Hashtag Securitization and Its Implications for National Security: The Case of Serbia

Abstract

The rise of social media and digital networks and the resulting changes in political and security communication have enabled citizens to challenge the state’s traditional monopoly over securitization. Building on the framework of below-the-line (BTL) securitization developed in earlier publications, the author explores the concept of hashtag securitization as a horizontal process in which the boundaries between actor, audience, and referent object become blurred. Through a comparison of anti-vaccination and anti-migrant mobilization in Serbia before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, he examines how digitally networked citizens articulate threats, contest expert and state authority, and attempt to implement decentralized extraordinary measures. He examines virality and illocutionary cacophony as the principal external conditions facilitating successful “hashtag securitization” and assesses the applicability of the revised BTL framework across the two empirically examined domains.