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Grassroots organizing in the digital age: Considering values and technology in Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street
Abstract
Power dynamics shape, and are shaped by, the tools used by participants in social movements. In this study we explore the values, attitudes, and beliefs of Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street stakeholders as they relate to their use of technology. This multi-method study applies the lens of value sensitive design [VSD; Friedman, B. (Ed.) (1997). Human values and the design of computer technology (vol. 72). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] to examine stakeholder values and sites of value tension. We contextualize our findings with qualitative observation of how these values are reflected in each organization's online spaces, including Facebook, Twitter, and key organizational websites, as well as private spaces such as email.We found liberty, the value most mentioned by Tea Party members, was not reflected in the movement's organizational websites and Facebook pages, where user autonomy is frequently undermined. However, the Occupy value of equality is supported in the movement's web presence. We also found a set of shared central values – privacy and security, inclusion, and consensus – underlying both Tea Party and Occupy's approach to organization and participation. Value tensions around privacy and inclusion emerged for both groups, as some members opted not to use these tools due to security concerns and leaders struggled to adapt their communication strategies accordingly.This study provides insight into the adoption and contestation of different technological tools within grassroots social movements, how those decisions are shaped by core values, and how conflicts over the use of digital tools can result from tension between how different stakeholders prioritize those values.
... A complementary perspective of leadership and digitalization is provided by several recent studies that analyze social and political events, in particular grassroots movements such as the Occupy and Tea Party ( Agarwal et al., 2014), the Umbrella Movement in China ( Lee and Man Chan, 2016) and the political tensions in Russia (Toepfl, 2018). These contributions share the notion of leader as someone who directs collective action and creates collective identities ( Morris and Staggenborg, 2004). ...
... The study of different digital tools is also considered a relevant subject matter to gain understanding about what tools are more efficient in organizing and mobilizing resources ( Agarwal et al., 2014). Technology and digital tools are not value-neutral nor value free, because they influence how people organize, coordinate, and communicate with others (Hughes, 2004;Agarwal et al., 2014). ...
... The study of different digital tools is also considered a relevant subject matter to gain understanding about what tools are more efficient in organizing and mobilizing resources ( Agarwal et al., 2014). Technology and digital tools are not value-neutral nor value free, because they influence how people organize, coordinate, and communicate with others (Hughes, 2004;Agarwal et al., 2014). For instance, the study on the Russian activists shows how the long-term success of the movement was a result of a centralized, formalized and stable network, wherein its leading representatives and other members were bonded together by a new digital tool (Toepfl, 2018). ...
Digital technology has changed organizations in an irreversible way. Like the movable type printing accelerated the evolution of our history, digitalization is shaping organizations, work environment and processes, creating new challenges leaders have to face. Social science scholars have been trying to understand this multifaceted phenomenon, however, findings have accumulated in a fragmented and dispersed fashion across different disciplines, and do not seem to converge within a clear picture. To overcome this shortcoming in the literature and foster clarity and alignment in the academic debate, this paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the contribution of studies on leadership and digitalization, identifying patterns of thought and findings across various social science disciplines, such as management and psychology. It clarifies key definitions and ideas, highlighting the main theories and findings drawn by scholars. Further, it identifies categories that group papers according to the macro level of analysis (e-leadership and organization, digital tools, ethical issues, and social movements), and micro level of analysis (the role of C-level managers, leader's skills in the digital age, practices for leading virtual teams). Main findings show leaders are key actors in the development of a digital culture: they need to create relationships with multiple and scattered stakeholders, and focus on enabling collaborative processes in complex settings, while attending to pressing ethical concerns. With this research, we contribute to advance theoretically the debate about digital transformation and leadership, offering an extensive and systematic review, and identifying key future research opportunities to advance knowledge in this field.
... Recent literature on digital activism has under-explored the critical role of values as an antecedent of digital action repertoires and the role that SMOs play in terms of values. Although Agarwal et al.'s (2014) research on the Tea Party and Occupy movements and Bennet and Segerberg's (2011) research on connective action examine the effects of digital action repertoires on interaction and engagement, they offer little elaboration on the roles of SMOs and their values. Flanagin et al. (2006) advanced the "collective action space model" and Bimber et al. (2012) elaborated on the model, theorizing about digital action repertoires as mechanisms of boundary crossing in the two dimensions of interaction and engagement. ...
... Over a two-year period, we investigated how the Swedish affiliate of Amnesty International responded to opportunities to use digital action repertoires and how digital action repertoires (sometimes combined with offline repertoires) began to change the interactions and engagement of its supporters and to transform the SMO. The current research fills an important gap in the growing IS research agenda on digital activism (Agarwal et al. 2014;Ghobadi and Clegg 2015;Leong et al. 2015;Oh et al. 2013;Wattal et al. 2010). 3 See http://www.icip-perlapau.cat/e-review/issue-16-may-2013/lessonslearned-how-ngos-contributed-att-success.htm. ...
... To explore such relationships, scholars might engage in developing a new theoretical articulation of the affordances of digital action repertoires. Our research indicates the potential for value-centered conflicts with regard to digital action repertoires (Agarwal et al. 2014;Morgan et al 2012). Future research could seek to understand the role of digital action repertories in such conflicts. ...
An emerging research agenda focuses on social media's influence on political activism. Specific attention has recently been paid to digital social movement organizing and action repertoire development. The literature acknowledges the changing face of activism at the movement level, but little is known about the relationship between social movement organizations (SMOs) and digital action repertoires. Understanding this relationship is critical because strong adherence to values is at the heart of establishing action repertoires with legitimacy and persistence. In this paper, we rely on a two-year longitudinal study of the Swedish affiliate of Amnesty International. We examine the transformation in engagement and interaction that followed the organization's introduction of new action repertoires. Drawing on resource mobilization theory and the collective action space model, we elaborate how new action repertoires both stabilized and challenged the values of the SMO, as well as gradually broadened the interactions of supporters and deepened their modes of engagement. We offer a value-based model on the antecedents and effects of new action repertoires from the SMO perspective. The empirical findings and the model build new theory on social media and digital activism at the organizational level, complementing the predominant movement level research in the extant literature.
... 578); members not physically present were enabled to e-voice their opinions through the use of blogs and social platforms. In contrast, Agarwal et al. (2014), in their study on grassroots organising in the digital age, also point to the downsides of using social media, noting that users tend to communicate face-to-face, experiencing bonds of trust, rather than using the tools available. ...
... At the same time, our findings extend previous research on alternative organisations that emphasise the importance of face-to-face communication (cf. Agarwal et al., 2014) by showing that additional personal contact and relationship building beyond the digital space are crucial to triggering the expression of e-voice. This is also consistent with previous studies in the employee voice literature that suggest that low levels of confidentiality discourage voice (Almeida et al., 2020), but contrasts with the emerging e-voice literature that points to the opportunities for more open, yet provocative, expression of voice in an anonymous online environment (Martin et al., 2015). ...
Digitalisation permeates all aspects of organizational life, especially the ways we communicate with each other. Drawing on a case study of an alternative organisation—the German collective Premium, which is almost entirely digitally organised—we seek to explore contextual factors that facilitate or hinder the expression of electronic voice (e‐voice). Based on 20 semi‐structured interviews with different members of the collective, we identified various contextual facilitators and barriers to e‐voice expression: Collective belief in the value of diverse voices, cautious online and complementary face‐to‐face communication facilitate e‐voice, while less formalised structures, power and knowledge asymmetries, and information overload hinder it. These findings demonstrate that despite an alternative organisation's firm intention and self‐reflective efforts to create an inclusive and participatory digital space, tensions arise. Further, our study contributes to employee voice theorising by outlining contextual factors that are specifically relevant to e‐voice practices.
... However, with a few exceptions, marginalized groups may not be able to capitalize on the opportunities afforded by digital activism to the same extent enjoyed by social movements in general . Extraordinary events, such as Arab Spring in the Middle East, 15M and los indignados in Spain, Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter in the US, have all been held up in the literature as examples of impactful digital activism achieved by people outside of traditional political power (Agarwal et al. 2014;Anduiza et al. 2014;Ghobadi and Clegg 2015;Micó and Casero-Ripollés 2014;Smit et al. 2017;Vasi and Suh 2016). Yet studying only successful movements may not tell the whole story. ...
... Modern digital activist movements utilize a "repertoire" of digital tools that align with their core values (Selander and Jarvenpaa 2016). At the same time, participants may eschew those tools deemed at odds with their beliefs (Agarwal et al. 2014). Social media, for example, is widely used in digital activism and when leveraged for collective action is known as connective action (Bennett and Segerberg 2012). ...
Digital activism, political activism mediated by digital technologies, offers the promise of increased visibility and political power for marginalized groups. Yet, this has not been the case outside of a few exceptions such as Black Lives Matter. This paper offers theoretical, conceptual critical research that explores why successful digital activism may elude marginalized groups. We ask why many marginalized groups have been unable to harness the power of digital activism. We suggest that greater reliance on smartphones for internet access in marginalized groups may be at the heart of the problem.
... The survey fills an important gap in researches on digital activism (AGARWAL et al., 2014;GHOBADI;CLEGG, 2015;LEONG et al., 2015;OH;AGRAWAL;RAO, 2013;WATTAL et al., 2010). Researches on the theme have achieved important progress in the understanding of short-term critical events and actions, but many contexts have not been exploited yet. ...
... In addition, results of the research collaborate with studies on digital activism, increasing the understanding in a critical short-term event (AGARWAL et al., 2014;GHOBADI;CLEGG, 2015;LEONG et al., 2015;OH;AGRAWAL;RAO, 2013;WATTAL et al., 2010) in a context not yet explored. The understanding of the social media influence, with the factors that influence women's intention to participate in feminist movements online, also collaborates with the gap in researches on the influence of social media on collective action movements (BENNETT; SEGERBERG, 2011; GIL DE ZÚÑIGA; JUNG; VALENZUELA, 2012; TUFEKCI; WILSON, 2012). ...
Feminism is a social and political movement that fights systems that create inequalities which underpin the strata related to women, fighting racism, class oppression and patriarchalism. Recently, many women sought internet as means of expression and claim, and through it they held campaigns of national and international impact, disseminating information using the hashtags #meuamigosecreto (#mysecretsanta) and #meuprimeiroassédio (#myfirstharassment), through which women denounced situations of various types of harassment they have experienced. The aim of this study was to identify which are the elements that influence the intention of women's participation in online feminist movements. It was held a survey with 185 Brazilian women who took part in the #meuamigosecreto campaign. The methodology used was quantitative and data were analyzed by structural equation models. The study showed a robust model with high explanatory value. The results indicate that the Attitude toward the behavior, Subjective Norm, and Perceived Behavioral Control positively influence in the Intention of Participation in online feminist movements, and that the Intention directly influences on effective Participation. In addition, the tests indicate there is a significant difference between the perceptions of young and adult women. The survey provides relevant information for better understanding of feminist movements online, demonstrating that the participants believe that the campaigns strengthen the feminist movement, assist in raising awareness of men about their macho attitudes, can result in a decrease of cases of violence against women and can contribute to the debate on violence against women.
... Research covers progressive social movements where activists advocate for rights to the city as well as conservative movements around the world (e.g. Atkinson & Leon Berg, 2012;Bennett, 2012;Juris, 2008;Padawangi, 2013;Agarwal et al., 2014). changing dynamics, politics, and power shifts within a public virtual sphere have been observed, and subject areas include major events such as the protests of the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement, and political topics such as presidential nominations. ...
... We could draw too from the analytical techniques of content analysis, sentiment analysis and other methodologies being honed in the fields of sociology, political science, communications/new media, and computer and information sciences (e.g. Agarwal et al., 2014;Atkinson & Leon Berg, 2012;Papacharissi, 2012;Papacharissi & de Fatima Oliveira, 2012). In tandem, research should assess the challenges and constraints with collecting, processing and analyzing these data, which could fall under the Big Data rubric depending upon the scale of research (Bimber, 2015;croeser & Highfield, 2015). ...
Scholarship on citizen activism in a digital era is growing exponentially in sociology, political science, and communications/new media studies. Theorists observe changing dynamics and power shifts within a public virtual sphere. In contrast, planning scholarship is sparse on how citizens use technology outside of official channels to participate and mobilize. To explore this under-studied phenomenon, a new conceptual framework is developed by synthesizing literature across disciplines to examine digital networked activism in planning and focusing on conservative activists’ fierce opposition to regional planning in Atlanta, Georgia and the San Francisco Bay Area. I find activists use new media in combination with traditional strategies to communicate, organize, market their cause and refine tactics. The new media facilitates their channeling of deeply held emotions into the production, performance and circulation of counter-narratives that destabilize the planning process as conventionally understood. Planners’ responses are largely reactive and catching up to the challenge. As a result, planners I interviewed are rethinking civic engagement in a digital era.
... Drawing on mediated narratives and novel modes of connectivity (Agarwal et al., 2014), the Tea Party proved an effective 'insurgent faction' (Blum, 2020), challenging party orthodoxy and reorienting the electoral coalition and policy preferences, and paving the way for the nomination of Donald Trump (Gervais and Morris, 2018). Tump's 2016 candidacy further exposed divisions in the party network, with elites unable to coalesce around an alternative candidate to prevent him from winning the nomination. ...
Intra-party factionalism and media fragmentation have emerged as two major trends in U.S. politics, especially on the right. We explore potential connections between these developments by analyzing Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives' engagement with far-right alternative news media during the 116 th Congress. We develop three discrete measures to scale representatives' engagement using hyperlinks to news media on Twitter, demonstrating their validity against existing positional data: roll-call voting, ideological caucus membership, and political rhetoric. We then apply our scales empirically, showing that representatives with further-right media engagement became increasingly radical in their online communication during the Trump presidency. Representatives with more moderate media engagement did not radicalize in this way. These results suggest a dynamic relationship that reflects the 'dual function' of elite-media relations, where partisan elites serve as receivers of information and transmitters of intra-party signals in a fragmented media environment.
... Each tweet was coded for the primary and secondary function of the tweet (information/dissemination, call to action/mobilization, consequences, coming out, attacks, accolades, others), tone of the tweet, original tweet or retweet, hashtags used, hyperlinks used, mentions, date and who posted the tweet. The codebook was developed considering recent studies on digital activism on Twitter (Agarwal et al., 2014;Raynauld et al., 2016Raynauld et al., , 2018. ...
The future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, as well as the welfare of its recipients, in the United State has become a constant feature in the news since President Trump announced his intentions to end the program in September 2017. In response, a social movement of significance was engineered utilizing social media as one of its core pillars to support the program. This study analyzes the content of tweets with the #DefendDACA hashtag, tweeted within 30 days of Trump’s initial announcement, in order to understand the intersection of digital activism and DACA, including functions, purpose, and tone. Results from the analysis found tweets primarily centered on call-to-action, asking participants to defend DACA. Tweets also disseminated vital information, particularly with a positive tone. These findings aid in explaining the movement’s strength.
... It is not easy to determine how best to critically engage with the possibilities and perils of emerging technologies from a human-centred perspective, in parallel with crafting new products, systems and interactive experiences (c.f. Agarwal et al., 2014). ...
The introduction of any technology brings with it a set of assumptions about what is valued by a culture or society. Along with the explosion of design thinking and user experience in industry worldwide, this has led to a rethinking of how to educate design professionals equipped to work in a world of continual technologically driven innovation. We address this challenge by reflecting on our experiences as interaction design educators in an Australian higher education context. We discuss the success and failure of initiatives we have employed in our Master of Interaction Design courses to orient students to a value sensitivity in their design process and practice, such as explicit consideration of personal and professional ethics, value-sensitive design and dystopian critical design proposals. We conclude with suggestions for an educational agenda of ethical design thinking for interaction design, based on a set of six competencies, that can scaffold the development of designers who can advocate for ethical positions and can imbue their design proposals with value systems that support human and planetary flourishing.
... There has been an increase in calls for citizen participation mostly seen through a myriad of grass roots movements such as the Tea Party, recent debates about compulsory voting, and campaigns having increased participation (Agarwal et al., 2014). Though government is often seen as an external source of control, it is possible to conceive of government as a sum of the citizens it is meant to represent. ...
In this study, we develop a novel measure of compensatory control to better understand how Compensatory Control Theory (CCT) impacts perceptions of government involvement in an environmental issue: the storage of spent nuclear fuel. Using a national survey, this study examines public opinion on nuclear waste storage, its risks, and potential forms of oversight, by creating four proxy measures of compensatory control. Those measures are used in a regression analysis to understand levels of participation and intervention in the siting of nuclear waste storage facilities. Results indicate mixed support for the measures and a clear connection to policy choices.
... I specified and aggregated types of online use based on a typology of their development of, architecture for, and participation in websites, Facebook, and Twitter (see Table 2). Scant research compares different types of online platform use across organizations (e.g., Agarwal et al. 2014). I analyzed a combination of online activities, instead of focusing on any one platform to avoid privileging one that may decline in popularity. ...
What is the relationship between social class and online participation in social movements? Scholars suggest that low costs to digital activism broaden participation and challenge conventional collective action theories, but given the digital divide, little is known about cost variation across social movement organizations from different social classes. A focus on high levels of digital engagement and extraordinary events leaves scant information about the effect of social class on digital mobilization patterns and everyday practices within and across organizations. This study takes a field-level approach to incorporate all groups involved in one statewide political issue, thereby including organizations with different social class compositions, from Tea Parties to labor unions. Data collection spans online and off-line digital activism practices. With an index to measure digital engagement from an original data set of over 90,000 online posts, findings show deep digital activism inequalities between working-class and middle/upper-class groups. In-depth interviews and ethnographic observations reveal that the mechanisms of this digital activism gap are organizational resources, along with individual disparities in access, skills, empowerment and time. These factors create high costs of online participation for working-class groups. Rather than reduced costs equalizing online participation, substantial costs contribute to digital activism inequality. © The Author 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. All rights reserved.
... This has remained a point of contention ( Snow & Benford, 2005), yet the digital activist literature has taken this question in a different direction. While some scholars have linked ideologies to levels and types of digital activism ( Agarwal et al. 2014;Rohlinger, Klein, Stamm, & Robers, 2014;Schradie, 2015), a common argument is that individualized digital participation is tied to personalized, rather than institutionalized, ideology ( Bennett & Segerberg, 2012;Bimber et al., 2012). Many social movement scholars have integrated these three theoretical trends as they have evolved over the years. ...
This article explains the origin puzzle of the 2013 Moral Monday protests in North Carolina. Social media were marginal to the emergence of this civil disobedience movement, yet a common view is that digital technology’s weak ties are an integral part of large-scale collective action in the digital era. Instead, strong offline ties with structured organizations were critical to its emergence. Qualitative data show that a network of structured organizations, grassroots organizing, traditional media, and an ideological response to an economic and political crisis worked together to propel this large-scale movement. In effect, both structural and cultural factors shaped the activism in this case, not individual or digital explanations. Consequently, this article also traces the historic phases of social movement theory, situating a digital emphasis as part of an evolving focus on social movement origin mechanisms. Emergence scholarship on digital activism would benefit from expanding the entry point of protest earlier and broader than a hashtag’s debut, as digital explanations may not be as distinct of a theoretical construct as previous research suggests.
... Other movements are global in a different way, in the sense that an action carried out in one place is then viewed around the world and replicated in other places by local activists (Keck & Sikkink, 1998). Take, for example, the case of the Occupy movement, where criticism of the financial system spread and was taken up by activists in other places who had been inspired by the first demonstration in New York City (Agarwal et al., 2014;Penney & Dadas, 2013;Uitermark & Nicholls, 2012). The global character of the knitting movement is innovative because it represents one of the first solid examples of a political network that has developed globally. ...
The aim of this article is to explore urban knitting as a worldwide social movement, rather than solely a kind of “inoffensive urban graffiti” made with knitted fabric. Building on the available literature and original research, the article argues that this movement weaves together elements from craftivism, domesticity, handicraft, art, and feminism. It then explores a specific urban knitting initiative, called “Mettiamoci una pezza” (“Let’s patch it”), carried out in L’Aquila, Italy, 3 years after the earthquake that devastated the city in 2009. To analyze the sociopolitical aspects of this initiative, a series of qualitative research studies was conducted over time, to which were added semistructured interviews with the initiative’s local organizers. The findings show that the initiative in L’Aquila clearly exhibits the five original features of the urban knitting movement that emerge from the literature as being characteristic of this movement.
... There is much to say from Design perspective on topics related to self-organization of communities, participative design processes of citizensauthorities, on the implementation, evaluation and maintenance of projects. Specifically, from the Information Design point of view there are plenty of issues related to one of the most fundamental pillars of the construction of these types of participation: trust and transparency (Agarwal, Barthel, Rost, Borning, Bennett & Johnson 2014). Communication is key for ensuring trust and transparency, and its design relevant to enhance community engagement. ...
A growing number of people are organizing around common needs that affect their daily life meeting in new ways, seeking solutions and using digital technology for re-shaping their environments. This paper introduces the definition of Collaborative Communities and focus on the digital tools that they use. From the Information Design scope, it’s relevant to observe and support their actions, supplying them with better tools for designing their environments. A first step is to identify which actions they pursue and the characteristics of the involved tools. Fourteen participative-map cases have been analyzed for both their visual and technical features as well as their outcomes. A data cross-matching was conducted between their objectives, foci and a typology of collaborative actions on digital platforms. It identifies a technological discourse regarding the use of platforms and tools, while a political discourse can be seen in the use of either open source or private tools.
... There is much to say from Design perspective on topics related to self-organization of communities, participative design processes of citizensauthorities, on the implementation, evaluation and maintenance of projects. Specifically, from the Information Design point of view there are plenty of issues related to one of the most fundamental pillars of the construction of these types of participation: trust and transparency (Agarwal, Barthel, Rost, Borning, Bennett & Johnson 2014). Communication is key for ensuring trust and transparency, and its design relevant to enhance community engagement. ...
A growing number of people are organizing around common needs that affect their daily life meeting in new ways, seeking solutions and using digital technology for re-shaping their environments. This paper introduces the definition of Collaborative Communities and focuses on the digital tools that they use. From the Information Design scope, it’s relevant to observe and support their actions, supplying them with better tools for designing their environments. A first step is to identify which actions they pursue and the characteristics of the involved tools. Fourteen participative-map cases have been analyzed for both their visual and technical features as well as their outcomes. A data cross-matching was conducted between their objectives, foci and a typology of collaborative actions on digital platforms. It identifies a technological discourse regarding the use of platforms and tools, while a political discourse can be seen in the use of either open source or private tools.
... 1Gratifying to the poster, to cautious observers tweeting about protests is short-lived, low-investment and impulsive affective communication (Halupka, 2014) which at best complements long-standing activist campaigning (Morozov, 2011). Symbolic endorsements of or commentary on contentious political issues on social media variably impact action on the ground (seeAgarwal et al., 2014;Margetts et al., 2016). Yet, the publicisation of street actions on social media displays the possible motivations for people at large to enact their collective grievances together (Mercea and Funk, 2016). ...
We revisit the notion of activist persistence against the backdrop of protest communication on Twitter. We take an event-based approach and examine Occupy Gezi, a series of protests that occurred in Turkey in the early summer of 2013. By cross-referencing survey data with longitudinal Twitter data and in-depth interviews, we investigate the relationship between biographical availability, relational and organisational ties, social and personal costs to persistent activism online and on-location. Contrary to expectations, we find no clear-cut relationship between those factors and sustained commitment to participation in the occupation. We show that persistent activist communication did not feed into enduring organisational structures despite the continuous online activity observed during and beyond the peak of the Gezi occupation. The article concludes with reflections on the organisational ramifications of persistent communication and its significance in a political context posing high risks to participation in dissident politics.
... Scholars have observed a variety of uses for social media related to cyberactivism, including the facilitation of face-to-face protests by connecting online and offline voices, e-mobilization, citizen journalism, developing and spreading information (e.g., secondhand circulation, editorial commentary, online deliberation), establishing connections with other activists to strengthen weak ties, and engaging in e-tactics such as lobbying (Agarwal et al., 2014;Khamis & Vaughn, 2013;Penney & Dadas, 2014). Each of these activities make use of stitching mechanismsconnective features, like hashtags, that allow cyberactivists to link across both media platforms and social groups to develop a network of networks . ...
A growing body of research is examining the role of cyberactivism in facilitating social movements. Yet, few have considered the interplay between cyberactivism and disability advocacy. Through a case study of the #boycottautismspeaks movement, this study finds that cyberactivism may provide platforms for self-advocates to connect through bridging and bonding in unique ways that draw together and give voice to individuals who otherwise may not have means for such dynamic engagement. Drawing on a sample of approximately 10,000 tweets that circulated with the #boycottautismspeaks hashtag, this research applies thematic analysis and the Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects to reveal how counternarratives of disability are developed and circulated via cyberactivism. Findings reveal that #boycottautismspeaks contributors communicated to enhance bonding through (a) (dis)identification, (b) collaboration, and (c) creative resistance. In addition, they communicated to facilitate bridging by (a) demonstrating morality, (b) appealing to humanity, and (c) aligning with other causes. The #boycottautismspeaks movement melded the logic of collective and connective action, provided opportunities for both coordinated and self-directed activity, developing a network of networks through various stitching mechanisms, and cultivating an affective public. Implications for cyberactivism research and practice as well as disability advocacy are discussed.
... Other movements are global in a different way, in the sense that an action carried out in one place is then viewed around the world and replicated in other places by local activists (Keck & Sikkink, 1998). Take, for example, the case of the Occupy movement, where criticism of the financial system spread and was taken up by activists in other places who had been inspired by the first demonstration in New York City (Agarwal et al., 2014;Penney & Dadas, 2013;Uitermark & Nicholls, 2012). The global character of the knitting movement is innovative because it represents one of the first solid examples of a political network that has developed globally. ...
This entry introduces the reader to various media effects of mobile communication devices. The special focus is on mobile phones. The entry begins with a presentation of media effects on communication practices, on users, as well as on interlocutors and bystanders. It continues by analyzing the reverse effects of users on the redesign of mobile media. Lastly, the issues of how mobile communication is connected to social and geographical surroundings and how the use of mobile communication devices is related to the social structures of society are addressed. The entry concludes with a discussion of the media effects of mobile communication in the future.
... Some research has analyzed right-wing reformist groups or provided comparisons among political groups with different ideologies. Often, those studies compare groups with right and left political orientations (e.g., Agarwal et al., 2014). We know less about digital activist differences between groups' ideological strategies. ...
How does ideology shape digital activism? The implication of existing scholarship is that ideology is less relevant in the digital era or that radical groups have the advantage and thus will have higher levels of digital engagement. By conceptualizing organizing ideology as an articulation of ideas, practices, and organizations, this study harnesses qualitative research to understand the ideological mechanisms of differential social media use between two labor unions. Going deeper than a simple left or right political orientation, this study demonstrates that ideological differences in political strategies shape digital activism. A top-down reformist union had much more of an active Internet presence. It practiced representative democracy and embraced the Internet primarily as a conduit to those in power. A radical union was bottom-up and participatory, yet had low levels of digital engagement. This union viewed the Internet as just one of many tools to organize the powerless rather than a way to reach the powerful.
... This energizes conservative supporters but causes intense managerial difficulty for the party's organizational elite in the Republican National Committee (RNC). Research on Tea Party activists suggests that they value individual autonomy to an extent even the organizers of their online platforms cannot accommodate (Agarwal et al. 2014). And the situation is made even more difficult for the RNC because Tea Party policy goals in Congress often conflict with the interests of large sections of the movement's middle class supporters (Skocpol and Williamson 2012). ...
The role of digital media practices in reshaping political parties and election campaigns is driven by a tension between control and interactivity, but the overall outcome for the party organizational form is highly uncertain. Recent evidence contradicts scholarship on the so-called “death” of parties and suggests instead that parties may be going through a long-term process of adaptation to postmaterial political culture. We sketch out a conceptual approach for understanding this process, which we argue is being shaped by interactions between the organizations, norms, and rules of electoral politics; postmaterial attitudes toward political engagement; and the affordances and uses of digital media. Digital media foster cultures of organizational experimentation and a party-as-movement mentality that enable many to reject norms of hierarchical discipline and habitual partisan loyalty. This context readily accommodates populist appeals and angry protest—on the right as well as the left. Substantial publics now see election campaigns as another opportunity for personalized and contentious political expression. As a result, we hypothesize that parties are being renewed from the outside in, as digitally enabled citizens breathe new life into an old form by partly remaking it in their own participatory image. Particularly on the left, the overall outcome might prove more positive for democratic engagement and the decentralization of political power than many have assumed.
The tsunami of technological change in higher education is causing disruption throughout academia and is exerting influence on leading in formal education. In much the same way that industries experienced disruption from the digital revolution, andragogy is on the verge of what could be called a learning-tech culture revolution. This chapter focuses on two critical aspects that present potential impact in education, the leader, and the adult learner. The purpose of this literature review is to identify challenges leaders face in the digital landscape and strategies relevant to innovative techniques for digital adult learners.
The article demonstrates how social media activism polarizes and clusters into distinct deliberative and participatory arenas, using the case study of online activism for justice for Roman Zadorov in Israel. Zadorov was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Still, an overwhelming majority of Israelis think he is innocent, with the social media obstruction-of-justice campaign in his support having raised overwhelming exposure and engagement. Theorists distinguish between participatory and deliberative public processes. Supporters of participatory processes advocate for the participation of multiple stakeholders in addressing public concerns. Supporters of deliberative processes advocate for a thorough evaluation of arguments for and against any course of action before decision-making. This study demonstrates how people congregate online and polarize into deliberative and participatory clusters. The “deliberative” cluster is characteristic of groups led by admins who advocate reaching the truth through exposing relevant information and conducting fact-based deliberation. The “participatory” cluster is characteristic of groups led by admins who believe that their activities should aim exclusively at generating more attention and engagement with the general public.
The farmers' movement began in November 2020, when more than 300,000 protesters marched towards New Delhi in India in opposition to new agrarian acts introduced by the Indian central government. Organised by over 400 farmers' unions along with other organisations, for the next year, farmers and allied protesters set up bases around New Delhi and sustained the movement leading to its eventual success. We conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with participants from the movement and explored the social organisation, the underlying technical infrastructures, and how collective action was organised. We outline how the social media ecosystem enabled hybrid forms of organisational structures and facilitated coalition-building between diverse groups. Further, the movement created and disseminated alternative media that opposed mainstream media narratives and facilitated community-building. We discuss how designed technologies and spaces can support social movements in the face of powerful antagonistic actors.
Purpose
This study explores the motivations for sharing personal information and self-disclosure by mentally ill people in public and private Facebook groups. The purpose of the self-disclosure comparison between public and private groups is to understand how mentally ill people use different kinds of online communication channels in order to advance their goals and needs concerning their illness.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was carried out using questionnaires distributed in Facebook groups for people with mental illnesses. A total of 123 full and valid questionnaires were received. Statistical analysis was performed on the data.
Findings
Findings revealed that there are no significant differences between public and private groups concerning motivations for self-disclosure and that both types of groups create a safe and supportive place for mentally ill people. However, findings suggest that participants in public groups tend to display higher social involvement than those who participate in private groups.
Originality/value
This is a path breaking study on the entire subject of discourse of people with mental illnesses in private Facebook groups and its importance is derived from this. The study clarified and emphasized the importance of the sense of belonging to a community. Moreover, findings encourage people with mental illnesses to make use of social media channels to meet their social and personal needs.
The proliferation of digital data has opened the door for a 21st-century social science that explores human relationships on an unprecedented scale. A particular area of interest is that of leader social media (SM) usage. As studies on leader SM usage have grown dramatically in the past several years, we take stock of the extant literature across various research disciplines. Within this manuscript, we contextualize leader SM usage and demonstrate how it compares to analogous concepts. We subsequently abridge relevant findings and reflect on methodological and theoretical components of the research studies identified in this review. Further, we outline the nature of SM data and provide practical recommendations for leadership scholars to capitalize on this rich data source in their investigations. We also offer a theoretical framework and summary of how scholars have studied leader SM usage. Specifically, this review article synthesizes the current literature while also elevating the academic rigor of leader SM research.
Existing end-to-end-encrypted (E2EE) email systems, mainly PGP, have long been evaluated in controlled lab settings. While these studies have exposed usability obstacles for the average user and offer design improvements, there exist users with an immediate need for private communication, who must cope with existing software and its limitations. We seek to understand whether individuals motivated by concrete privacy threats, such as those vulnerable to state surveil-lance, can overcome usability issues to adopt complex E2EE tools for long-term use. We surveyed regional activists, as surveillance of social movements is well-documented. Our study group includes individuals from 9 social movement groups in the US who had elected to participate in a workshop on using Thunder-bird+Enigmail for email encryption. These workshops tool place prior to mid-2017, via a partnership with a non-profit which supports social movement groups. Six to 40 months after their PGP email encryption training, more than half of the study participants were continuing to use PGP email encryption despite intervening widespread deployment of simple E2EE messaging apps such as Signal. We study the interplay of usability with social factors such as motivation and the risks that individuals undertake through their activism. We find that while usability is an important factor, it is not enough to explain long term use. For example, we find that riskiness of one’s activism is negatively correlated with long-term PGP use. This study represents the first long-term study, and the first in-the-wild study, of PGP email encryption adoption.
en This article explores debates on medical assistance in dying (MAID) in Canada as they unfolded on Twitter before its adoption in June 2016. The opposition, which came from diverse groups—religious, experts, politicians—led to polarizing debates about the social acceptability of this measure. Our finding shows that the so‐called lay citizens refused to leave the discussion to experts and politicians and got involved in the debates around the issue. Our results also show that Twitter was mainly used to share information, hence complementing the role of traditional media. Overall, the platform gave rise to an “ambient political participation,” allowing minority or marginalized groups as well as lay citizens to share their knowledge and opinion about MAID. This may have favored a certain form of empowerment.
Résumé
fr Cet article explore le déroulement des débats sur Twitter à propos de l'aide médicale à mourir au Canada avant son adoption en juin 2016. L'opposition, qui provenait de divers groupes – religieux, experts, acteurs politiques – a mené à des débats polarisés quant à l'acceptabilité sociale de cette mesure. Nos résultats montrent que les « simples citoyens » ont refusé de laisser la discussion entre les mains des experts et des politiciens, choisissant plutôt de s'investir dans les débats liés à l'enjeu. Nos résultats montrent également que Twitter a principalement été mobilisé dans le but de partager de l'information, complémentant ainsi le rôle des médias traditionnels. De façon générale, la plateforme a laissé court à une « participation politique ambiante », permettant aux minorités ou aux groupes marginalisés, de même qu'aux « simples citoyens », de partager leur connaissance et opinion sur l'aide médicale à mourir. Le tout a pu mener à une certaine forme de capacitation.
Media are central to the dynamics of protest and social movements. Contemporary social movements face a shifting environment composed of new media technologies and platforms that enable new identities, organizational forms, and practices. We review recent research focusing on the ways in which movements shape and are shaped by the media environment and the ways in which changes in the media environment have reshaped participation, mobilization, and impacts of activism. We conclude with the following recommendations for scholarship in this burgeoning area: move toward a broader conception of media in movements; expand engagement with scholarship in neighboring disciplines that study politics, media, and communication; develop new methodological and analytical skills for emerging forms of media; and investigate the ways in which media are enhancing, altering, or undermining the ability of movements to mobilize support, shape broader identities and attitudes, and secure new advantages from targets and authorities.
Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 46 is July 30, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Pervasive use of social media as a communication technology has allowed social movement organizations to more easily claim allies, especially public figures, to amplify their messages in the public sphere. This research utilizes the contentious debate over abortion rights in Ireland surrounding the 2018 referendum on abortion to examine the social media tactics by both anti- and pro-abortion organizations on Twitter. Previous research is suggestive that movements can easily claim outspoken public figures on Twitter, but social movement research suggests that movements may target certain allies more frequently than others. This study finds that what types of public figures movement organizations claim as allies by “retweeting” them on Twitter depends on social movements’ position relative to the legal status quo of abortion in Ireland, pre-referendum.
In July 2016, Pakistani social media celebrity Qandeel Baloch was asphyxiated by her brother and gained posthumous celebrity in the West where her death was sensationally categorized as an honor-killing. Yet Qandeel was a celebrity in her own right among South Asians long before her death. Through skillful use of social media, she created new forms of public space and used them to challenge dominant social norms and political practices. I examine Qandeel’s “do-it-yourself activism”—her innovative use of the digital public sphere to position herself as a worthy representative of Pakistani nationality; to critique long-established norms governing gender, class, and sexuality; and to expand the boundaries of national belonging in Pakistan to include culturally rebellious women of limited economic means. By examining Qandeel’s audacious means of standing for Pakistan, her deployment of marriage proposals as a mode of subversive political activism within the political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Pakistan Movement for Justice, PTI), and her use of visual culture (“selfies”) to challenge the moral authority of a powerful Islamic cleric, I theorize a form of political activism grounded in women’s agency that deploys celebrity to illuminate and politicize injustices.
Social media assume a role in activism by enabling the powerless to voice widely shared grievances and organise unequally distributed resources. However, the predominant focus on the episodic effect of social media in the digital activism literature presents a limited understanding of how social media can play a role at different level of grassroots involvement and for movement continuity. By adopting a multidimensional empowerment perspective and extending the temporal scope in examining social media-enabled social movements, this study expounds on the logic of connective action (in contrast to the conventional logic of collective action) to offer a theory of social media empowerment. The study builds on a case study of an environmental movement to derive two key contributions: (1) it extends our knowledge of grassroots organising through a conceptualisation of the processes of how social media can allow individuals to assume a more proactive role in driving a social movement and (2) it provides a new understanding of the use of social media to sustain activism over time through the conceptualisation of social media empowerment mechanisms. A framework for social media empowerment in social movements is offered with implications for the mobilising practices of grassroots leaders and organisations.
Today we are witnessing social changes lead by technology in an unprecedented way. An increasing number of people live in a highly problematic, hyper-connected, open, complex and dynamic world. This context empowers new spaces of encounter and action, allowing people to meet in new ways around common needs that affect their daily life and seek solutions as a group.
New forms of citizenship collectives, DIY citizenship, civic initiatives and communities are having a leading role in the ‘city making’ and urban transformations worldwide. These actions could be seen as a new citizenship activism in which the emergence of technology democratize the use of digital platforms for connecting and scaling up. At the same time, digital technologies improve the use of data for involving people to adhere to causes and spread the collective action. The use of data in this type of activism is essentially collective because knowledge and skills become relevant in the context of the group peers (Milan, 2017). In this context, the relevance of Information Design and visualizations emerges as the visualizations process and is also, and directly, a tool for community building (Manzini, 2015).
How to stimulate collaborative practices from design, in a context of data abundance and technological democratization, where a relevant segment of citizenship is acting towards social issues and beginning to use data for these means? Information designers seems to have a key role: to organize information so people can make their own decisions and take effective action. This paper focuses on the role of information designers as amalgamators involved in setting the scene between the direct action and the communicative spheres in citizenship activism projects. Designers facilitate the collective process among diverse actors through design data strategies that mash up the communicative aim of visual artifacts according to the actions that they pursue as well as reaching expected audiences.
This paper explores the role of communication design in projects that seek to empower citizens to advocate for their social issues using data as evidence. How are collaborative practices through data communication happening? Data visualizations among other communication artifacts constitute part of the data activism communication repertoire that citizen activism is starting to incorporate in their ways of doing. Through a case study analysis of 8 projects, this paper delves in data-strategies behind communicative artifacts that pursue citizen collective action.
Cases are analyzed through a critical approach (Dörk et al., 2013) from its disruptive aesthetics (Markussen, 2013) problem space and spaces of contest (Fuad-Luke, 2009; DiSalvo, 2012) considering their design techniques and design activist methods. The design data strategies identified seek to contribute to the amalgamation role of the designers involved in the communication design of citizen activism projects. Despite the diverse aims and targets of each case, first results attempt to frame the strategies that link the digital visual artifacts and the action that they pursue. Lack of documentation on how the cases were built and its subsequent impact are still matters for further design research.
Social media have been playing a growingly important role in grassroots protest over the last five years. While many scholars have explored dynamics of political cyberprotest (e.g., the ongoing transnational Occupy movement, the 2012 Quebec student strike, the student-led protest movement in Chile between 2011 and 2013), few have studied sub-dynamics relating to ethno-cultural minorities’ uses of social media to gain visibility, mobilize support, and engage in political and civil action. We fill part of this gap in the academic literature by investigating uses of Twitter for political engagement in the context of the Canada-based Idle No More movement (INM). This ongoing protest initiative, which emerged in December 2012, seeks to mobilize Indigenous Peoples in Canada and internationally as well as their non-Indigenous allies. It does so by bringing attention to their culture, struggles, and identities as well as advocating for changes in policy areas relating to the environment, governance, and socio-economic matters. Our study explores to what extent references to aspects of Indigenous identities and culture shaped INM-related tweeting and, by extension, activism during the summer of 2013. We conducted a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 1650 #IdleNoMore tweets shared by supporters of this movement between 3 July 2013 and 2 August 2013. Our study demonstrates that unlike other social media-intensive movements where economic and political concerns were the primary drivers of political and civil engagement, aspects of Indigenous culture influenced information flows and mobilization among #IdleNoMore tweeters.
Scholars continue to debate how information and communications technology (ICT) influences civic behavior. Existing studies may be grouped into two approaches: ICT as a tool used to achieve a civic end, and ICT as an unanticipated influencer of how citizens view civic roles. This paper develops the second theory by testing moderated relationships between social media use, political identity, and citizen views of government service provision and spending. Regression results suggest that liberal users show greater preference for an active government, while conservatives show less preference.
Populism is a relevant but contested concept in political communication research. It has been well-researched in political manifestos and the mass media. The present study focuses on another part of the hybrid media system and explores how politicians in four countries (AT, CH, IT, UK) use Facebook and Twitter for populist purposes. Five key elements of populism are derived from the literature: emphasizing the sovereignty of the people, advocating for the people, attacking the elite, ostracizing others, and invoking the ‘heartland’. A qualitative text analysis reveals that populism manifests itself in a fragmented form on social media. Populist statements can be found across countries, parties, and politicians’ status levels. While a broad range of politicians advocate for the people, attacks on the economic elite are preferred by left-wing populists. Attacks on the media elite and ostracism of others, however, are predominantly conducted by right-wing speakers. Overall, the paper provides an in-depth analysis of populism on social media. It shows that social media give the populist actors the freedom to articulate their ideology and spread their messages. The paper also contributes to a refined conceptualization and measurement of populism in future studies.
In this chapter, I turn my attention to social movement organisations as I seek to discern how they interpret and manage the communication with their social media following. Reviewing empirical data from two separate case studies, I show that a dominant technological frame encapsulating such interpretations pivoted on an understanding that the Facebook groups set up by the organisations were principally vehicles for information exchange with their social media periphery.
This chapter introduces the social movement organisations (SMOs) staging the protest events reviewed in the book. The latter ranged from an activist protest festival to protest camps or synchronised demonstrations taking place across Europe on the same day of action. The organisations running them shared many traits discussed comparatively in the chapter. Ensuing reflections pinpoint the strategic choices about action repertoires made by the organisations as these interpreted their wider societal and communicational contexts.
The chapter sketches out the broad theoretical outlines of the book and provides an overview of the substantive chapters.
Recent years have been marked by the emergence of a new breed of grassroots-intensive protest phenomena that have challenged the dominance of political elites in several advanced liberal democracies. Whether it is the transnational Occupy movement, the Idle No More movement in Canada or the student-led demonstrations in Chile, these social-media-fuelled mobilization initiatives have quickly mobilized narrow segments of the public and have succeeded in forcing formal political actors to acknowledge their presence. In some cases, they have encouraged them to take some of their demands into account in their decision making. This trend is demonstrative of a growing political engagement disconnect between formal political players (for example: government agencies, political parties) and members of the citizenry. Although most of the former are still relying heavily on politicking strategies tailored for citizens adhering to the dutiful citizenship model, a growing portion of the latter are turning to informal forms of political action better suited to their personal preferences, interests and goals. Specifically, citizens' involvement in politics is increasingly driven by short- or mid-term priorities or considerations linked to their private lives and progressively less by their adherence to a broader ideology, their party allegiances or their concern for the greater societal good. This article examines one of these protest movements: the 2012 student movement against university tuition hikes in the province of Quebec, Canada, also known as 'Maple Spring'. Although some facets of this political mobilization phenomenon have been studied in recent years, little is known about its internal dynamic and, more importantly, social media's role in its overall functioning. This article offers an in-depth look at the #ggi tweeting dynamic between 22 April 2012 and 31 July 2012. Specifically, a hybrid quantitative and qualitative content analysis approach is used to determine in what way, to what extent, and for what reasons different Quebec political players were involved in this protest movement. Moreover, this article explores the links between traditional media and citizens' discourse on Twitter. The findings suggest that the former informed the latter as protesters frequently used news reports or commentary to support their positions. From a broader perspective, the findings provide a new look at political tweeting as few scholars have conducted a qualitative analysis of political tweets.
The shift from hierarchical-administrative water management toward more transparent, multi-level
and participated governance approaches has brought about a shifting geography of players, scales of action, and
means of influencing decisions and outcomes. In Spain, where the hydraulic paradigm has dominated since the
early 1920s, participation in decisions over water has traditionally been limited to a closed water policy
community, made up of economic water users, primarily irrigator associations and hydropower generators, civil
engineering corps and large public works companies. The river basin planning process under the Water
Framework Directive of the European Union presented a promise of transformation, giving access to noneconomic
water users, environmental concerns and the wider public to water-related information on planning
and decision-making. This process coincided with the consolidation of the use of Information and Communication
Technologies (ICTs) by the water administration, with the associated potential for information and data
generation and dissemination. ICTs are also increasingly used by citizen groups and other interested parties as a
way to communicate, network and challenge existing paradigms and official discourses over water, in the broader
context of the emergence of 'technopolitics'. This paper investigates if and in what way ICTs may be providing new
avenues for participated water resources management and contributing to alter the dominating power balance.
We critically analyse several examples where networking possibilities provided by ICTs have enabled the
articulation of interest groups and social agents that have, with different degrees of success, questioned the
existing hegemonic view over water. The critical review of these cases sheds light on the opportunities and
limitations of ICTs, and their relation with traditional modes of social mobilisation in creating new means of
societal involvement in water governance
INTRODUCTION: The idea that values may be embodied in technical systems and devices (artifacts) has taken root in a variety of disciplinary approaches to the study of technology, society, and humanity (Winner 1986; Latour 1992; Hughes 2004; MacKenzie and Wajcman 1985). A pragmatic turn from this largely descriptive posture sets forth values as a design aspiration, exhorting designers and producers to include values, purposively, in the set of criteria by which the excellence of technologies is judged. If an ideal world is one in which technologies promote not only instrumental values such as functional efficiency, safety, reliability, and ease of use, but also the substantive social, moral, and political values to which societies and their peoples subscribe, then those who design systems have a responsibility to take these latter values as well as the former into consideration as they work. (See, for example, Friedman and Nissenbaum 1996, Mitcham 1995, and Nissenbaum 1998.) In technologically advanced, liberal democracies, this set of such values may include liberty, justice, enlightenment, privacy, security, friendship, comfort, trust, autonomy, and sustenance. It is one thing to subscribe, generally, to these ideals, even to make a pragmatic commitment to them, but putting them into practice, which can be considered a form of political or moral activism, in the design of technical systems is not straightforward. Experienced designers will recall the not too distant past when interface, usability, and even safety were overlooked features of software system design.
The Logic of Connective Action explains the rise of a personalized digitally networked politics in which diverse individuals address the common problems of our times such as economic fairness and climate change. Rich case studies from the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany illustrate a theoretical framework for understanding how large-scale connective action is coordinated using inclusive discourses such as “We Are the 99%” that travel easily through social media. in many of these mobilizations, communication operates as an organizational process that may replace or supplement familiar forms of collective action based on organizational resource mobilization, leadership, and collective action framing. in some cases, connective action emerges from crowds that shun leaders, as when Occupy protesters created media networks to channel resources and create loose ties among dispersed physical groups. in other cases, conventional political organizations deploy personalized communication logics to enable large-scale engagement with a variety of political causes. The Logic of Connective Action shows how power is organized in communication-based networks, and what political outcomes may result.
This article analyzes the political form of Occupy Wall Street on Twitter. Drawing on evidence contained within the profiles of over 50,000 Twitter users, political identities of participants are characterized using natural language processing. The results find evidence of a traditional oppositional social movement alongside a legitimizing countermovement, but also a new notion of political community as an ensemble of discursive practices that are endogenous to the constitution of political regimes from the “inside out.” These new political identities are bound by thin ties of political solidarity linked to the transformative capacities of the movement rather than thick ties of social solidarity.
Scholars and activists have hotly debated the relationship between social media and social movement activity during the current global cycle of protest. This article investigates media practices in the Occupy movement and develops the concept of social movement media cultures: the set of tools, skills, social practices and norms that movement participants deploy to create, circulate, curate and amplify movement media across all available platforms. The article posits three key areas of inquiry into social movement media cultures, and explores them through the lens of the Occupy movement: (1) What media platforms, tools and skills are used most widely by movement participants? (Practices); (2) What role do experienced practitioners play in movement media practices? (Expertise); and (3) In what ways does the movement media culture lean toward open or participatory, and in what ways toward closed or top–down? (Open/Closed). Insight into the media culture of the Occupy movement is based on mixed qualitative and quantitative methods, including semi-structured interviews, participant observation, visual research and participation in Occupy Hackathons, as well as the Occupy Research General Demographic and Political Participation Survey, a database of approximately 1200 local Occupy sites, and a dataset of more than 13 million Occupy-related tweets. The findings will be of interest to both scholars and movement participants.
This article details the networked production and dissemination of news on Twitter during snapshots of the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions as seen through information flows—sets of near-duplicate tweets—across activists, bloggers, journalists, mainstream media outlets, and other engaged participants. We differentiate between these user types and analyze patterns of sourcing and routing information among them. We describe the symbiotic relationship between media outlets and individuals and the distinct roles particular user types appear to play. Using this analysis, we discuss how Twitter plays a key role in amplifying and spreading timely information across the globe.
What role does the Internet play in mobilizing participants in days of action? Although most research has focused on the way that computer-mediated communication is changing transnational collective action, it is unclear how social movement reliance on this new form of communication is modifying protest within nation-states. This paper analyses how participants in a national day of action in the United States were mobilized, focusing on the role that the Internet played. We find that a very high percentage of participants in all cities heard about the day of action through e-mail lists or websites. Those who mobilized through the Internet, however, were very different from those who mobilized through personal and organizational ties. In particular, the participants who heard about the event through all channels of mediated communication - including the Internet - were much more likely to come to the event alone than those who heard about it through their social networks. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of our findings to collective action and civic participation in the digital age.
The activity of the Facebook Group, “Join the Coffee Party Movement” (Coffee Party), is studied during a seven-month period leading up to and following the 2010 United States Midterm election. During this time period, the Coffee Party Facebook Group Administrator account posted 872 parent posts, which received 152,762 comments from participants. We examine the resulting electronic trace data utilizing a method for analyzing weighted social networks of discourse (Mascaro & Goggins, 201133.
Mascaro , C. and
Goggins , S. June–July 2011. Brewing up citizen engagement: The Coffee Party on Facebook, June–July, Brisbane, , Australia: Proceedings of Communities and Technologies. [CrossRef]View all references). Our findings explore the network centralization and total post activity across three units of analysis: (a) time, (b) parent post category, and (c) specific parent posts. We report three key findings. First, the structure, centralization, and leadership within the network differ in four key time periods: the time preceding the midterm election, the week of the midterm election, the time following the midterm election, and the time period when the new Congress was sworn in. Second, the Coffee Party Administrators act as agenda-setters with the parent posts, but are also significant contributors to the discourse. Third, participants in the discourse alter their roles depending on the specific parent post and category. Our findings have implications for issue groups and candidates who utilize social media tools to mobilize support and engage with supporters, and also provide a methodological contribution for computational social scientists who examine these groups.
Since Occupy Wall Street began in New York City on September 17th, the movement has spread offline to hundreds of locations around the globe. Social networking sites have been critical for linking potential supporters and distributing information. In addition to Facebook pages on the Wall Street Occupation, more than 400 unique pages have been established in order to spread the movement across the US, including at least one page in each of the 50 states. These Facebook pages facilitate the creation of local encampments and the organization of protests and marches to oppose the existing economic and political system. 'Based on data acquired from Facebook, we find that Occupy groups have recruited over 170,000 active Facebook users and more than 1.4 million “likes” in support of Occupations. By October 22, Facebook pages related to the Wall Street Occupation had accumulated more than 390,000 “likes”, while almost twice that number, more than 770,000, have been expressed for the 324 local sites. Most new Occupation pages were started between September 23th and October 5th. On October 11th, occupy activity on Facebook peaked with 73,812 posts and comments to an occupy page in a day. By October 22nd, there had been 1,170,626 total posts or comments associated with Occupation pages. The density of Facebook activism is highest in college towns and in state capitals. Major uses for Facebook within the movement include the recruitment of people and resources to local occupations; information sharing and story telling; and across-group exchanges. While the focus of Occupy Wall Street is on mobilizing individual’s offline, online activities greatly facilitate these efforts.
Supporting public participation is often a key goal in the design of digital government systems. However, years of work may be required before a complex system, such as the UrbanSim urban simulation system, is deployed and ready for such participation. In this paper, we investigate laying the foundations for public participation in advance of wide-scale public deployment, with the goal of having interaction designs ready when the system is put into such use. Moreover, in a highly politicized domain such as this one, value advocacy as well as factual information plays a central role. Using the theory and methods of Value Sensitive Design, we address three design goals toward public participation and value advocacy, and provide evidence that each of them was achieved: (1) enabling indirect stakeholders to become direct stakeholders (i.e. enabling more people to interact directly with UrbanSim in useful ways); (2) developing a participatory process by which these stakeholders can help guide the development of the system itself; and (3) enabling participating organizations to engage in value advocacy while at the same time enhancing overall system legitimation.
The number of people using online social networks in their everyday life is continuously growing at a pace never saw before. This new kind of communication has an enormous impact on opinions, cultural trends, information spreading and even in the commercial success of new products. More importantly, social online networks have revealed as a fundamental organizing mechanism in recent country-wide social movements. In this paper, we provide a quantitative analysis of the structural and dynamical patterns emerging from the activity of an online social network around the ongoing May 15th (15M) movement in Spain. Our network is made up by users that exchanged tweets in a time period of one month, which includes the birth and stabilization of the 15M movement. We characterize in depth the growth of such dynamical network and find that it is scale-free with communities at the mesoscale. We also find that its dynamics exhibits typical features of critical systems such as robustness and power-law distributions for several quantities. Remarkably, we report that the patterns characterizing the spreading dynamics are asymmetric, giving rise to a clear distinction between information sources and sinks. Our study represents a first step towards the use of data from online social media to comprehend modern societal dynamics.
Ever since the anti-globalisation protests in Seattle in 1999 the adoption of new information and communications technologies (ICTs) by social movement activists has offered the prospect for the development of global cyberprotest. The Internet with its transnational many-to-many communication facility offers a revolutionary potential for social movements to go online and circumvent the 'official' messages of political and commercial organisations and the traditional media, by speaking directly to the citizens of the world. Furthermore the use of electronic mail (e-mail), mailing lists, websites, electronic forums and other online applications provide powerful media tools for co-ordinating the activity of often physically dispersed movement actors. Moreover, ICTs may also contribute to the important function of social movements of shaping collective identity and countering the claims and arguments of established political interests. A growing body of literature during the last decades of the twentieth century attests to the significant impact SMs have had upon the restructuring of the political landscape. Most of that literature addresses the more traditional actors and institutions (e.g. parliaments, political parties, bureaucracy etc.). Less attention has been devoted to those manifestations of political action that are concentrated around social movements and all kinds of more or less institutionalised and sustainable forms of citizen mobilisation. This book is a collection of cases that take a critical look into the way ICTs are finding their way into the world of social movements. © 2004 selection and editorial matter, Wim van de Donk, Brian D.Loader, Paul G.Nixon, Dieter Rucht. All rights reserved.
Past research concerning the theoretical framework of Resistance Performance (RP) has been based on observations of liberal organizations and activists. In the following essay, we engage in a qualitative content analysis of alternative media utilized by conservative “Tea Party” activists to build on the concept of RP. Overall, we discovered that the dominant theme found in much of the content focuses on “purity,” which is considerably different from past RP research that found broad themes of “human rights,” “democracy,” “be the media,” and “principles of unity” embedded within liberal alternative media content. We conclude that the theme of “purity” gives rise to narrowmobilization, which constructs very focused protest communities within right-leaning politics.
This paper develops a new theoretical model with which to examine the interaction between technology and organizations. Early research studies assumed technology to be an objective, external force that would have deterministic impacts on organizational properties such as structure. Later researchers focused on the human aspect of technology, seeing it as the outcome of strategic choice and social action. This paper suggests that either view is incomplete, and proposes a reconceptualization of technology that takes both perspectives into account. A theoretical model—the structurational model of technology—is built on the basis of this new conceptualization, and its workings explored through discussion of a field study of information technology. The paper suggests that the reformulation of the technology concept and the structurational model of technology allow a deeper and more dialectical understanding of the interaction between technology and organizations. This understanding provides insight into the limits and opportunities of human choice, technology development and use, and organizational design. Implications for future research of the new concept of technology and the structurational model of technology are discussed.
Videos stored on YouTube served as a valuable set of communicative resources for publics interested in the Occupy movement. This article explores this loosely bound media ecology, focusing on how and what types of video content are shared and circulated across both YouTube and Twitter. Developing a novel data-collection methodology, a population of videos posted to YouTube with Occupy-related metadata or circulated on Twitter alongside Occupy-related keywords during the month of November 2011 was assembled. In addition to harvesting metadata related to view count and video ratings on YouTube and the number of times a video was tweeted, a probability sample of 1100 videos was hand coded, with an emphasis on classifying video genre and type, borrowed sources of content, and production quality. The novelty of the data set and the techniques adapted for analysing it allow one to take an important step beyond cataloging Occupy-related videos to examine whether and how videos are circulated on Twitter. A variety of practices were uncovered that link YouTube and Twitter together, including sharing cell phone footage as eyewitness accounts of protest (and police) activity, digging up news footage or movie clips posted months and sometimes years before the movement began; and the sharing of music videos and other entertainment content in the interest of promoting solidarity or sociability among publics created through shared hashtags. This study demonstrates both the need for, and challenge of, conducting social media research that accommodates data from multiple platforms.
This article explores the links between social media and public space within the #Occupy Everywhere movements. Whereas listservs and websites helped give rise to a widespread logic of networking within the movements for global justice of the 1990s–2000s, I argue that social media have contributed to an emerging logic of aggregation in the more recent #Occupy movements—one that involves the assembling of masses of individuals from diverse backgrounds within physical spaces. However, the recent shift toward more decentralized forms of organizing and networking may help to ensure the sustainability of the #Occupy movements in a posteviction phase. [social movements, globalization, political protest, public space, social media, new technologies, inequality]
The past decade has brought advanced information technologies, which include electronic messaging systems, executive information systems, collaborative systems, group decision support systems, and other technologies that use sophisticated information management to enable multiparty participation in organization activities. Developers and users of these systems hold high hopes for their potential to change organizations for the better, but actual changes often do not occur, or occur inconsistently. We propose adaptive structuration theory (AST) as a viable approach for studying the role of advanced information technologies in organization change. AST examines the change process from two vantage points: (1) the types of structures that are provided by advanced technologies, and (2) the structures that actually emerge in human action as people interact with these technologies. To illustrate the principles of AST, we consider the small group meeting and the use of a group decision support system (GDSS). A GDSS is an interesting technology for study because it can be structured in a myriad of ways, and social interaction unfolds as the GDSS is used. Both the structure of the technology and the emergent structure of social action can be studied. We begin by positioning AST among competing theoretical perspectives of technology and change. Next, we describe the theoretical roots and scope of the theory as it is applied to GDSS use and state the essential assumptions, concepts, and propositions of AST. We outline an analytic strategy for applying AST principles and provide an illustration of how our analytic approach can shed light on the impacts of advanced technologies on organizations. A major strength of AST is that it expounds the nature of social structures within advanced information technologies and the key interaction processes that figure in their use. By capturing these processes and tracing their impacts, we can reveal the complexity of technology-organization relationships. We can attain a better understanding of how to implement technologies, and we may also be able to develop improved designs or educational programs that promote productive adaptations.
During the "Arab Spring," young tech savvy activists led uprisings in a dozen countries across North Africa and the Middle East. At first, digital media allowed democratization movements to develop new tactics for catching dictators off guard. Eventually, authoritarian governments worked social media into their own counter-insurgency strategies. What have we learned about the role of digital media in modern protest? Digital media helped to turn individualized, localized, and community-specific dissent into structured movements with a collective consciousness about both shared grievances and opportunities for action.
In the aftermath of a potentially demoralizing 2008 electoral defeat, when the Republican Party seemed widely discredited, the emergence of the Tea Party provided conservative activists with a new identity funded by Republican business elites and reinforced by a network of conservative media sources. Untethered from recent GOP baggage and policy specifics, the Tea Party energized disgruntled white middle-class conservatives and garnered widespread attention, despite stagnant or declining favorability ratings among the general public. As participant observation and interviews with Massachusetts activists reveal, Tea Partiers are not monolithically hostile toward government; they distinguish between programs perceived as going to hard-working contributors to US society like themselves and “handouts” perceived as going to unworthy or freeloading people. During 2010, Tea Party activism reshaped many GOP primaries and enhanced voter turnout, but achieved a mixed record in the November general election. Activism may well continue to influence dynamics in Congress and GOP presidential primaries. Even if the Tea Party eventually subsides, it has undercut Obama's presidency, revitalized conservatism, and pulled the national Republican Party toward the far right.
Providing a complete portal to the world of case study research, the Fourth Edition of Robert K. Yin's bestselling text Case Study Research offers comprehensive coverage of the design and use of the case study method as a valid research tool. This thoroughly revised text now covers more than 50 case studies (approximately 25% new), gives fresh attention to quantitative analyses, discusses more fully the use of mixed methods research designs, and includes new methodological insights. The book's coverage of case study research and how it is applied in practice gives readers access to exemplary case studies drawn from a wide variety of academic and applied fields.Key Features of the Fourth Edition Highlights each specific research feature through 44 boxed vignettes that feature previously published case studies Provides methodological insights to show the similarities between case studies and other social science methods Suggests a three-stage approach to help readers define the initial questions they will consider in their own case study research Covers new material on human subjects protection, the role of Institutional Review Boards, and the interplay between obtaining IRB approval and the final development of the case study protocol and conduct of a pilot case Includes an overall graphic of the entire case study research process at the beginning of the book, then highlights the steps in the process through graphics that appear at the outset of all the chapters that follow Offers in-text learning aids including 'tips' that pose key questions and answers at the beginning of each chapter, practical exercises, endnotes, and a new cross-referencing tableCase Study Research, Fourth Edition is ideal for courses in departments of Education, Business and Management, Nursing and Public Health, Public Administration, Anthropology, Sociology, and Political Science.
In this article, we build on and extend research into the cognitions and values of users and designers by proposing a systematic approach for examining the underlying assumptions, expectations, and knowledge that people have about technology. Such interpretations of technology (which we call technological frames) are central to understanding technological development, use, and change in organizations. We suggest that where the technological frames of key groups in organizations—such as managers, technologists, and users— are significantly different, difficulties and conflict around the development, use, and change of technology may result. We use the findings of an empirical study to illustrate how the nature, value, and use of a groupware technology were interpreted by various organizational stakeholders, resulting in outcomes that deviated from those expected. We argue that technological frames offer an interesting and useful analytic perspective for explaining an anticipating actions and meanings that are not easily obtained with other theoretical lenses.
To most people, technology has been reduced to computers, consumer goods, and military weapons; we speak of "technological progress" in terms of RAM and CD-ROMs and the flatness of our television screens. In Human-Built World, thankfully, Thomas Hughes restores to technology the conceptual richness and depth it deserves by chronicling the ideas about technology expressed by influential Western thinkers who not only understood its multifaceted character but who also explored its creative potential. Hughes draws on an enormous range of literature, art, and architecture to explore what technology has brought to society and culture, and to explain how we might begin to develop an "ecotechnology" that works with, not against, ecological systems. From the "Creator" model of development of the sixteenth century to the "big science" of the 1940s and 1950s to the architecture of Frank Gehry, Hughes nimbly charts the myriad ways that technology has been woven into the social and cultural fabric of different eras and the promises and problems it has offered. Thomas Jefferson, for instance, optimistically hoped that technology could be combined with nature to create an Edenic environment; Lewis Mumford, two centuries later, warned of the increasing mechanization of American life. Such divergent views, Hughes shows, have existed side by side, demonstrating the fundamental idea that "in its variety, technology is full of contradictions, laden with human folly, saved by occasional benign deeds, and rich with unintended consequences." In Human-Built World, he offers the highly engaging history of these contradictions, follies, and consequences, a history that resurrects technology, rightfully, as more than gadgetry; it is in fact no less than an embodiment of human values.
New medical imaging devices, such as the CT scanner, have begun to challenge traditional role relations among radiologists and radiological technologists. Under some conditions, these technologies may actually alter the organizational and occupational structure of radiological work. However, current theories of technology and organizational form are insensitive to the potential number of structural variations implicit in role-based change. This paper expands recent sociological thought on the link between institution and action to outline a theory of how technology might occasion different organizational structures by altering institutionalized roles and patterns of interaction. In so doing, technology is treated as a social rather than a physical object, and structure is conceptualized as a process rather than an entity. The implications of the theory are illustrated by showing how identical CT scanners occasioned similar structuring processes in two radiology departments and yet led to divergent forms of organization. The data suggest that to understand how technologies alter organizational structures researchers may need to integrate the study of social action and the study of social form.
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