687 © Media Watch 10 (3) 687-701, 2019 ISSN 0976-0911 E-ISSN 2249-8818 DOI: 10.15655/mw/2019/v10i3/49691 Media and YouTube Appeal in Social Movement Mobilization: The Case of Anti-Tourism Incident MI NOS-ATHANASI OS KARYOTAKI S 1 , MATI NAKI OUREXI DOU 2 , & NI KOS ANTONOPOULOS 3 1 Hong Kong Baptist University 2 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece 3 Ionian University, Greece Spain has become the second most popular destination in the world, and the city of Barcelona has experienced several incidents characterized by anti-tourism sentiment. One of them was the ‘tourist go home’ movement, which attracted interest throughout the world. In this study, quantitative and empirical approaches were used to collect and analyzed the sample. The analyses were conducted focusing on specific characteristics of YouTube videos. This research highlights the dynamic of a brand-new “anti-tourist” emotion and movement, which is linked to mass tourism and to renting platforms such as Airbnb. Additionally, the conducted study tried to analyze this new social phenomenon, paying simultaneous attention to the YouTube platform as a propaganda tool and the use of hate speech as a weapon against individuals. Subsequently, it is believed that the examined issue influences social media companies, social movements, the tourism industry, journalists, state, and non-state actors. Keywords: Fake identities, hate speech, propaganda, social media, social movement, tourist go home, YouTube ‘See how they feel when the money from tourist stop[s] coming in and when all the nice, well-mannered Muslim immigrants come in. The Muslims took over Spain once, and they didn’t learn their lesson. Well, time for history to repeat itself’ (‘Tourists go home’ say Spanish locals in the backlash to holiday boom, YouTube comment, 2016). This is a comment from one of the 45 examined YouTube videos that were uploaded online. It is related to the ‘tourist go home’ social movement. The name of the video is ‘Tourists go home’ say Spanish locals in the backlash to holiday boom , and the uploader is the verified account of the popular news organization Euronews. The reactions above are associated with the phenomenon of mass tourism and its consequences. Spain has become the second most popular destination in the world (Castano, 2018). As a result, the more than 9 million overnight tourists (Statista, 2018) that are on vacation in Barcelona each year have provoked several incidents that are characterized by anti-tourism sentiment. For instance, graffiti such as ‘Why call it tourist season if we can’t shoot them?’ has appeared throughout the city. Also, the slogan ‘Tourist go home’ emerged as graffiti on the walls of the city approximately four years ago (2014) to demonstrate the hatred of the local population for the growing number of tourists. Correspondence to: Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis, School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University, Communication and Visual Arts Building 5, Hereford Road, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong.