| dc.description.abstract | In July 2015 the popular Dutch weblog Geenstijl started off a civil petition movement in favour of a national referendum on the then upcoming association agreement between the European Union and Ukraine, which the Eurosceptic journalists of Geenstijl did not want the Dutch government to sign. Together with the small civil activist organisation Civilian Committee EU, Geenstijl created a website on which people could leave a digital signature to support the referendum request, and employed their online platforms and social media accounts to gather as much public attention and support for their cause as possible. The movement became one of unprecedented success in The Netherlands: for the first time since the establishment of the law Geenpeil appealed at, enough signatures were collected to command a referendum, and the movement generated a lot of public discussion, both on social media and beyond. This thesis analyses the structure of- and discourse within the ‘protest ecology’ of Geenpeil by means of a network analysis of over 40.000 retweets, and an explorative content analysis of blogs and tweets in which Geenpeil was promoted. Drawing upon Bennet and Segerberg’s popular theory of connective action, it is argued that Geenpeil was a hybrid movement with a highly interconnected network, held together by the leadership of Geenstijl and its individual journalists, and characterised by low-threshold, simplified, ‘David-versus-Goliath’-like anti-EU and pro-direct democracy narratives. Building upon existing research into the dynamics of digitally mediated activism and the conditions that amplify its impact, it is also argued that the centrality of Geenstijl was both a positive and negative influence on the impact of Geenpeil, and is illustrative of the importance of established organisations such as the professional media for popularising an e-petition. | |
