From the screens to the streets? Social media use and participation in the Yellow Vests protests

Abstract

This article takes the Yellow Vests (YVs, Gilets Jaunes) movement as a case in point to study the mechanisms by which social media can enhance protest participation. Building on the literature on social media and protest behaviour, we study the association between different political experiences on social media and protest engagement. We rely on novel survey data from the project YELLOWPOL collected in France in 2019 during a period characterised by the mobilisation of the YVs. We find that individuals’ experiences on social media play a role in connecting general social media use with their participation in protests. Specifically, we show that simply using social media cannot predict protest behaviour, but seeking content from the accounts of decision-makers and activists and using social media to express opinions contributes to protest participation. These findings enhance the understanding of the individual-level mechanisms linking social media use and protest behaviour in first-wave democracies, expanding existing knowledge on the use and consequences of Internet-mediated technology on political participation and political change.