Exploring participation in the Facebook French Flag Filter Campaign

Abstract

Symbolic campaigns provide organisations and other parties with the opportunity to easily attract supporters, who use platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. The recent study is focused on exploring participation in the French Flag Facebook Filter (FFFF) campaign and the extent to which social media can be seen as a useful tool for activism. Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted to investigate a number of issues. Some of the main themes which emerged from the findings of the research are the notion of raising awareness and creating visibility. The effectiveness of the FFFF campaign was seen as something which can create unification and strengthen a sense of social support for all Europeans. The study also discovered potential links between online-based campaigns and other forms of political participation. On the other hand, there were opposing views that the campaign was actually an example of slacktivism, making it incapable of fostering further actions. A third probability which emerged from the interviews was that there is no real relation between online based campaigns and other forms of political participation.