Twitter and the protest movement in Thailand: A thematic analysis of highly retweeted tweets during the pro-democracy protests

Abstract

In 2021, there were over 1,516 street protests across Thailand, with government forces deployed to disperse protests over 60 times nationwide. Twitter, like the physical protest sites, became an extremely active platform. This paper aims to understand key content with the highest number of retweets during the call for democracy in Thailand in 2021, specifically under the hashtags #28FebMob, #18JulMob, and #7AugMob, through thematic analysis. The findings indicate five key themes conveyed through tweets, namely information dissemination, grievance expression, moral support, mobilization, and calls for action. The study also shows that most of the content conveyed frustration against state power and was highly subjective rather than stating protest objectives or calling for more forces. The characteristics of the tweets were also related to ongoing circumstances of the actual protests at the time, which differed widely depending on the specific event.