From the screen to raising steam - The many faces of political participation : A study on latent and manifest online political participation during the October uprising in Lebanon 2019

Abstract: Many scholars have discussed the role and opportunities of social media in protests and uprisings. Often these studies highlight the potential of social media as an outlet for making your voice heard, calling for action and for reaching out to the outside world about ongoing events. Few investigate the less expressive, latent, forms of political participation and the dynamics with more active, manifest, participation. With the aim of increasing our understanding of the dynamics between latent online and manifest offline political participation, this paper examines possible shifts from the latent online to manifest offline participation, focusing on the October 2019 uprising in Lebanon. In this thesis I theorize that people are somewhat aware and interested in politics. Along with information flows and social network ties, latent online participation is expected to shift into manifest offline participation. It uses original survey data with a sample of 176 Lebanese students, which is analyzed through a series of regression models. The results show some support for the theorized correlation, with varied effects among the indicators for latent online engagement. This study does not allow us to make a definitive statement about this relationship; nevertheless, it does suggest that latent online engagement can shift into manifest offline political participation for at least one of the latent categories, to various extent. Furthermore, this thesis contributes to the field of political participation, social media studies as well as contributing to broadening the discussion on the conditions for democratization in the age of social networking.