AUTHOR=Lee Claire Seungeun , Merizalde Juan , Colautti John D. , An Jisun , Kwak Haewoon TITLE=Storm the Capitol: Linking Offline Political Speech and Online Twitter Extra-Representational Participation on QAnon and the January 6 Insurrection JOURNAL=Frontiers in Sociology VOLUME=7 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sociology/articles/10.3389/fsoc.2022.876070 DOI=10.3389/fsoc.2022.876070 ISSN=2297-7775 ABSTRACT=

The transfer of power stemming from the 2020 presidential election occurred during an unprecedented period in United States history. Uncertainty from the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing societal tensions, and a fragile economy increased societal polarization, exacerbated by the outgoing president's offline rhetoric. As a result, online groups such as QAnon engaged in extra political participation beyond the traditional platforms. This research explores the link between offline political speech and online extra-representational participation by examining Twitter within the context of the January 6 insurrection. Using a mixed-methods approach of quantitative and qualitative thematic analyses, the study combines offline speech information with Twitter data during key speech addresses leading up to the date of the insurrection; exploring the link between Trump's offline speeches and QAnon's hashtags across a 3-day timeframe. We find that links between online extra-representational participation and offline political speech exist. This research illuminates this phenomenon and offers policy implications for the role of online messaging as a tool of political mobilization.