Reviewing the Emergent Literature on Political and Activist Uses of WhatsApp

The next AoIR 2019 session I’m attending is on WhatsApp, and starts with Natalie Pang. She begins by noting the significant popularity of this platform in Asian countries, as well as outlining its particular features of large-scale group broadcasting of messages and end-to-end encryption – which is especially interesting to users discussing sensitive political topics in these countries.

Natalie’s project identified scholarly articles discussing WhatsApp and its uses, and examined 40 such publications that discussed the use of the platform for political or civic engagement; of these, eleven focussed on cases in Europe, ten on Africa, nine on various regions in Asia, and eight on the Middle East. Of the Asian studies, in fact, four focussed specifically on Hong Kong. That said, the current Hong Kong protests have actually moved on to other platforms to further enhance privacy and safety for protest organisers.

WhatsApp studies have grown significantly over the past few years; some 16 of the 40 studies examined here were published in 2018 alone. This also seems related to the introduction of end-to-end encryption in 2016. Key motivations for WhatsApp adoption that were highlighted in the studies included news gathering and sharing for reciprocity; connecting for solidarity and collective identity; coordinating action; and evading state surveillance.

Studies of news sharing uses often highlighted the expectation of reciprocity amongst users; news sharing is done to maintain relationships and build social cohesion amongst participants. Such news does not always need to relate directly to the community’s defining issues, but sustains their social identity.

This also links with uses for connecting and collective identity development, of course. This might also employ satirical memes, photographs, emojis, sarcasm, humour, and metaphors, even while appearing depoliticised; other uses remain more explicitly political, however. The platform is also used as a tool for explicit mobilisation, of course, especially because it appears to enable users to evade state surveillance.

Activists engage in two layers of chat on WhatsApp: direct messaging in smaller networks as well as chats in larger networks that enable external communication. Small-scale networks are especially important in environments where there is significant state censorship and repression.

These studies were conducted largely by using qualitative methods including ethnography, participant observation, interviews, and focus groups; some studies also analysed chat logs and other content from the platform. Ethical dilemmas (such as seeking informed consent) were not necessarily discussed explicitly by many of the papers, even though such dilemmas are significant in such a non-public digital communication platform. As a critical mass of WhatsApp research emerges, hopefully this will change.