How YouTubers saw The

Little India Riot

Natalie PangWee Kim Wee School of Communication and InformationNanyang Technological Universitynlspang@ntu.edu.sg

Zhu QinfengCity University of Hong Kongqinfeng.zhu@cityu.edu.hk

On a little street …

• On 8 Dec 2013, a fatal accident occurred in the ethnic district of Little India

• This triggered a riot, only the second since Singapore’s independence in 1965

A riot in numbers

• 2 hours

• 300-400 rioters

• 1 dead, 62 injured, and property damage estimated at over S$530,000

• 25 emergency vehicles, and 5 more that were set on fire

Context

• Singapore’s liberal By 2013, Singapore citizens comprised only 62% of the country’s 5.3 million population.

Context

Photos: Singapore Tourism Board, 2014

Context

Source: The Online Citizen, 2013

The riot on social media

• Approximately 10 minutes after the start of the riot, @jdveteran tweeted:

• Around the same time, @Aboyvanhogel, a resident nearby, published a video on YouTube showing footage of the riot

• Other videos of similar nature followed

• Users began responding to the riot by commenting

What’s going on at Little India? I see police and commotion..

Comments as crisis responses

• Research in the crisis context has largely focused on social media:

– As a tool for resource allocation;

– As a platform for framing a crisis;

– As a platform for public responses and participation

Situational Crisis

Communication Theory (SCCT)

DENY

Attack Confronting the party or parties involved

Denial Denial that the crisis exists

Scapegoat Blaming the crisis on another entity

DIMINISH

Excuse Making excuses for the organizations or parties involved

JustificationMinimizing the damages and rationalizing the decisions

made and actions taken

DEAL

Ingratiation Singing praises and thanking stakeholders for the good work

Concern Expressing concerns for victims

CompassionOffers of help for victims, such as money and gifts or offers

to clean up

Regret Expressions of guilt about the crisis by parties involved

Apology Bearing of responsibility for the crisis by parties involved

Method

• Document analysis approach and content analysis as the method

• Data collected using Webometric Analyst 2.0, with sampling frame: 8pm on 8 December – 8pm on 16 December 2014

• Resulted in 243 videos and 1334 comments

• Comments meeting the following criteria were dropped:– Responses to media reporting (103)

– Responses to video contributors (205)

– Responses in other languages (102)

• Final dataset: 881 comments as valid responses, analysed using Nvivo (Cohen’s kappa = 0.91)

‘characteristics of manifest language and word use, description of topics in media texts, through consistency and connection of words to theme analysis of content and the establishment of central terms’ (Neuendorf, 2002, p. 5).

Responses most intense during

the riot

Overview

Deny responses

Denial-Attack 0.806872

Lament-Attack 0.707032

Lament-Denial 0.624355

Scapegoat-Attack 0.49392

Scapegoat-Denial 0.315368

Scapegoat-Lament 0.296784

DIMINISH

Justification-Excuse 0.734775

Redirection-Excuse 0.654373

Redirection-Justification 0.580709

DEAL

Ingratiation-Corrective action0.619342

Question-Corrective action 0.616039

Question-Ingratiation 0.525109

Regret-Concern 0.520154

Corrective action-Apology 0.518654

Regret-Corrective action 0.516289

Implications

• Relevance of SCCT as response strategies for citizens

• Social media connects people over a distance, and facilitates riot/anti-riots

• Social media as a second screen

• Reflects the social reality of Singapore – differences manifested online are because of the differences offline are we barking up the wrong tree?

Limitations and Future work• Sample biases

• No two crises are the same

Thank you!Questions?