Projects per year
Abstract
An image of drowned Syrian toddler, Aylan Kurdi, was popularly shared through social media and this promoted a surge of solidarity with Syrian refugees in September 2015. However, this response was not sustained. We explore the role of social media engagement in the emergence of solidarity and its decline (compassion fade). We collected data when sympathy for refugees was peaking (September 2015), and 1 year later. Latent change score modeling (N = 237) showed that engagement with the image through social media allowed people to form a pro-refugee group consciousness that acted as the proximal predictor of solidarity. However, reductions in the same factors explain the reduced commitment 1 year later. Distress predicted the reductions in social media engagement. The results support the power of social media to ignite world-changing action, but caution that online engagement may dissipate in the face of ongoing challenges.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 3778-3798 |
Number of pages | 21 |
Journal | New Media & Society |
Volume | 20 |
Issue number | 10 |
Early online date | 26 Mar 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Oct 2018 |
Keywords
- Collective action
- compassion
- demobilization
- distress
- outrage
- refugees
- social change
- social identification
- social media
- solidarity
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Communication
- Sociology and Political Science
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Dive into the research topics of 'The Role of Social Media in Shaping Solidarity and Compassion Fade: How the Death of a Child Turned Apathy into Action but Distress Took it Away'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Projects
- 2 Finished
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Predicting the Growth of Islamic State Online - Mid-Career Fellowship
Smith, L. G. E. (PI)
1/09/16 → 31/08/17
Project: Research council
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Predicting Online Radicalisation
Smith, L. G. E. (PI) & Barnett, J. (CoI)
Arts and Humanities Research Council
8/07/16 → 7/09/17
Project: Research council
Profiles
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Laura G. E. Smith
- Department of Psychology - Professor
- Centre for Networks and Collective Behaviour
- EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security
- Institute for Digital Security and Behaviour (IDSB)
Person: Research & Teaching, Core staff