How exile shapes on-line opposition: Proof from Venezuela
By Anne Esberg, College of Pennsylvaniaand Alexandra A. Siegel, College of Colorado Boulder
How does exile have an effect on on-line dissent? By internationalizing activists’ networks and eradicating them from day by day life beneath the regime, we argue that exile basically modifications activists’ political alternatives and strategic habits. We check the impact of exile on activists’ public discourse within the case of Venezuela by an evaluation of over 5 million tweets by 357 activists spanning seven years. Our findings recommend that after going into exile, activists more and more emphasize foreign-led interventions to form their residence nation’s insurance policies, focus much less on native grievances, and change into extra harshly crucial of the regime. That is partly because of the modifications in exile networks: after leaving, activists enhance their interplay with overseas actors and tweet extra in English. This work contributes to our understanding of the connection between exile—one of the vital ubiquitous but understudied types of oppression—and dissent within the digital age.