“Is the protest going viral?” Street protest messages and online user engagement

Public opinion support is crucial for social movement organizations. It is by winning public’s heart and mind that social movement organizations can impact society and affect policy decisions. However, do social movements trigger public attention on social media? And if so, what is it that drives online public opinion? Taking user engagement as a measure of public opinion, we analyze to what extent and when social movement organizations’ (N=186) Facebook and Twitter messages (N=2.849) about street protest (N=232) resonate among the online public. Descriptives show that protest messages go viral—especially on Facebook; and climate movements mainly attract user engagement. For the explanatory analysis, we find that protest (i.e., disruption, numbers, unity, commitment) and digital communication (i.e., visuals, emoticons, hashtags) features tickle user engagement; content features do not—except for references to traditional media attention. Findings contribute to social movements’ protest communication and public opinion in the social media arena.