Internet use in Social Activism in Taiwan: Modes, Constraints and Strategic Integration. Presented in ISA Congress, Yokohama, 19 July 2014

1. Dr. AlbertTzeng, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden
p.w.tzeng@gmail.com

2. A Military Servicemen’s Death and “Citizen 1985”
the emergence of social activism 2.0?
The Emergence of “g0v” Community
“programing for social reform”
Modes of Internet Use in Social Activism
typology and constraints
Sunflower Movement
integration of approaches

3. Cyber Mobilization for a Cause

4. July 4, 2014 Hung Chung-Chiu (洪仲丘), a corporal in Army, died from
extensive physical exercise under high temperature during military
detention - only few days before the completion of his service term
Violation of procedural codes revealed, but
critical evidence missing (e.g. camera mal-function)
Public suspicion of military abuse or even conspired murder
Distrust on military juridical system
Widespread sympathy and anger

5. A group of ‘netizens,’ mostly middle class professionals, met in a cafe in
response to a post (by a young doctor) calling for collective action.
Note: 1985- number of military helpline
7.20 The first rally of (estimated) 30,000 people demanding “truth”
and “institutional reform” (without specified objective)
8.3 The second rally of (claimed) 250,000 people demanding
abolishment of the military juridical system
Mixed-responses from traditional NGOS/ political parties, who failed
to stage any mass protest at comparable scale for years:
1. Self-doubt and eulogy of “social activism 2.0”
2. Criticism on the two rallies as “amateur and ineffective”

6. Logos for two rally, reads
“Lost Equality and Justice” &
“Big Citizen is Watching You.”
Both logos were widely used
as FB profile/cover images
Campaign: Wear white T-shirt
and upload your photo to
facebook to show support.
Mast to stress the anonymity of
initiators and “everyone is hero”

7. Group pushing-up at
the Ministry of Defense
Drama that mock the
malfunction camera
Protestors holding
posters of “Citizen
Eye”
Lighting Candles around
the photo of Hung

9. Traditional Protest 1985-Style
Leader Long standing advocacy group or
activist concerned about
particular issues
Decentralized network of
anonymous volunteers responding
to emergent incident
Crowd Organized crowd experienced
with protest, mobilized via
personal/ institutional network
Unorganized crowd inexperienced
with protest, mobilized mainly
online
Style Sometimes violently
confrontational
“Peaceful, rational and non-violent”
(PRNV) orderly and imaginative
Image “mob”, risky to attend Cool and Safe
Demand/
follow-up
Well-researched and clear
demand with persistent follow-up
in policy process
Loosely defined objective without
focused monitoring of subsequent
policy change
Criticism High barrier to participate
Failure to engage more people
Carnival-ization of social protest
Ineffective/ inefficient in delivering
political outcome

10. “Programing for Social Reform”

11. A loose network of programmers and IT engineers
Influenced by hacker culture. Core Values:
Transparency- faith on free flow of information
Open Culture – principle of open source
Community- distrust in centralized power
Creation of g0v sites mirroring gov sites, which features gov-released
data in a more accessible, user-friendly format:
visualisation
accessibility (search engine)
data format (word > hypertext with url to each paragraph)
gadgets, e.g. browser plug-in

12. Visualization of the scale of
budget allocated to different
Ministries and Boards
Another version with the
colors indicating the ratio of
budget change from the
previous year.

13. Chart of political donation
received by MP (red) and the
frequencies of their absence
from committee meetings.
Structure of political
donation (marked in
different colors) received by
individual MP

14. Visualized Database of how
corporations were
interconnected (e.g. cross
stock-holding, shared board
members)

15. g0v data center, which
include all dataset
searchable from diverse
government websites.
One-site search engine of all
welfare resources provided
by different governmental
agencies.

16. News Helper- a small
browser plug-in that alert
you on online news that has
been reported problematic.
Job-seeker’s Helper
A browser plug-in that alert
job-seeker of the “record of
labor law violation” of the
company profile browsed.

17. Typology and Constraints

18. Cause Platform
Mature Form Trad. advocacy/activism groups Online indie-media
Organization founded to
address a public concern via
campaign, lobbying, protest or
other initiatives.
Discursive platform for dialogue,
civil empowerment and idea
accumulation.
Websites, youtube, social
media, petition, fundraising
Media websites, distributed via
social media
Emerging Form 1985-style cyber mobilization G-zero-v community
A loose network of actors
assembled as a response to
some emergent incidents, with
the expectation to mobilize
online more public attention.
Innovative platform for devising
new platforms that is expected to
lead to social reform by
redirecting information flow
Social media, youtube, BBS Internet as infrastructure
Emerging forms
relies more on
actors’ voluntary
agency. A form of
liquidity?

19. Trad NGO 1985 style Indie-Media g0v Projects
Mature Emerging Mature Emerging
Cause Cause Platform Platform
Strength Focused
attention in
Issues
Mass online
mobilization
and PR
Deliberation
and discursive
accumulation
Devicing
Information
Infrastructure
Barriers to
Participate
Social and
Epistemological
Least Epistemological Technical
Scale of
participants
10^2-3 10^5 10^3-5 10^3
Constraints Difficulty to
broaden
participation
Polit. pressure
not focused/
sustained
influence
limited to
educated elites
engineers’
taste

20. Integration of Approaches

21. 300-400 protestors occupied Taiwanese Parliament on 3.18 to resist
the abrupt “passing” of Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement from
Parliamentary committee review
Cause- the absence of legal procedure for parliamentary monitoring of
agreements with China; the appropriation of an improper procedure
Demand- “legalization of a ‘monitoring law’ before substantial review
3,000-30,000 supporters emerged, which effectively backed up the
occupants from being cleared by police force
48%-56% supported occupation, whereas less than 40% oppose
63%-74% supported the demands
24 day occupation (including a mass rally of 350-500,000 on 3.30)
that ended with concession from parliament chairperson

22. Four approaches of social activism (distinguished in my earlier manuscript about
internet use for social movement):
Conventional advocacy groups
‘1985-style’-netizen assembly for a cause
The g0v community
Independent media
Defining agenda, initiating the entire movement and taking actions
Social mobilization and PR
Setting up IT infrastructure, live broadcast; constructing a platform for
coordination and multiple sites for public communication
Discursive accumulation and public deliberation on related issues
Blurred boundaries with
intensified interplay
between approaches.

23. Primary
Concern
CORE groups within the
decision-making circle
PERIPHERAL groups present but
excluded from the decision-making
Independence
TW Nationalism
Taiwan Asso. for Univ. Professors (台教會) Alliance for Referendum (公投盟)
Wing of Radical Politics (基進側翼)
Left-Wing Taiwan Rural Front (農陣)
Taiwan Labour Front (勞陣)
Alliance for Workers of Closed Factories
(全關連) Taiwan International Worker
Association (台灣國際勞工協會)
Environmental Green Citizens’ Action Alliance (綠盟)
Earth Citizen Foundation (地球公民)
Human Rights Awakening Foundation (婦女新知)
Taiwan Alliance for Advancement of
Youth Right and Welfare (台少盟)
Taiwan Asso. for Human Right (台權會)
Taiwan Alliance for the Victims of
Urban Renewal (都更受害者聯盟)
Democratic
Reform
Taiwan Democracy Watch (民主守護平台)
Citizen Congress Watch (公督盟)
Citizen 1985+
Student/ Youth
Activist Group
Black Island Youth(黑島青), Citizen 1985+
(Miaoli Youth Front)
Variety of student societies

24. Left: Announcement of
318 Operation posted on
Facebook page of Black
Island Nation Youth Front
Right: Call for joining the
3.30 Rally posted on
website of Democratic
Front
Down: “Democracy at
4am,” an English site set
up to communicate with
foreign audience

25. More than 6 million NTD raised on
FlyingV, a online group fundraising
platform, to buy an add on the front
page of New York Times

26. Online media- youtube, slideshare, images and documents
Social media- Facebook, twitter, plurk
PTT, a BBS (DOS-like bulletin board system) founded in 1994, of which
the user count reached a historical high on 3.24 when 177.734 users
logged online at the same time.
Decentralized- collective action of the various parties

27. Medical Station (Professional) Medical Paths (Order) QR Code on Screen (Hi-Tech)
Artistic Work (Creative) Recycling (Responsible) Studying (Good Students)

28. Online table for logistic
demands (item, quantity,
location, contact)

29. Self-filled shift table of
volunteer “participants from
home” (video transcriber)

30. Transcript of the event

32. An continuously-updated list
of articles published from
various websites.

33. Website that categorize
online commentaries/news in
four pairs of contradictory
stances

34. 3/20 濟南路 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKbOavrerNQ&feature=youtu.be
編號 演講命題 講師 影片時間 單篇分享網址
1 兩岸經貿如何影響民主？ [清大社會所-陳明祺老師] 53:37-1:15:44 http://ppt.cc/vv2e
2 服貿對言論自由的影響 [台大新聞所-張錦華老師] 1:47:18-2:00:49 http://ppt.cc/Ii8L
3 無命題 [世新大學-蕭旭智老師] 2:11:21-2:21:56 http://ppt.cc/wA82
4 無命題 [東吳大學法律系-胡博硯老師] 2:43:23-2:50:52 http://ppt.cc/kFqy
5 公民社會有什麼用？ [台大社會系-范雲老師] 2:56:17-3:16:15 http://ppt.cc/Rvbu
6 無命題 [中央研究院應用科學中心-梁國幹老師] 3:19:30-3:36:20 http://ppt.cc/2gLA
7 無命題 [台北大學法律系-官曉薇老師] 3:37:45-3:46:14 http://ppt.cc/qnc0
8 服貿、抵抗權與審議民主 [台大社會系-林國明教授] 3:48:00-4:06:00 http://ppt.cc/TkQS
9 無命題 [淡江法文系-詹文碩老師] 4:12:25-4:21:20 http://ppt.cc/Pm9V
10 健康照護與服貿協議 [台北大學社會系—張恆豪老師] 4:22:43-4:27:10 http://ppt.cc/0CV2
11 無命題 [世新大學傳播管理學系-羅慧雯老師] 4:30:00-4:39:36 http://ppt.cc/uzYp
12 無命題 [人本基金會-史英老師] 4:47:00-5:14:05 http://ppt.cc/QERB
13 無命題 [世新大學社會心理系-范綱華老師] 5:16:00-5:21:38 http://ppt.cc/J59J
14 無命題 [政治大學法學院-陳志輝老師] 5:22:00-6:05:00 http://ppt.cc/6Y1y
15 服貿背後的新自由主義迷思 [中山大學社會學系-邱花妹老師] 6:16:30-6:57:07 http://ppt.cc/H2vP
16 無命題 [世新大學傳播學系-黃順星老師] 7:13:00-7:20:24 http://ppt.cc/ysji
17 民主與抵抗權 [東吳政治系-陳俊宏老師] 7:20:38-7:41:25 http://ppt.cc/cDNd
3/20 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSVVKmFLQqY
1 服貿與認同政治 [交大人文社會系-許維德老師] all http://ppt.cc/PmRJ
03/21濟南路 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDB7jcS8LX8
1 無命題 [政治大學地政學系徐世榮老師] 1:30:00-1:48:56 http://ppt.cc/SVfq
2 網絡與社會運動 [台大社會系-簡妤儒老師] 2:10:00-2:23:40 http://ppt.cc/lmPK
Titles include:
 How Cross-Strait Trade Affect Democracy
 Impact of CSSTA on Freedom of Speech
 CSSTA, Right to Resist and Deliberative Democracy
 Healthcare and CSSTA
 The Neoliberal Myth Behind CSSTA
 CSSTA and Identity Politics
 Internet and Social Movement
 CSSTA and Income Distribution
 Today and Tomorrow? Taiwan and Hong Kong
 Anti-CSSTA and Indigenous Civil Right Movement
 The Political Implication of ECFA and Cross-Strait IP Agreement
 Minorities and Majority in Representative Democracy
 Why Social Workers Should Oppose CSSTA?
 Why the State Treat Us as Mob?
 The Economic Analysis of CSSTA
 CSSTA Might Undermine Future Technological Innovation
 CSSTA, Liberal Economics and Argriculture

37. Fast evolution and integration of internet appliance in social activism,
which makes any typology transient
Transnational dispersion beyond Taiwan
Logistics and broadcasting
platform used in Hong Kong
7.1 mass rally. Original codes
fromTaiwanese g0v team.