring 2013). If journalism focuses on the wrong issues (“sideshows”), such distractions may be negative for democratic rule (Myers, Jan. 2019). Journalistic stewardship should be “loosely defined, decentralized, multiform, and open to invention” (Schudson, Spring 2013). By definition, in a democracy (and elsewhere), there are inherent tensions between the press and elected officials.

Social media enable citizen journalists to report from their respective local spaces about any number of issues but without the professional overlay of editorial oversight, fact checking, and other resources. A new phenomenon of “democratic journalism” enables the voting up or voting down of stories on social news sharing sites and discussion boards (“Democratic journalism,” Dec. 26, 2018), infusing a sense of populism into news consumption. The effectiveness of such votes depends in part on the wisdom of the crowd and their sophistication as news consumers.

In answer to the question of whether “international democracy promotion” works, one researcher offers a complex equivocation: it depends on “how we define democracy promotion and its objectives, and on which particular approaches, methods or tools…used to promote democracy” (Burnell, 2007, p. iv).

Practical benefits to democracy

For all the romanticized senses of democracy, there are empirical reasons for the advocacy of democracy as governance. Natural resource-rich countries, “more vulnerable to rent-seeking behavior,” tends to better protect those resources against corruption when they are democracies (Neudorfer, 2018, p. 175). Democratic institutions, along with “cultural values of nonviolence and equality,” has been found to lead to lower homicide rates and violent crime (Piccone, Sept. 2017, p. 1). [“Strong autocracies” also tend to have lower homicide rates (Piccone, Sept. 2017, p. 1).] Democracies offer mechanisms for people to achieve “social compromise” around contentious issues (Zhen, 2006, p. 1).

In a democracy, citizens are expected to engage in their civic duties, and their contributions stand to benefit the polity, including:

(a) the construction of citizenship, (b) the strengthening of practices of participation, (c) the strengthening of responsive and accountable states, and (d) the development of inclusive and cohesive societies. (Gaventa & Barrett, 2012, p. 2399)

On the down side, some of the freedoms of democratic societies enable some advancing of hate agendas under the guise of free speech (Weinrib, 1991).

Generally, liberal-democracy was seen as the winning dominant organizing governance approach post-Cold War, with the fall of the Berlin Wall (November 1991) and the dissolution of the former Soviet Union (December 1991). the “liberal-democracy promotion agenda” is seen as an extension of the George W. Bush era, post 9/11 (Hobson, Oct. – Dec. 2009, p. 384). Researchers have studied the “transatlantic divide over democracy promotion,” with EU members suspicious that the U.S. is using such endeavors as cover for U.S. military action. One researcher writes:

In his January 2005 inaugural speech, President George W. Bush placed democracy promotion at the center of his second-term agenda. Yet, with no budget or strategy offered in the days or weeks that followed, Europeans grew increasingly cynical. Given the shifting rationales for the war in Iraq emanating from the White House, it would be understandable if European leaders and the broader European public remained highly suspicious of democracy promotion, interpreting it as a repackaged commitment to the unilateral use of force as well as justification for a war and occupation that were not going as smoothly as expected. (Kopstein, 2006, p. 85)

While there is agreement on democracy promotion, the methods for its advent are a focus (Kopstein, 2006, p. 86). In a complex world, efforts towards promoting democracy may involve blowback and unintended effects and may be inefficacious. There may be paradoxical effects of democracy promotion that may end up strengthening authoritarian governance (Durac & Cavatorta, 2009). Researchers explore various policy interventions to better understand the effects. In terms of “norm entrepreneurship” and international democratic promotion as a form of foreign policy, various researchers have penned policy papers, policy brochures, and working papers about how to most effectively promote democracy abroad. Some approaches involve working through target countries’ “transnationally-oriented elites” to bring about political change towards democracy. The in-between phases may be risky to international security (Goldsmith, Fall 2008, p. 120). Transitional phases from autocracy to democracy may involve periods of political instability and devolutions to violence.

Aid-dependent states are thought to be influenced from within more than without in terms of democracy transitions. Further, there may be unintended consequences by external development donors, with empirical observations that “the incorporation of donors’ formal and informal institutions into the supported political system, and the dense interaction between donors and local actors during democracy promotion, are likely to undermine democratization in aid-dependent states” (Leininger, Mar. 2010, p. 63). Nation-states experience leeriness about receiving Western aid because of the sense that they may come with strings attached (Carothers, Mar. – Apr. 2006). There are different flavors of democracy promotion based on the particular states and contexts (Jonavicius, March 2008). Some efforts of democracy promotion are achieved through the guise of international education (Saltman, 2006). One summary approach suggests the following methods: by “coercion, conditionality, persuasion, socialization” at the macro level based on case analysis (Beichelt, 2012, p. 1).

Exploring the Transnational Allure of “Street Democracy” via Twitter based on a Contemporaneous Real-world Case

Social media offer some insights on what “street democracy” may look like. On Google’s Search engine, the autocomplete for “democratic” involves the following topics (in descending order): “republic, leadership, deficit, society, peace theory, party, process, governance, transition, (and) leadership style.” In the Google Books Ngram Viewer, “democracy” is the most popular of the other common types of governance (Figures 2 and 3). In the first figure, it ranks highest among a search in a mass digital / digitized book corpora among “democracy, republic, communism, autocracy, oligarchy, theocracy, (and) fascism” and in the latter, among “anarchy, aristocracy, bureaucracy, capitalism, colonialism, communism, democracy, federalism, feudalism, kleptocracy, meritocracy, military, dictatorship, monarchy, oligarchy, plutocracy, republicanism, socialism, theocracy, totalitarianism, tribalism” (but behind “military” which is not uniquely identified to a governance type in this query.

 

Figure 2: “democracy, republic, communism, fascism, oligarchy, autocracy, theocracy” Mentions over Time in Formal Published Books (Google Books Ngram Viewer)

 

Figure 3: “anarchy, aristocracy, bureaucracy, capitalism, colonialism, communism, democracy, federalism, feudalism, kleptocracy, meritocracy, military, dictatorship, monarchy, oligarchy, plutocracy, republicanism, socialism, theocracy, totalitarianism, tribalism” Mentions over Time in Formal Published Books (Google Books Ngram Viewer)

 

In a related tags network around social imagery, on Flickr, a “democracy” network at 1.5 degrees results in two groups of related tags. Group 1, the left block, shows references to target countries with long traditions of democracy and some with histories of democratic promotion. Group 2 involves an American focus. (Figure 4)

 

Figure 4: “Democracy” Related Tags Network on Flickr (1.5 deg.)

 

Social accounts around “Hong Kong protests” on Twitter

In many ways, Hong Kong is an interesting ground zero for studying advances to democracy in an age of social media since it is an international city with its citizens abroad and many allies around the world. Twitter is a common space for its peoples given the commonality of English and Chinese as foremost languages, especially among the younger generations. While encrypted apps have been used in the demonstrations for coordination (“Mesh” and “Telegram,” according to press reports), Twitter enables outreach to a worldwide audience. As such, it may be a useful platform to analyze the concept of democracy as a street or common public concept. The communications also provide a type of cover for action. For the demonstrators, the messaging is that they are non-violent, peaceful, and righteous, in their requests. [For the Hong Kong police, it is that they are maintaining public order against rioters and ensuring the functioning of the city. For the Hong Kong government, it is that they are staying within the lines of law.] Will the demonstrations dwindle? Will a third-party mediate? Will Hong Kong government blink? Will Beijing step in? At the time of the writing, there is not yet a clear trajectory.

To conduct the research, 16 social accounts were identified in Twitter based on a search of “Hong Kong protests.” Most of the accounts were live and focused on the issue of the 2019 protests. A few were from 2014 and reactivated for the 2019 protests. All of the microblogging data were captured on the same day, albeit in a rate-limited way, given the limits of the Twitter API (application programming interface). (Table 1 and Figure 5) Several seem focused around civil rights.

 

	Tweets	Following	Followers	Likes
#HKResist Fight for Hong Kong @Fight4HongKong https://twitter.com/Fight4HongKong Hong Kong Joined June 2019	6,592	737	42,100+	2,326
antiELAB @anti_elab https://twitter.com/anti_elab Hong Kong Joined June 2019	8,844	388	35,600+	653
Democracy for Hong Kong @Democracy4HK https://twitter.com/DemocracyforHK United Kingdom Facebook.com/DemocracyForHongKong Joined June 2019	888	538	6,202	388
Fight for Freedom, Stand for Hong Kong @Stand_with_HK https://twitter.com/Stand_with_HK Hong Kong Joined Nov. 2017	1,284	182	63,200+	429
Freedom Hong Kong @FreedomHKG https://twitter.com/FreedomHKG Hong Kong Joined June 2019	1,890	297	68,600+	3,761
Global Solidarity HK @GlobalSolidHK https://twitter.com/GlobalSolidHK Hong Kong and everywhere Joined Sept. 2014	6,296	928	13,200+	446
HK Demo Now @hkdemonow https://twitter.com/hkdemonow Hong Kong facebook.com/HKDemoNow/timeline Joined Sept. 2014	103,000+	1,961	16,400+	144
HK Protestors Share Channel @wyy19668645 https://twitter.com/wyy19668645 Hong Kong Joined Dec. 2018	167	25	2,622	9
Hong Kong – Be Water (volunteers who curate media material for “current civil rights movement in HK”) @BeWaterHKG https://twitter.com/BeWaterHKG Joined July 2019	3,152	184	17,600+	3,368
Hong Kong Free Press @HongKongFP https://twitter.com/HongKongFP Hong Kong Joined Mar. 2015	33,800+	29	231,000+	5
Hong Kong Protest @HongKongProtest https://twitter.com/HongKongProtest Hong Kong Joined Oct. 2014	16	7	8,452	N/A
Hong Kong Protest News @ProtestHongKong https://twitter.com/ProtestHongKong Hong Kong Joined July 2019	370	22	2,305	546
Hong Kong Protests 2019 @HKGProtests https://twitter.com/HKGProtests Feb. 2018	10,700+	318	3,668	9,340
Hong Kong Watch @hk_watch https://twitter.com/hk_watch facebook.com/hongkongwatch1 Joined Oct. 2017	988	519	28,500+	136
Hong Kong World City @HKWORLDCITY https://twitter.com/HKWORLDCITY Hong Kong Joined Sept. 2014	36,400+	8,844	27,000+	12,400+
Progressive Lawyers Group @HongKongPLG https://twitter.com/HongKongPLG Hong Kong Joined May 2017	805	142	13,900+	1,846

Table 1: Selected Social Accounts from “Hong Kong Protests” Search

 

Figure 5: Landing Pages of Respective Twitter Accounts related to Hong Kong Democracy (Oct. 23, 2019)

 

The geographical maps of the various social networks surrounding the target social accounts show mostly global distributions of members except for two, which are zoomed into particular locales, which visually look to be Guangzhou in one and the East Indian subcontinent in the other. (Figure 6) Given the mass and political power of the People’s Republic of China, perhaps where Hong Kong goes, so goes other regions, which may explain the nervousness in response to Beijing’s power and reach.

 

 

Figure 6: Locational Maps of Social Networks of Respective Twitter Accounts

 

A close-in reading of the microblogging messages shows a focus on various hashtag campaigns: #FightForFreedomStandWithHongKong, #StandwithHK, #HongKongProtests, #DisbandHKPolice, #OccupyHongKong, #OccupyHK, #OpenFuture, #hkprotests, #FreeHongKong

#antiELABhk (against the proposed extradition law), and #FreedomHK. After the Hong Kong government made mask-wearing illegal, there were calls to fight that decision: #AntiMaskLaw. There are generic hashtag labels: #HK, #HongKong, #HongKongers, and #China. There are clear messages to fight “police abuses” and “escalating police brutality & retaliation.” There are messages to control against demonstrator actions which are undesirable, such as one calling out Chinese tourists who “destroyed Lennon Wall” and others decrying “property damage.” There are some accused of “a vicious attack” on demonstrators. One message clarifies that the demonstrations are not “a separatist movement.” Various URLs are shared pointing to articles and video hosted off of the microblogging platform.

In one message, another is encouraged to “speak freely.” There are also countervailing messages advising caution. One Tweet warns that the Internet could be shut off. (The subtext: Consider Plan B or C.) Another message cites a “fanatic” by name who “isn’t real…” (So there is a sense of there being persons who are sending out false messages in the social networks.)

Some communicators refer to promises enshrined in the time of handover of H.K. from the colonial power Britain back to China in 1997. “Beijing” is referred to in the context of “worrisome escalations” and “PLA tanks.” There is the threat of “disappearing dissidents.”

In terms of the autocoding of the main topics in the set, the main ideas include the following: police, https, protest, riot, riot police, chinese, gas, and law (with related sub-topics). (Figures 7 and 8)

 

Figure 7: Autocoded Themes from the Combined Twitter Microblogging Accounts

 

The defense of the demonstrators seem to be a major concern, with “police” as a large topical node (Figure 8).

 

Figure 8: A 3D Cluster Chart based on Word Frequency from Tweetsets

Figure 9 shows the mapping the “long tail” in the Tweetsets showed some single-mentions of some topics.

 

Figure 9: Exploring the Long Tail in the Combined “Hong Kong Protests” Tweetsets (< top-1,000 most frequent identified terms)

 

An extraction of a “democracy” word tree, there are mentions of various tycoons either speaking up or not to support the demonstrators. One message highlights multiple international disagreements with Beijing, involving “Tibetans, Uyghurs and Falun Gong” (the third is a religious group with spinoff ideas around Buddhism). In the same Tweets as “democracy,” there are mentions of “civil liberties” and “American values.” There are arguments for “essential values.” The social accounts are used to list various persons arrested, those sent to various named hospitals, and others. There are inspiring quotes for famous people. In some, supporters are thanked. Some human rights lawyers are mentioned. Some crowd-funding opportunities are also mentioned. Some of the messaging reads to be racist references. Others respond that “intolerance is fugly” (“fuck ugly”), suggesting various pushback using social media terms. (Figure 10) In terms of the democracy word tree, some of the main #hashtag campaigns and topics may be seen. The “https” was added to the stopwords list.

 

 

Figure 10: A Zoomed-in View of the “Democracy” Word Tree from the Twitter Datasets (and a zoomed-out view to the right)

 

Figure 11: A Word Cloud from the “Democracy” Word Tree

 

A word tree based on “民主”(Minzhu), which means “democracy” in Chinese results in a large word tree that also suggests participatory interest beyond youth. (Figure 12) In various press accounts, the inclusiveness and intergenerational nature of the demonstrators has been noted.

 

Figure 12: The “民主” Word Tree from the Twitter Datasets

 

The various social accounts had different focuses in terms of sentiment, what is seen as positive and what negative. (Figure 13)

 

Figure 13: Variances of Sentiment across the Tweetsets

 

To summarize, the coded topics seen as positive vs. negative (sentiment treated as a binary) may be seen in Figure 14. One clear difference is that there is more complexity in the “very positive” and “moderately positive” text sets as compared to the “very negative” and “moderately negative” sets. Clearly, the points of friction and clashes with police is seen as very negative.

 

Figure 14: Autocoded Top-level and Related Sub-topics of the Positive vs. Negative Sentiment Sets

 

In terms of the topics that involve high sentiment (vs. neutral text), those clearly involved clashes with law enforcement (Figure 15).

Figure 15: Word Frequency Word Cloud of the Sentiment Set

 

Another social media tool involves the uses of mass search data. Google Correlate enables users to choose a target search term and location and time frequency in order to see what other search terms correlate with that original search. It is more than mechanics. The idea is that searches who pursue a particular term in a particular time pattern is trying to learn more about an in-world phenomenon, and correlated search terms may be suggestive of associations in the massmind. A comparison between the “US” and “China” in their respective senses of “democracy” do show a difference. For the U.S., the focus seems to be more about mechanics and the developed levers of governance, academic research and study, personages and thinkers (such as for women’s rights), a lived sense of constitutional democracy, and even a reference to the historical Greeks. For “China,” the related search terms seem more remote and diffuse. (Table 2)

Table 2: “Democracy” in the U.S. vs. China based on Search Term Correlations by Week (in Google Correlate)

 

China is a “consolidated authoritarian regime” (“Freedom in the World 2019,” 2019, p. 3). It is part of a group of nations (“Pacific Asian countries”) that is seen to “have a lower likelihood of democratic transitions, holding other factors constant” (Feng & Zak, April 1999, p. 163). China is advocating a “development first, democracy second” model (McFaul, 2004, p. 149).

China is seen to engage in “backlash against democracy aid” and labeled the U.S. “democratic offensive” as “self-serving, coercive, and immoral” (Carothers, Mar. – Apr. 2006, p. 58). As a country, it has engaged in active resistance against democratic diffusion. In its toolkit are “coercion,” “economic patronage,” “restricting exposure to democratic ideas,” and “developing alternative narratives about democracy to reduce local receptivity to democratic diffusion” (Vanderhill, 2017, p. 41). China’s press freedoms were ranks 176/179 countries by Reporters without Borders in 2016, due to censorship and other government controls (Vanderhill, 2017, p. 44). More recently: Freedom House has shared on its website that China, in 2018, forced over a million ethnic Uighurs and others into “’reeducation’ centers”…”while President Xi Jinping’s position was secured indefinitely” (“Freedom in the World 2019: Democracy in Retreat,” 2019). Perhaps the infrastructure for mass incarcerations, seeable from satellites, serve as a warning.

Discussion

From within, it may be harder to maintain an idealized version of democracy as contrasted to the real. For citizenry, democracies may seem fairly rough-and-tumble, with various personalities who attain positions of power, with their personality quirks and foibles and sometimes worse. Even though public officials are supposed to be answerable to the people, it may not always feel that way. Policy-making is fought over in public. “Politics” seem to be ever present. This is a form of government that has its strengths and weaknesses, as in every other type. Every generation stands to benefit from civics lessons and to move beyond “filter bubbles” and “echo chambers” to understand their respective places in the world, and where democracy stands in relation to other forms of governance. Civic engagement is associated with improved democratic outcomes and development outcomes (Gaventa & Barrett, 2012, p. 2407).

This work focuses on a limited set of interrelated questions. The two main research focuses are on the following:

What do the popular senses of “street democracy” around the pro-democracy Hong Kong protests on the Twitter microblogging site a suggest about (1) its meanings to the demonstrators, and then what are some of the implications to (2) e strategic and tactical international or external “democratic promotion” in the U.S. context abroad generally and towards Hong Kong specifically?

In this work, the senses of “democracy” in the recent microblogging messages related to the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong are several-fold. One is the sense that that democracy is mentioned as aspirational and critical to protect, for this generation and future ones. It is sometimes mentioned in the same breath as “human rights” and “civil rights” and “human freedoms.” Democracy in this street sense is about a protection of personal and mass human rights in a very experienced level and a rejection of the incursions of an authoritarian government seen to be attempting to assert its rights over a “semi-autonomous” polity. The demonstrators demonstrate a sense of their rights as individuals critiquing government over-reach, in terms of the anti-extradition policy proposed by H.K. Chief Executive Carrie Lam but apparently originating from Beijing. The proposed policy “would have let local authorities detain and extradite criminal fugitives who are wanted in territories with which Hong Kong does not currently have extradition agreements, including Taiwan and mainland China” (2019 Hong Kong Protests, Oct. 24, 2019). Beyond the letter of the proposal, many saw human rights being papered over and taken away from Hong Kong citizens (2019 Hong Kong Protests, Oct. 24, 2019). The messaging around “street democracy” on Twitter does not show high insight depth nor data high analytics, but more of an embodied sense of lived democracy based on inherent human rights: voices of the people, freedom of movement, freedom of association, freedom of speech, consent of the governed, and other aspects. If democracy is also about having the power of social protest and second-guessing government leaders and policies, those also senses of socio-political activism also were shown in the social imagery.

Another sense of street-expressed democracy is that Americans are mentioned in close proximity to “democracy,” showing an appreciation for the American model potentially and offering a shout-out to American friends and allies. As to soft power, the American brand of democracy currently is still one that is a reference point for others (even though democracy is seen to have declined in the U.S. under President Trump). Some hallmarks: the separation of powers among the executive, legislative, and judiciary, the checks and balancing of power. Hollywood actors, international authors, artists, and others play their respective roles in this messaging. Work by non-profit entities may stand in the gap, including several that promote democracy by evaluating the state-of-the-world annually in terms of democratic practices (Freedom House), and others.

Computational sentiment analyses show that there is much positive optimism around the issues of human rights, the rule of law, freedom, political processes, and the Hong Kong people, even as there are frustrations around police actions and the label of “riot” to their actions.

Based on an open and public “street democracy,” what are the implications for the transnational advocacy of democracy abroad? What should it be at the water’s edge (at the borders of the U.S.)? As to international and external democratic promotion, advocacy is generally low-cost and non-committal. And yet, even then, official Washington seems to have declined to engage even in “cheap talk,” much less “costly signaling.”

Future Research Directions

This work involved the exploration of some 16 social accounts on the microblogging platform Twitter, to explore what “democracy” may mean in the context of mass civil disobedience and marches in Hong Kong. One way to expand this work is to capture an N = all instead of just skimming partial datasets from the respective accounts. There are other sources that may be explored, such as social networking sites, web logs or blogs, social imagesets, mass search term associations, word searches in mass book corpora, crowd-sourced encyclopedias, and other types of social media. (This work did use some of these source types but only in passing, not as a main focus.)

Follow-on work may involve other “street” senses of types of government systems: general current types such as “republic, communism, fascism, oligarchy, autocracy, and theocracy” or even more fine-pointed “anarchy, aristocracy, bureaucracy, capitalism, colonialism, communism, democracy, federalism, feudalism, kleptocracy, meritocracy, military, dictatorship, monarchy, oligarchy, plutocracy, republicanism, socialism, theocracy, totalitarianism, tribalism.” (The prior lists are those run in the Google Books Ngram Viewer” for a generalized sense of references to the various types in digital and digitized books.)

Other more difficult questions will be in the hands of other researchers:

• Were parts of the Hong Kong populace living in a social tinderbox of sublimated concerns and frustrations that made the citizenry so willing to react en masse with the “trigger” of the proposed legislation? What made the messaging so viral?
• What was the role of the Umbrella Movement in 2014 in laying the groundwork (and some of the social media infrastructure) for the 2019 demonstrations, particularly given the concerns about the lack of universal suffrage and the long arm of Beijing (2019 Hong Kong Protests, Oct. 24, 2019)?
• In terms of the multi-messaging, how effectively did the various stakeholders intercommunicate?
• What modern cyber capabilities were at play by the various stakeholder entities (various governments, law enforcement, journalists, demonstrators, and others)? After all, the June 9, 2019, rally “saw the first ever use of artificial intelligence in measuring protest numbers in the history of the HKSAR, which led to the identification of 517,478 people” (2019 Hong Kong Protests, Oct. 24, 2019). [“HKSAR” represents “Hong Kong Special Administrative Region”.]

Meanwhile, there is a sense of the future being written at least for the near-term. There is also the observation that each generation will have to advocate for its own interests when their time arrives, with competing visions of what is desirable and appropriate.

Conclusion

November 2019 saw the takeover of a university campus, the trashing of the space, and the recapture of that space by the police. Still, weekend after weekend, the demonstrations had continued even as the sizes of the crowds have dwindled. Only one of the five demonstrator demands had been met. Multiple Western governments had passed legislation to support the pro-democracy demonstrators. Some commentators suggest that the People’s Republic of China needs Hong Kong’s trade and finance capabilities as an effective interface with the world and so has held back on military action against the demonstrators. Others suggest that various governments have constrained the PRC against reacting with overwhelming violence. Journalistic reports suggest that there are “underground railroads” enabling the movement of demonstrators, especially leaders, outside of Hong Kong for their safety, to Taiwan and other locations. Where the government has labeled the actions criminality and disruption (but short of rebellion), the demonstrators have described their actions as democratic power and voice, commitment, risk and sacrifice, purpose, righteousness, conviction, and solidarity and unity. Then, in December 2019 and January 2020, news of a novel coronavirus which could be spread between people through both close-in contact (in air and on surfaces) was released to the worldwide media. Later, news was released that people could be contagious for person-to-person transfer even before the showing of symptoms (of fever, congestion, and other symptoms). This 2019 coronavirus out of Wuhan, China, was thought to have global pandemic potential given the speed of spread and fatality rates (Berlinger, McKeehan, & John, Jan. 26, 2020). Without any immunity, the world’s population shifted its mass attention and priorities to survival—with quarantines, travel restrictions, border closures, and city shutdowns. In the region, major cities in China were quarantined by the government, and emergency health measures were put into place in Hong Kong, including the delayed start of schools until mid-February 2020. By the time of this publication, the pro-democracy demonstrations had gone on for nearly a year without abatement until being overtaken by mass health events. [Additional protests occurred in Hong Kong albeit against a government-run quarantine center that the government wanted to build out of an unoccupied apartment building. (Berlinger, McKeehan, & John, Jan. 26, 2020).]

Democracy, as a form of governance, is not solely about expressing oneself. It is about listening to others’ diverse voices, forbearance, and the accommodation of others. It is about civic responsibility. It is about paying attention to social issues and policies and law-making (and law-following). Democracy in practice is raucous and sometimes inefficient and sometimes costly and sometimes full of strife. The health of democracy as a form of governance in the world depends on people’s coordinated actions, from a variety of stakeholders. The United States, Canada, Europe, India, and parts of South America are identified as Free, in the “Freedom in the World 2019 Map” by Freedom House. (Freedom in the World 2019 Map, 2019) They stand as aspirational bastions for those in countries “Partly Free” and “Not Free”. Freedom House suggests that the number of “Not Free” countries rose “nearly 26 percent” and that “the share of Free countries declined to 44 percent” (“Freedom in the World 2019,” 2019, p. 3). This is in a time when the group of nations entities seem to be in retreat in a so-called G-Zero world. As “transnational citizens,” the Hong Kong demonstrators have surpassed Stokes’ sense that a “practical commitment to global democracy” is not required for such standing (Stokes, April 2004, p. 119) by advocating heatedly for such rights on their own behalf and to shift their own political culture. Their actions and messaging broaden and complexify the long-standing sense of human rights within a “civil and political rights framing” from international rights organizations in China through transnational activism (Fleay, Oct. 2012, p. 915). The work of “how to constitute transnational democracy and the practical problem of how to realise it” is challenging (Karlsson, 2008, p. 203), and the world itself as an “uneven geography of global civil society” (Smith & Wiest, Dec. 2005, p. 621) even as democracy is “the main legitimating principle of government” (Dryzek, 1999, p. 30).

Some suggest that there is a lack of mass mental space for the consideration of others’ plights and needs, perhaps a nickeling and diming in international relations (with realpolitik at the forefront). Here, social media’s limits may also be seen, with the cheap talk of upvotes and encouragement, but from often safe distances, with nothing else on the line beyond mere light attention. Here, “street democracy” reads like sky-writing, euphoria clashing with realpolitik and hard power, with distributed hopes dissipating in the ether. If democracy is the background music of nation-states, and if it applies restraints on the practices of state sovereignty, the on-ground demonstrators of Hong Kong were arguing for applying international global norms to their national context, and their particular lived realities. The long-term and continuing work of creating a democracy endures; it will likely continue long after the SARS-CoV-2 is less of a forefront of human concerns.

 

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Appendices

APPENDIX A: Autocoded Top-Level Topics and Related Subtopics from Combined Tweetstream Sets

Appendix A is comprised of a table of the top-level topics and related sub-topics from the combined Tweetstream sets. The subtopics provide more of a sense of lived-level communications among those sharing microblogging messaging, in a variety of ways: one to one, one to many, many to one, and many to many. A distance reading approach using computational extraction and analysis is complemented by close-in human reading of particular messages. (Table 3)

Table 3: Autocoded Top-Level Topics and Related Subtopics from Combined Tweetstream Sets

 

Besides various typographical errors (all left in place for fidelity and accuracy), another point of interest emerges. For example, there are references to cyber-based combat, like doxing. This is one of the first large mass demonstrations in the cyber age, in which all sides have heightened capabilities for using hacking, geo-locational data, computational analysis of text and imagery and video, facial recognition technologies, artificial intelligence applications (data analysis, predictive analytics), and others.

 

APPENDIX B: AUTOCODED TOPICS BY SEPARATE SOCIAL ACCOUNT TWEETSTREAM SETS

A combined analysis of a text set provides a meta-level analysis. The respective social media accounts, when analyzed individually, show more localized interests. Each of the Tweetsets here were processed at the cell level of granularity (not sentence or paragraph levels) using NVivo 12 Plus. (Appendix B)

To review, the respective accounts are as follows in alphabetical order by the listed name on the landing page (not the @account name). The auto-extracted themes follow, in this order:

• #HKResist Fight for Hong Kong @Fight4HongKong;
• antiELAB @anti_elab;
• Democracy for Hong Kong @Democracy4HK;
• Fight for Freedom, Stand for Hong Kong @Stand_with_HK;
• Freedom Hong Kong @FreedomHKG;
• Global Solidarity HK @GlobalSolidHK;
• HK Demo Now @hkdemonow;
• HK Protestors Share Channel @wyy19668645;
• Hong Kong – Be Water @BeWaterHKG;
• Hong Kong Free Press @HongKongFP;
• Hong Kong Protest @HongKongProtest;
• Hong Kong Protest News @ProtestHongKong;
• Hong Kong Protests 2019 @HKGProtests;
• Hong Kong Watch @hk_watch;
• Hong Kong World City @HKWORLDCITY;
• Progressive Lawyers Group @HongKongPLG

@Fight4HongKong reads as an advocacy account, with a focus on achieving protest messaging, while trying to bypass the “police” and “riot police.” (Figure 16)

 

Figure 16: Autocoded Topics in the @Fight4HongKong Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

@anti_elab includes mentions of “gas” and tear gas, which have been a central law enforcement tool. The “gas” can also refer to the gasoline projectiles thrown by some demonstrators. (Figure 17)

Figure 17: Autocoded Topics in the @anti_elab Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

@DemocracyforHK shows a diversity of concepts, including “human rights” and protests against “police brutality” and “violence” explicitly (Figure 18). The treemap diagram shows more sophistication and complexity of messaging.

Figure 18: Autocoded Topics in the @DemocracyforHK Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

@Stand_with_HK engages issues in sophisticated way as well, including ideas of “universal values” and “human dignity,” to make their case to the public for the benefits of democracy (Figure 19). Its social group argues against the “emergency laws” and “anti-masking ban”.

Figure 19: Autocoded Topics in the @Stand_with_HK Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

@FreedomHKG shares open letters asking for change, among various members of the polity (“students,” “citizens,” and others) (Figure 20).

Figure 20: Autocoded Topics in the @FreedomHKG Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

@GlobalSolidHK explicitly refers to “democracy” and the 2014 “umbrella” movement asking for universal suffrage. (Figure 21)

Figure 21: Autocoded Topics in the @GlobalSolidHK Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

@hkdemonow supports the space for protest against “police” and the uses of “water cannon” (Figure 22).

Figure 22: Autocoded Topics in the @hkdemonow Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

@wyy19668645 is advertised as the protestor’s share channel, possibly to help inform and coordinate the protest efforts. The police are mentioned foremost, along with various “object” types. Journalists are also mentioned. (Figure 23)

Figure 23: Autocoded Topics in the @wyy19668645 Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

@BeWaterHKG is self-described as volunteers who curate media material for the “current civil rights movement in HK.” Their Tweetstream shows a focus on police and protestors, to tell a story of a clash for the future of Hong Kong’s government and peoples. (Figure 24)

Figure 24: Autocoded Topics in the @BeWaterHKG Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

@HongKongFP has references to URLs as a major component of its messaging (Figure 25).

Figure 25: Autocoded Topics in the @HongKongFP Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

@HongKongProtest has few messages focused around “protestors.” This account only has one topic, with three related subtopics. (Figure 26)

Figure 26: Autocoded Topics in the @HongKongProtest Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

@ProtestHongKong has topics and subtopics that focus on the action on the streets between protestors and police. The clashes attain world attention, and they validate the respective roles of the protestors and the police, in each of their meta-narratives. The protestors are advocating for democracy and human rights, and the police are maintaining a semblance of order. (Figure 27)

Figure 27: Autocoded Topics in the @ProtestHongKong Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

@HKGProtests capture a complexity of interacting topics. (Figure 28)

Figure 28: Autocoded Topics in the @HKGProtests Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

@hk_watch maintains a focus on the extradition law as multiple top-level topics with related sub-topics. This social network also contains mentions of larger concerns, like the business community. This engages a range of complex interrelated topics. (Figure 29)

Figure 29: Autocoded Topics in the @hk_watch Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

The @HKWORLDCITY Tweetstream focuses on “police” and “protest,” with a sense of “emergency” (Figure 30). There are references to the subway “station.”

Figure 30: Autocoded Topics in the @HKWORLDCITY Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

@HongKongPLG, as a progressive lawyers group, shows their support of more liberal society, with a main focus on “extradition,” “law,” “bill,” “legal” in the context of “protest” and “street.” (Figure 31)

Figure 31: Autocoded Topics in the @HongKongPLG Microblogging Account on Twitter

 

Key Terms

Democracy: A form of governance by the whole people, in which people elect their leaders, rule of law prevails, and a free press helps inform the populace

Microblogging Platform: An online social media platform that enables the sharing of short microblogging messages including text, hyperlinks, imagery, embedded videos, hashtag labels, and other details

Street Democracy: A mass-public sense of “democracy” in its various dimensions