Work-in-progress Workshop – Data Strategies in Contentious Politics

Workshop #1

Title: “Coordinating and doxing data: Hong Kong protesters’ and government supporters’ data strategies in the age of datafication”

Date & Time: 11 June 2021, 14:00 HKT

Presenter: Yao-tai Li, Assistant Professor of Sociology, HKBU

Co-author: Katherine Whitworth, University of Sydney

Discussant: Francis Lee, Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, CUHK

Abstract:

Scholars across various disciplines have discussed the role of ICTs and social media in contentious politics and social movements. The consequences of computer- (or smartphone-) mediated communication and datafication have been of increasing interest. Other studies have also highlighted the duality of data particularly in the context of contentious politics: data is simultaneously an object of political struggle and a weapon in repertoires of political struggle. Taking the protesters’ collective and networked program of sousveillance during the 2019 Hong Kong Anti-ELAB Movement as an example, this article examines protesters’ and pro-establishment’s engagement with data, the datafication of police as proxies of the state, and attitudes towards various forms of ‘veillance’. The doxing at the heart of this case study provides an example in which data as constituents of movement repertoire and data as a contentious issue in its own right are conflated. This article bridges the surveillance and social movement literature by examining data practice and data ethics regarding doxing during the protest.