Paper Type
Complete
Paper Number
PACIS2026-2032
Description
Protest narratives increasingly span multiple social media platforms, yet individual users rarely move consistently across them. This study asks how narratives persist when identities do not. Examining the 2025 Indonesian protests across TikTok, X, YouTube, and Instagram, we construct a narrative similarity network using multilingual embeddings and identify collective actors through Contextual Influence–Focal Structure Analysis (CI-FSA). Results show that narrative continuity is associated with structurally embedded focal sets occupying brokerage positions rather than prominent individuals. These actors are overrepresented among central nodes after controlling for activity and platform effects. At the collective level, group betweenness is positively associated with cross-platform reach, while group size and cohesion are not. Structurally central focal sets are also associated with broader symbolic and collective lexical repertoires, whereas peripheral focal sets emphasize actor- and event-specific terms. Overall, the findings highlight collective brokerage as a key mechanism sustaining protest narratives in fragmented digital ecosystems.
Recommended Citation
Amure, Ridwan and Agarwal, Nitin, "Focal Collective Actors as Narrative Structures: Cross-Platform Brokerage in Digital Protest" (2026). PACIS 2026 Proceedings. 9.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/pacis2026/data_analtyics/data_anltics/9
Focal Collective Actors as Narrative Structures: Cross-Platform Brokerage in Digital Protest
Protest narratives increasingly span multiple social media platforms, yet individual users rarely move consistently across them. This study asks how narratives persist when identities do not. Examining the 2025 Indonesian protests across TikTok, X, YouTube, and Instagram, we construct a narrative similarity network using multilingual embeddings and identify collective actors through Contextual Influence–Focal Structure Analysis (CI-FSA). Results show that narrative continuity is associated with structurally embedded focal sets occupying brokerage positions rather than prominent individuals. These actors are overrepresented among central nodes after controlling for activity and platform effects. At the collective level, group betweenness is positively associated with cross-platform reach, while group size and cohesion are not. Structurally central focal sets are also associated with broader symbolic and collective lexical repertoires, whereas peripheral focal sets emphasize actor- and event-specific terms. Overall, the findings highlight collective brokerage as a key mechanism sustaining protest narratives in fragmented digital ecosystems.
Comments
05-DataAnalytics