Influencing the Revolution: Social Media and Digital Fundraising in the United States and Myanmar

FAIN: DOI-299574-24

Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN 47907-2040)
Courtney Wittekind (Project Director: October 2023 to present)

Research examining the complexities of digital fundraising efforts on commercial social media platforms by diasporic communities seeking to support democratic resistance in Myanmar. 

Influencing the Revolution will study the social media fundraising campaigns that are sustaining Myanmar’s “Spring Revolution,” a movement seeking to restore democracy to the nation. The project argues that, while transnational fundraising aims to support democratic activism in Myanmar, fundraisers’ digital tactics depend on the very profit-generating mechanisms that make social media susceptible to undemocratic outcomes. Through social media archiving, user interviews, and focus group discussions, the goal of this single-researcher study is to document how fundraising networks harness the functionality of social media platforms like Facebook to monetize supporters’ time and attention. Final outcomes— a public commentary, scholarly article, and book proposal—will document the political organizing of an understudied US population and provide insights into the relationship between transnational activism, digital fundraising, and social media’s conversion of users’ engagement into profit.