Graduation Term

Summer 2026

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Department of Sociology and Anthropology

Committee Chair

Livia K. Stone

Committee Member

Gabriel Torrealba

Abstract

This research investigates how social media shaped political participation during the 2024 July Uprising in Bangladesh, focusing on the production and negotiation of political truth, legitimacy, and resistance through everyday digital practices. Rather than conceptualizing social media solely as a communication tool, the study analyzes digital platforms as contested spaces where activists, state-aligned actors, and other participants constructed, circulated, and challenged competing political narratives throughout the uprising.

Drawing on digital ethnography, this study integrates netnographic observation of Facebook groups, pages, hashtags, memes, and protest-related visual content with content analysis, reflexive participant observation, and semi-structured interviews with Generation Z participants. The research addresses three interrelated questions: (1) How did activists and state-aligned actors construct, circulate, and contest competing narratives of the uprising, and how did these narratives acquire credibility and legitimacy among different publics? (2) How did creative practices such as memes, hashtags, slogans, graffiti, profile-picture campaigns, and other symbolic forms of expression function as mechanisms of creative resistance? (3) How did Generation Z’s everyday engagement with social media shape distinctive forms of political participation during the uprising?

The findings indicate that political truth on social media was not simply a matter of competing narratives coexisting in tension, but was socially produced through emotion, interpersonal relationships, repetition, platform affordances, visibility, and digital witnessing, rather than through factual accuracy alone. The study further demonstrates that resistance emerged cumulatively through everyday digital practices, where posting, sharing, commenting, and symbolic performances became meaningful forms of political participation. Finally, it argues that the interaction between platform affordances and Generation Z’s everyday digital experiences shaped new forms of political engagement. For many Generation Z participants, political participation was not separate from their online lives; rather, familiar digital practices of sharing, witnessing, and meaning-making became mechanisms for negotiating political reality during moments of crisis. Content gained legitimacy when it was immediate, peer-produced, and connected to participants lived experiences of the uprising, demonstrating how online and offline activism became deeply interconnected and how political reality was negotiated through everyday digital practices.

KEYWORDS: Digital Truth-Making, Creative Resistance, Gen Z Activism, Digital Ethnography

Access Type

Thesis-Open Access

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