Profiling Insurrection: Characterizing Collective Action Using Mobile Device Data

We develop a novel approach for estimating spatially dispersed community-level participation in mass protest. This methodology is used to investigate factors associated with the ‘March Save America’ event Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021. study combines granular location data from more than 40 million mobile devices measures of voting patterns, organized hate groups, and entire georeferenced digital archive social media platform Parler. find evidence that partisanship, socio-political isolation, proximity chapters Proud Boys organization, local activity Parler are robustly protest participation. Our research fills prominent gap collective action: identifying studying communities involved mass-scale events escalate into violent insurrection.