IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v246y2025ics0047272725000714.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The structure of online social networks and social movements: Evidence from the Black Lives Matter protests

Author

Listed:
  • Flückiger, Matthias
  • Ludwig, Markus

Abstract

This paper documents that online social networks – Facebook in particular – can facilitate the spread of social movements across space and time. Focusing on the largest protest movement in recent history, the wave of Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd on 25 May 2020, we show that protests are more likely to spill over between US counties when they are more closely connected within the Facebook network. To identify causal effects, we develop an instrumental variable approach that exploits local Facebook outages as a source of exogenous variation in the structure of the online network.

Suggested Citation

  • Flückiger, Matthias & Ludwig, Markus, 2025. "The structure of online social networks and social movements: Evidence from the Black Lives Matter protests," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:246:y:2025:i:c:s0047272725000714
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2025.105373
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272725000714
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2025.105373?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Collective action; Online social networks; Black Lives Matter;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:246:y:2025:i:c:s0047272725000714. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.