Zareen T. Khan is a prospective Master of Arts candidate at George Washington’s Elliott School of International Affairs. She previously completed her Bachelors in Political Science from Suffolk University. Her research interests include the intersection of politics and the media in the Asia-Pacific.
Introduction
In March 2014, hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Taipei to protest the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA). These protesters wielded social media and other internet resources to communicate, inform, and mobilize; overturning simplistic conventional media narratives overnight.
Nearly four decades earlier, during Taiwan’s democracy movement, prevailing against media monopolization by the Kuomintang (KMT) had been unthinkable. Opposition politicians were often seduced away by the ruling party offering “attractive [alternatives] to challenging the system…in the pages of the underground press.”[1] Meanwhile, protests were locally confined, with activists finding their communication with counterparts in other regions—let alone the Taiwanese diasporas abroad and international community—stifled.[2]
Instead of Facebook shares and instant messaging, organizers were mobilized using underground publications and clandestine meetings in smoke-filled university basements…flyers and posters, not tweets, were how most people ended up hearing about any upcoming protests.[3]
Social media and the internet have now produced a new toolkit for a successful movement in which protesters from other cities can be mobilized and even international audiences can stage protests in solidarity from their home countries. This paper will demonstrate how, through one-way and interactive communication, the participants of the Sunflower Movement used digital tools to realize their demands.
Background
The CSSTA was a free trade agreement arranged by Beijing and Taipei in 2013. While it had come under pressure for the allegedly secretive nature of its negotiations, proponents argued that it would simply formalize existing trade practices and increase Taiwanese GDP.[4]
In March 2014, the KMT had a majority in the Legislative Yuan—Taiwan’s parliament—and signaled that they would use this advantage to pass the agreement without a clause-by-clause review; reneging on their original promise.
In opposition, a few hundred protesters occupied parliament. Eventually, they were thrown out, bruised and bloodied. Pictures of their treatment went viral and became the catalyst for a protest many orders of magnitude greater. A month-long conflict ended with Legislative Speaker Wang Jin Pyng accepting the protesters’ demands.[5]
Why did the CSSTA garner such concern? Protesters worried about the “impact that greater Chinese penetration in Taiwan’s economy would have on the island’s small- and medium-sized businesses, media culture, and freedom of expression.”[6]The agreement would open sixty-four sectors of the Taiwanese economy—including the service sector, accounting for nearly 70% of the island’s GDP—and eighty sectors of China’s. However, Taiwanese feared they would be affected asymmetrically due to their smaller economy. Ultimately, the protesters desired greater transparency in the negotiation and passage of the CSSTA—for example, a clause by clause review—and any future cross-strait agreements.
Literature Review
Use of social media and the internet have been linked to multiple protests worldwide, from the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street. Some argue that by allowing “citizens to voice their opinions, organize social movements, and promote events,” digital tools have amplified political participation.[7] However, the efficacy and longevity derived from social media and the internet are still being debated.
Efficacy of Social Media and the Internet in Mass Movements
Some argue that such tools bring certain subsections of the population—younger individuals, in particular—“closer to the political process.”[8] Civic and political participation is enhanced through news such as political and campaign information.[9] Others contend that social media and the internet “[encourage] citizens to remain isolated in front of their computer screens,” and that digital media “are mainly consumed as entertainment, which results in less time and energy for citizens to devote themselves to social activities.”[10] In political terms, this reflects the participation versus apathy debate.
Ultimately, “the internet remains no more than an instrument.”[11] Digital tools are “not directly connected to social [movements] or political participation,” but are just that: tools.[12] They do not replace offline participation, but rather complement real-world events.[13] For example, when “a noticeable public event [fails to draw] the attention of citizens, people mainly just use the Internet for emailing, instant messaging, shopping, online gaming, downloading files, chatting, searching for information, [or] maintaining personal networks.”[14] Conversely, a coordinated effort such as the Sunflower Movement can use social media and the internet to amplify the voices of participants. It is a tool wielded for change but is not itself the catalyst for change.
Longevity of Social Media and Internet-Driven Movements
Despite access to invaluable tools that help political movements, the will to fight must come from the people: “The fast-changing Internet domain cannot exert a long-lasting influence on young citizens’ enthusiasm for and engagement in politics,” writes Chang, as the internet is “event-driven.”[15] Recent movements have been triggered by singular incidents, such as the attempt to pass the CSSTA in Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and election interference by Beijing in the recent Hong Kong protests. While these movements can grow larger and incorporate more demands, growth is often tied to a central purpose. Movements are not generally sustained after achieving their objectives.
In one explanation of this, individuals from many subsets of the population come together for one cause, but their other political ideas and inclinations may not be in sync. This was illuminated during the Sunflower Movement by the divergent reasons that individuals held for opposing the CSSTA.[16] Sustaining a singular political voice with such differences of opinion proved too complicated after achieving the original objective.
On the policy front, there is an argument that to “prolong the influence of the Internet on” movements, the government must “facilitate [democracy via] online discussions of public affairs.”[17] The current reality remains, however, that once objectives are fulfilled, movements disperse, as happened with the Sunflower Movement.
Findings
From their laptops, smartphones, and tablets, the protesters of the Sunflower Movement used social media and the internet to ensure results. Their usage can be understood as belonging to two categories: one-way and interactive. It is the combination of both that yields a toolkit for a successful movement.
One-way platforms allow information to be disseminated and responded to without the original content being altered. Interactive applications allow greater interaction and the ability to change original content. Messaging and teleconferencing platforms would fall under the one-way category, while collaborative applications such as Google Docs would be considered interactive. The dividing line is not always clear-cut, and the same application can be used in multiple different ways. Facebook, which occupies its own category in this study, is the strongest example of such cross applicability.
One-Way
Livestreams. Livestreaming was originally done ad hoc via phone or tablet, by individuals using websites such as UStream. Eventually, a group named g0v took over. Launched in 2012, g0v, a group promoting government transparency, had “over the past few years…worked on several projects with the goal of delivering easy-to-understand information to Taiwan’s citizens by using simplified graphics, web pages, and layman’s terms.”[18] During the occupation of the Legislative Yuan, they ran seventeen video and three text feeds, all hosted on their website—g0v.tw—which was run by about one hundred people. The public did not have to rely on the mainstream media, as the feeds provided faster and more reliable information.[19]
At first, the group tried working with existing servers, but then they constructed their own after it became clear that faster service would be needed to keep up with the high demand. This highlights that while infrastructure existed, it was also improved upon during the movement.
Videos. Videos were uploaded to YouTube in a variety of languages—Cantonese, Mandarin, English, Japanese, and others—with dozens of videos “shot and distributed…some on behalf of the organizers, most others being messages of support from around the world.”[20] This demonstrates how social media internationalized the movement. The videos of the victims of police beatings became a rallying point domestically and internationally, with some supporters taking to the streets abroad in solidarity.
Blogs and Microblogs. Individuals posted text, photos, and videos. Locations for these posts ranged from personal blogs to microblogging aggregates (e.g., Twitter) to bulletin boards (e.g., PTT). These were one-way communications that updated followers about the situation on the ground but also had interactive components. PTT, for example, was used to spark discussion about the movement and core issues by some leadership groups.[21] It was further used to collect evidence of police misconduct.[22]
Websites. Three major websites with information about the CSSTA were developed during the movement. The first allowed users to enter the name of any registered Taiwanese company to show if and how the company would be affected by the agreement.[23] The second offered positive and negative news and opinions about the CSSTA; the media had seized upon the movement, and much debate grew around the agreement.[24] The third broke “down complex [CSSTA] regulations, rendering them [clearer] and easier to understand.”[25] It further provided transcripts from all public hearings related to the agreement (including specific clauses). Together, these actions served to educate the public and foster debate.[26]
Messaging and Teleconferencing. Messaging and teleconferencing applications were primarily used for private communications. This held true both for protesters and for organizers communicating with the outside world. For example, “organizers [were given feedback and] updated with the latest news coming in about their protest…in 15-minute intervals.”[27] Video teleconferencing applications like Skype were used to give interviews on international news channels such as the BBC, while messaging applications like WhatsApp and Line were used to speak with domestic and foreign reporters. In these ways, social media and the internet interacted with conventional (or traditional) media.
Interactive
Collaborative Documents. Collaborative tools permitted members to work together “on [projects] in real time and to make edits in a shared space.”[28] Press releases, for example, were edited collaboratively before they were released through one-way channels.[29] Google Docs were maintained, “detailing [a] list of supplies needed and how donors could contribute.”[30] The group g0v used Hackpad—a similar collaborative document tool—to ensure transcript and data documentation on the movement with 1,500 volunteers. Hackpad proved so popular that “as the movement gathered steam,” its servers overloaded “more than five times in…three days, necessitating the addition of extra servers to keep up with” demand.[31]
Crowdfunding. A funding campaign was set up on FlyingV, Taiwan’s equivalent of Kickstarter. Its accompanying website—4am.tw—was “designed and constructed within [twenty-four] hours by an all-volunteer force of 10 translators and four engineers.”[32] In less than twelve hours, the campaign raised 6.3 million New Taiwan dollars (NTD), surpassing its goal and becoming the nation’s fastest crowdfunding project to do so—all this despite no prior planning.[33]
The money was used to buy advertising space in the New York Times. One-way communications such as messaging apps used to communicate with reporters, and money raised in this manner allowed protesters to share their own stories instead of being boxed in by Taiwan’s mainstream media’s binary narrative of KMT versus the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).[34]
Facebook (and Facebook Messenger)
By 2014, Facebook was used by 65 percent of Taiwan, a higher rate than any other country in the world. Active users reached fifteen million a month by that year’s end.[35] This penetration (and mobility, with phone and tablet applications) contributed to making it the most popular platform among the movement’s participants.[36] In this atmosphere, Facebook occupied a unique position as both a one-way and interactive platform.
Facebook was used more for information sharing than networking.[37] In fact, very few used Facebook for networking purposes.[38] Rather, it was used to disseminate information on the movement: from details about the CSSTA, to gathering times and locations, to warnings of police activity. Put simply, it was used to “initiate, support and coordinate offline action.”[39]
First, it was used to disseminate anti-CSSTA information, then to organize demonstrations both large and small: “Facebook [enhanced, extended, or even introduced] ad hoc, individual and short-term action as well as forms of action such as gatherings, sit-ins, protesting and civil disobedience…[supporting self-organized] and loosely structured coordination of offline action…[for instance, coordination of] the occupation of physical spaces such as the Legislative Yuan.”[40] In this way, the application played an outsized role in informing and mobilizing.
After images surfaced of bruised and bloodied protesters being expelled from the Legislative Yuan, Facebook was used to prepare a larger rally that “[capitalized] on discontent with both the services agreement and the police crackdown.”[41]
The medium was synonymous with a swell of volunteers who “flooded the capital” over a period of weeks.[42] In one example, “a postgrad at National Kaohsiung Normal University…arrived in Taipei…after browsing through Facebook…[and finding] a picture calling on supporters to fill” the streets.[43]
Pages by organizing groups such as the Black Island Youth went viral, jumping to two hundred thousand likes in a matter of days. They were particularly successful in disseminating information in small, easy-to-digest snippets that could be shared among participants.[44]
Facebook also allowed distribution of text, images, and videos. Videos were filmed in a multitude of languages to reach the largest international audience possible. The application had provided a tool to spread information, mobilize individuals from other regions, and even bring international audiences into the fold.
Finally, in its most interactive element, Facebook was used as a point of contact between supporters and organizers about police activity:
Sightings of riot police and water cannon trucks were given a high priority. Opening a message from a supporter detailing the sighting of three such trucks parked on the corner of Tianjin Street and Beiping East Road, just a five-minute walk from the Legislature, [one of Black Island Youth Facebook page’s administrators] Ting-ru writes: “Can you send me proof? I need photo proof. We have reports coming in from everywhere.” A picture duly arrived five minutes later.[45]
Facebook occupies both public and private spheres and one-way and interactive categories. Organizing groups could post messages that others could respond to. Individuals could reply to posters and provide new information leading to the creation of new posts or altering existing ones. While it can be argued that all blogging and microblogging mediums have this capability, it was used disproportionately through Facebook.
Discussion
Infrastructure and Accessibility
The Sunflower Movement’s successful use of social media and the internet was made possible by existing infrastructure and accessibility. As noted, Facebook had penetrated 65 percent of Taiwan by 2014. This was complemented by growth in the mobile-use segment.[46] It was this penetration and mobility that contributed to making Facebook the most popular platform among participants.[47] However, penetration and mobility were not limited to one application. By 2018, 80 percent of Taiwan’s population was actively using social media, with “Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Line, and Google [being] the most popular platforms among Taiwanese netizens.”[48]
During the movement, protesters saw the “interactivity, [connectivity], and easy accessibility of social media” and the internet, and their potential to “disseminate…appeals, mobilize supporters, and challenge the mainstream media.”[49]As a facet of accessibility, the short and simple nature of social media messaging disseminated information in an efficient way.
It was because the infrastructure existed that individuals could use it. The high internet “penetration rate [provided the] prerequisite condition for participation.”[50] Further, because foundational infrastructure existed, even when capacity fell short—as with servers overloading due to video streaming—the resources and expertise existed to set up new capabilities, such as new servers.
Internationalization and Interaction with Conventional Media
Social media allowed the international community to participate both virtually and physically. In response to the brutal police treatment experienced by protesters, people—some members of the overseas Taiwanese diaspora—“as far away as the US, Canada and the UK…rallied in public squares in defense of the students.”[51] Others posted videos on YouTube and Facebook in support of the protesters. Such involvement marked a departure from earlier pro-democracy movements, when information was slow to reach an international audience, if it did at all.
This further emphasizes the internationalization of news. In many cases, social media allowed participants to fight back against inaccurate mainstream media narratives. As “Taiwan’s media environment had been highly polarized between the incumbent KMT and the opposition DPP, at the outset of the Sunflower Movement, traditional media merely simplified the occupation as a conflict between the two camps.”[52] To overcome such inaccuracies and “to keep the world up to date about the constant goings-on of the movement, student occupiers waged their battles on social media platforms.”[53] Such competition provided impetus for conventional media to rethink their narratives and provide more nuanced reporting.
Meanwhile, using money raised through FlyingV, the protesters took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times. “It was a powerful message, featuring students with their heads bowed being hosed with a water cannon.”[54]
Resources were also allocated to take out full-page advertisements in major Taiwanese newspapers. This is a clear example of social media and the internet impacting the mainstream media via fundraising.
Setbacks and Future Implications
One potential drawback of social media and the internet is its potential to be hacked. This is something protesters became acutely aware of:
[On Facebook, one of the account administrators], one that each organizer assumed that others knew, posted a widely shared message suggesting that supporters should relocate from the Legislature to the cabinet office. This was later deleted. But to add to the confusion, another message was sent out just before 10 p.m., this time via text, asking hundreds of students “on non-official business” to return to their campus base of operations.[55]
This caused the withdrawal of half of the organizers. Meanwhile, numbers in messaging groups grew exponentially:
Many with profile names that organizers failed to recognize. Some of their profile pictures appeared to be students (wearing a no-nuke T-shirt, for example, reminiscent of an earlier protest many student organizers had participated in), but a closer look revealed the accounts either to have been recently created, or devoid of any further personal information.[56]
Such infiltration temporarily reduced numbers and confused many participants; simply put, the movement became disorganized. This illuminates the dangers of relying too heavily on social media and the internet, further highlighting the need to see them only as tools. Many of the videos and images uploaded to sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and others were taken down as soon as they were put up, ostensibly due to the government pressuring said platforms.[57] Organizers were able to counter these tactics by using offline associations and spreading information through word of mouth.
In the end, however, the Sunflower Movement yielded positive results: The CSSTA was stalled and currently remains unratified in Taiwan. This led to analysis of their methods by organizers of future movements. Several successful digital strategies by other groups fighting for social change were created and made ready for action.[58] For example, “Taiwan’s anti-nuclear power movement, born right after the Sunflower protests, [used] a similar digital playbook.”[59]
Conclusion
During the Sunflower Movement, social media and the internet bestowed on individuals the ability to realize their goals. Using one-way and interactive communications, a successful model that could implement change was created. These digital tools do not work in a vacuum, however, and interaction with conventional media and offline associations became critical for achieving objectives. Ultimately, this successful movement lead the methods used to be analyzed and made into a toolkit for future civic endeavors.
References
[1] Denny Roy, Taiwan: A Political History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003), 86.
[2] Vincent Y. Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement: Facebook and Google, the Favored Tools of Dissidents, Are Now Shaping Taiwan’s Relationship with China,” Diplomat, April 15, 2014, https://thediplomat.com/2014/04/how-technology-revolutionized-taiwans-sunflower-movement.
[3] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[4] JoAnn Fan, “The Economics of the Cross-Strait Services Agreement,” Brookings Institution, April 18, 2014, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-economics-of-the-cross-strait-services-agreement.
[5] Tracey Cheng, “Taiwan’s Sunflower Protest. Digital Anatomy of a Movement,” in Digital Activism in Asia Reader, ed. Nishant Shah, Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay (Luneburg, DE: Meson Press eG, 2015), 88, http://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/1488.; For a more detailed timeline see Daybreak, “317 to 322: The Birth of an Occupation,” https://daybreak.newbloommag.net/2017/07/26/timeline-317-to-322.
[6] Ian Rowen, “Inside Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement: Twenty-Four Days in a Student-Occupied Parliament, and the Future of the Region,” Journal of Asian Studies 74, no. 1 (February 2015): 6, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021911814002174.
[7] Hsuan-Ting Chen, Sun Ping, and Gan Chen, “Far from Reach but near at Hand: The Role of Social Media for Cross-National Mobilization,” Computers in Human Behavior 53, no. 1 (December 2015): 443, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.05.052.
[8] Alex Chuan hsien Chang, “Does Internet Usage Inspire Offline Political Participation? Analyzing the Taiwan Case,” Japanese Journal of Political Science 20, no. 1 (2019): 192.
[9] Chen, Ping, and Chen, “Far from Reach but near at Hand,” 444.
[10] Chang, “Does Internet Usage Inspire Offline Political Participation?” 192.; Chen, Ping, and Chen, “Far from Reach but near at Hand,” 444.
[11] Chang, “Does Internet Usage Inspire Offline Political Participation?” 200.
[12] Chen, Ping, and Chen, “Far from Reach but near at Hand,” 445.
[13] Tsatsou, “Social Media and Informal Organisation of Citizen Activism,” 11.
[14] Chang, “Does Internet Usage Inspire Offline Political Participation?” 200–01.
[15] Chang, “Does Internet Usage Inspire Offline Political Participation?” 193, 200.
[16] Daybreak, “How Did the Occupiers Understand What They Were Doing?” https://daybreak.newbloommag.net/2017/06/17/occupiers-differences-thought.
[17] Chang, “Does Internet Usage Inspire Offline Political Participation?” 193.
[18] Cheng, “Taiwan’s Sunflower Protest,” 89.
[19] Cheng, “Taiwan’s Sunflower Protest,” 89.
[20] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[21] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[22] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[23] Cheng, “Taiwan’s Sunflower Protest,” 91.
[24] Cheng, “Taiwan’s Sunflower Protest,” 91.
[25] Cheng, “Taiwan’s Sunflower Protest,” 92.
[26] For more information on these websites, see Cheng, “Taiwan’s Sunflower Protest.”
[27] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[28] Legal Monitor Worldwide, “After Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement,” November 6, 2014.
[29] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[30] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[31] Cheng, “Taiwan’s Sunflower Protest,” 90.
[32] Cheng, “Taiwan’s Sunflower Protest,” 91.
[33] Cheng, “Taiwan’s Sunflower Protest,” 91.
[34] Chang, “Does Internet Usage Inspire Offline Political Participation?” 194-195; Reporters Without Borders have cited media polarization in Taiwan as problematic to press freedom. See Focus Taiwan, “Taiwan Ranks 43rd in 2020 World Press Freedom Rankings, Down 1 Place,” April 21, 2020, https://focustaiwan.tw/politics/202004210022.
[35] Taipei Times, “Taiwan Likes Facebook, Has Highest Penetration,” February 28, 2014, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2014/02/28/2003584495.
[36] Tsatsou, “Social Media and Informal Organisation of Citizen Activism,” 6.
[37] Tsatsou, “Social Media and Informal Organisation of Citizen Activism,” 10.
[38] Tsatsou, “Social Media and Informal Organisation of Citizen Activism,” 10.
[39] Tsatsou, “Social Media and Informal Organisation of Citizen Activism,” 1.
[40] Tsatsou, “Social Media and Informal Organisation of Citizen Activism,” 10.
[41] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[42] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[43] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[44] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[45] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[46] Taipei Times, “Taiwan Likes Facebook, Has Highest Penetration.”
[47] Tsatsou, “Social Media and Informal Organisation of Citizen Activism,” 6.
[48] Chang, “Does Internet Usage Inspire Offline Political Participation?” 195.
[49] Chang, “Does Internet Usage Inspire Offline Political Participation?” 195.
[50] Chang, “Does Internet Usage Inspire Offline Political Participation?” 204.
[51] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[52] Chang, “Does Internet Usage Inspire Offline Political Participation?” 194–5.
[53] Chang, “Does Internet Usage Inspire Offline Political Participation?” 195.
[54] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[55] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[56] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[57] Chao, “How Technology Revolutionized Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.”
[58] Cheng, “Taiwan’s Sunflower Protest,” 94.
[59] Cheng, “Taiwan’s Sunflower Protest,” 94.
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