A research presentation on the role of visual social media in amplifying protest against shale gas development in Canada. Presented at the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences (APLS) annual conference. Madison, Wisconsin, October 2015.

1. Fracking,
Elsipogtog First Nation,
and the police:
Examining the social media discourse around a
police-repressed environmental justice movement
Molly
J.
Simis,
M.S.
Ph.D.
Candidate
Jill
Hopke,
Ph.D.
Assistant
Professor

2. Environmental movements and
new media
Police
repression
Climate
change
Contested
energy
technologies

3. Elsipogtog…

4. …and Fracking…
Source:
ProPublica.
(n.d.).
What
is
Hydraulic
Fracturing?

5. …and the RCMP.

6. What are the features of
wide-reaching tweets
compared to tweets that get
little to no attention?

7. • Computer-­‐assisted
content
analysis
of
English
language
tweets
with
DiscoverText
machine
learning
funcEon
• Narrowed
down
fracking-­‐related
tweets
with
hashtag
keywords:
#cdnpoli
#rcmp
#Elsipogtog
#INM
#IdleNoMore
#nbpoli
#FirstNaDon
#FN
• De-­‐duplicated
the
data,
which
groups
all
verbaEm
duplicates
Methods

8. Methods
• Grouped
the
data
into
three
categories
based
on
#
of
re-­‐tweets
– Hi:
20+
retweets
(n=49)
– Low:
1-­‐19
retweets
(n=762)
– Single
items:
no
retweets
(n
=
2872)
• Coded
each
group
into
subsets
of
posts
with
images
images
and
posts
without
images

9. Methods
• Coded
text
+
images
for
– Movement
response/presence
• Peaceful
protest
• DisrupEve
protest
• Solidarity
– Police
acDon/presence
• Use
of
force,
surveillance
and
monitoring
• Equipment
and
weapons
• Coded
images
for
– Police-­‐protester
interacDon
(present
or
absent)

10. Results

11. 0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
Movement response/presence within
Elsipogtog-themed posts
Hi
#
of
RT;
Image
Hi
#
of
RT;
No
image
Low
#
of
RT;
Image
Low
#
of
RT;
No
image
Single
items;
Image
Single
items;
No
image
No
movement
response
Peaceful
protest
DisrupEve
protest
Solidarity

12. 0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
80.0%
Police
acDon/presence
within
Elsipogtog-­‐themed
posts
Hi
#
of
RT;
Image
Hi
#
of
RT;
No
image
Low
#
of
RT;
Image
Low
#
of
RT;
No
image
Single
items;
Image
Single
items;
No
image
No
police
acEon
Use
of
force,
surveillance/
monitoring
Police
equipment
and
weapons
Police action/presence within
Elsipogtog-themed posts

13. Police-protester interaction
0.0%
10.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
50.0%
60.0%
70.0%
80.0%
No
police-­‐protester
interacEon
Police-­‐protester
interacEon
Hi
#
of
RT;
Image
Low
#
of
RT;
Image
Single
items;
Image

14. Conclusion
• Peaceful
protests
are
a
dominant
theme
of
highly
re-­‐tweeted
posts.
• Solidarity
tends
to
be
textually
described
more
oaen
than
visually
depicted.
• Police
use
of
force/surveillance
is
visually
depicted
more
oaen
than
textually
described.
Repression
galvanizes
tweeEng

15. Next steps
• Code
for
user
type
• Trace
images
through
networks

16. Questions? Thank you!
Molly
J.
Simis,
M.S.
Ph.D.
Candidate
simis@wisc.edu
Jill
Hopke,
Ph.D.
Assistant
Professor
jhopke@depaul.edu