THESIS
2021
1 online resource (62 pages) : illustrations (some color)
Abstract
This research systematically examines the influence of cyber-protests using “the Diba
Expeditions” as an example of cross-platform cyber-protests organized by grass-roots Chinese
patriots. I collected three million comments from nine targeted Facebook pages during the
Hong Kong anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement. A supervised machine learning
model distinguishes Diba’s comments from those of the ordinary Facebook users’. I use
sentiment analysis to measure the attitudinal changes towards China and the Hong Kong
Police. The Difference-in-difference regression models show that Diba expeditions are able to
amplify the pro-China voices in the targeted pages, especially in the targeted anti-protest
pages. As the first research aiming to demonstrate effect of Diba Expeditions, this...[
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This research systematically examines the influence of cyber-protests using “the Diba
Expeditions” as an example of cross-platform cyber-protests organized by grass-roots Chinese
patriots. I collected three million comments from nine targeted Facebook pages during the
Hong Kong anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement. A supervised machine learning
model distinguishes Diba’s comments from those of the ordinary Facebook users’. I use
sentiment analysis to measure the attitudinal changes towards China and the Hong Kong
Police. The Difference-in-difference regression models show that Diba expeditions are able to
amplify the pro-China voices in the targeted pages, especially in the targeted anti-protest
pages. As the first research aiming to demonstrate effect of Diba Expeditions, this thesis
reflects the trend of self-organized Chinese political events on Facebook and reveals the
influential power of cyber-protests with no follow-up physical activity.
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