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Why did the “Gilets Jaunes” fail to use Twitter?

Helena Saadeh – Digital Data in a Societal Context – Sciences Po, Paris

Reaching their peak in November 2018, The Gilets Jaunes or Yellow Vests protested against reforms made by the government and had a list of revendications they wanted to implement. However, physical protests went beyond the streets of Paris and took part in the virtual world of Social Media, notably Twitter. The problématique for this paper “How did the Gilets Jaunes Fail to tweet their demands?” will be defended by the argument that the Gilets Jaunes’ set of revendications have shifted from raising the demands to mainly attacking President Macron, on Twitter. This research matters because throughout the years, Twitter, a more public and accessible platform, helped many other movements and revolutions to see the light such as the Egyptian revolution, the “MeToo” movement, and solidarity hashtags like recently #NotreDame or #SriLankaAttacks. This paper will study how the Gilets Jaunes, on the other hand, did not use the maximum outcome of Twitter for their pressures and demands; it will cover in depth the methods used to collect the data of the four hashtags used on the sixth of March 2019. In addition, it will highlight the findings which support the main argument of the paper and the related five academic readings. The paper will be concluded with implications and questions for further research.

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