The Power of Social Media Images and Two-Way Communication in Social Movements

摘要

This thesis explores the power that visual images can have on participation during a social movement on Facebook. Participation on social media sites like Facebook is found in a social user liking, sharing, or commenting on another social user's Facebook post. 325 Facebook posts with or without visual images (i.e. pictures, memes, videos) were analyzed during the Central American immigration influx social movement in 2014 in both Spanish and English. The goal was to look at cultural differences in Facebook participation and understand what images generate the greatest participation amongst social media users, and most importantly, why. The major findings of this study found that still images were used most often during social movements and posts with still images also received the most participation from social users. The most popular form of participation was social users liking a Facebook post. When looking at cultural differences, Spanish social users received nearly the same level of participation from social users whether a post had a visual image or not. Moving forward with this research, future researchers can understand the value of a still image v. other visual images during social movements and how different cultures use different methods to attract participation.