Natalie Pang and Qinfeng Zhu: How YouTubers saw The Little India Riot
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Transcript of Natalie Pang and Qinfeng Zhu: How YouTubers saw The Little India Riot
How YouTubers saw The
Little India Riot
Natalie PangWee Kim Wee School of Communication and InformationNanyang Technological [email protected]
Zhu QinfengCity University of Hong [email protected]
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