Youth-led online mobilization and K-pop activism: jamming #ISupportMyPolice (#YoApoyoAMiPolicia) during the 2021 Colombian social outburst

Abstract

The 2021 National Strike marked one of Colombia’s largest protests in the country’s modern history, led primarily by youth confronting the government both in public spaces and online. Amid state repression, social media emerged as a powerful tool for demanding de-escalation of violence and police reform. K-pop fans notably contributed by subverting government-aligned hashtags on Twitter (now X), jamming them with K-pop related content. Using social network analysis, multimodal content analysis and a dataset of 15,793 tweets, this study explores the structure, information dynamics, and roles within the #ISupportMyPolice protest, shedding light on youth’s evolving repertoire of digitally mediated political participation and new forms of collective/connective action.