Digital Technology and Voice: How Platforms Shape Institutional Processes Through Visibilization

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DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND
VOICE: HOW PLATFORMS SHAPE
INSTITUTIONAL PROCESSES
THROUGH VISIBILIZATION
Ali Aslan Gümüsay, Mia Raynard, Oana Albu,
Michael Etter and Thomas Roulet
ABSTRACT
Digital technologies, and the affordances they provide, can shape institutional
processes in signicant ways. In the last decade, social media and other digital
platforms have redened civic engagement by enabling new ways of connect-
ing, collaborating, and mobilizing. In this article, we examine how techno-
logical affordances can both enable and hinder institutional processes through
visibilization – which we dene as the enactment of technological features
to foreground and give voice to particular perspectives and discourses while
silencing others. We study such dynamics by examining #SchauHin, an activ-
ist campaign initiated in Germany to shine a spotlight on experiences of daily
racism. Our ndings show how actors and counter-actors differentially lever-
aged the technological features of two digital platforms to shape the campaign.
Our study has implications for understanding the role of digital technologies
in institutional processes as well as the interplay between affordances and vis-
ibility in efforts to deinstitutionalize discriminatory practices and institutions.
Keywords: Affordances; digital technology; institutional theory; platforms;
social media; social movements.
Digital Transformation and Institutional Theory
Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 83, 57–85
Copyright © 2022 by Ali Aslan Gümüsay, Mia Raynard, Oana Albu,
Michael Etter and Thomas Roulet
Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. These chapters are published under the Creative
Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create
derivative works of these chapters (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full
attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at
http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
ISSN: 0733-558X/doi:10.1108/S0733-558X20220000083003

58 ALI ASLAN GÜMÜSAY ET AL.
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, large protests against ethnic violence have erupted around the
world – particularly in the United States, where the deaths of Black Americans
including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor have unleashed a ood of criticism
and civil unrest. Amidst the escalating anger and calls of “No justice, no peace,”
social injustice and racial divisions have taken center stage. What the expansive
scope and momentum of movements such as #BlackLivesMatter have taught us
is that digital technologies – and particularly social media – are changing the face
of politics and activism (Ouellette & Banet-Weiser, 2018). Individuals, organiza-
tions, and activist groups are increasingly taking to social media and other digital
platforms to raise awareness of systemic racism and to call for the deinstitution-
alization of this deeply ingrained problem (Gantt Shafer, 2017; Matamoros-
Fernández, 2017).
Digital platforms are online, on-demand systems that have the potential to
harness and create large scalable networks of users and resources (Castells, 1998).
By providing expansive and immediate connectivity (van Dijck, 2013), digital
platforms have become sites of interaction, debate, and conict that represent
a heterogeneity of “norms, values, expectations, and concerns” (Etter, Colleoni,
Illia, Meggiorin, & D’Eugenio, 2018, p. 61). Disparate communities – each with
their own interests and agendas – are able to come together and engage in var-
ious forms of co-creation, ranging from spontaneous (Albu & Etter, 2016) to
more orchestrated iterations (Etter & Vestergaard, 2015; Gegenhuber & Naderer,
2019). Such new ways of connecting, collaborating, and mobilizing (Dobusch &
Schoeneborn, 2015; Vaast & Kaganer, 2013) have facilitated an aggregation of
“voices” in ways that can signicantly shape institutional processes (Etter, Ravasi, &
Colleoni, 2019; Illia et al., 2022; Roulet, 2020; Scheidgen, Gümüsay, Günzel-
Jensen, Krlev, & Wolf, 2021; Wang, Raynard, & Greenwood, 2021). As certain
voices are aggregated, they are foregrounded and made visible – while others are
pushed to the background, potentially becoming unseen and unvoiced (Hudson,
Okhuysen, & Creed, 2015). Thus, the act of making something visible involves an
interplay between discursive openness and discursive closure, because the strug-
gle to promote a particular view of reality often has the effect of subordinat-
ing equally plausible ones (Clemente & Roulet, 2015; Deetz, 1992; Leonardi &
Jackson, 2004).
Our interest in this article is to explore the implications of digital technolo-
gies for voice, visibility, and institutions. Specically, we aim to understand how
technology can enable and hinder institutional processes through visibilization –
which we dene as the enactment of technological features to foreground and give
voice to particular perspectives, positions, and discourses while silencing or sub-
ordinating others. We do so by examining the emergence of #SchauHin, a cam-
paign in Germany that sought to bring daily experiences of systemic racism into
the public sphere. Drawing upon multiple data sources and rst-hand accounts
from those involved in the campaign, we unpack the various ways in which users
effected visibilization and inuenced the development of the campaign and its
goal of contributing to the deinstitutionalization of systemic racism. By showing

Platforms, Institutions and Visibilization 59
how users differentially used and appropriated technological features to open and
close discourses, this study aims to advance research at the intersection of tech-
nology and institutional theory in two ways.
First, it contributes to a relational understanding of technology by emphasiz-
ing its affordances, i.e., “the action possibilities and opportunities that emerge
from actors engaging with technologies” (Faraj & Azad, 2012, p. 238). Digital
platforms create opportunities to mobilize power and collective action, not
through their “objective” features but through their ability to enable expansive,
immediate connectivity and the distributed creation and dissemination of con-
tent and knowledge (van Dijck, 2013). In our case, initiators and supporters of
the campaign engaged in a discursive struggle with “counter-actors” who sought
to disrupt mobilization – with each side enacting platform properties in radi-
cally different ways. By showing how this struggle played out, our study extends
understandings of “affordances-in-practice” (Costa, 2018) and shows how users
“reconcile their own goals with the materiality of a technology” (Leonardi, 2011,
p. 154).
Second, the study sheds further light on how technology can inuence insti-
tutional processes (Hinings, Gegenhuber, & Greenwood, 2018) by zooming in
on a specic affordance of technology: visibility. Visibility is conceptualized as
a “root-affordance” on which other affordances are built (Treem, Leonardi, &
van den Hooff, 2020, p. 45; cf. also Flyverbom, Leonardi, Stohl, & Stohl, 2016).
Our case builds on this conceptualization by examining how platform features
are activated by different sets of actors. Specically, we show how activation can,
on the one hand, generate visibility by opening up discourses about daily racism
and, on the other, obscure visibility through the manipulation of content and
sowing confusion (Etter & Albu, 2020; Treem et al., 2020). In addition, we show
how digital platforms have their own “enactment” properties – as the algorithms
and hidden information architectures embedded in digital platforms (Hansen &
Flyverbom, 2015) can curate and make some knowledge, behaviors, and pref-
erences visible and others less so. Thus, visibility, as an affordance, has both
relational and strategic qualities that are enacted in the process of “seeing and
being seen” (Brighten, 2007, p. 325). Our case illuminates these qualities and their
implications for enabling or hindering reection and the critique of intangible
aspects of institutions – in our case, systemic racism.
On a practical level, our article demonstrates how digital technologies – and
platforms in particular – have fundamentally altered civic engagement. Not only
do these platforms have the potential to amplify and silence voices (Clemente &
Roulet, 2015; Etter & Albu, 2020), they can also facilitate or hinder reection on
and action toward taken-for-granted practices and arrangements.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Institutional Processes, Visibility, and Digital Platforms
It can be argued that the emergence, change, and decline of institutions requires
institutionalized practices and arrangements to be made visible (Clemente &

60 ALI ASLAN GÜMÜSAY ET AL.
Roulet, 2015; Washington & Ventresca, 2004). Studies of institutional emer-
gence, for example, have shown that increasing visibility of the limits or gen-
eral failings of present institutional arrangements can lead to a mobilization
of power and collective action by “champions of new practices and forms”
(Schneiberg & Lounsbury, 2017, p. 284; see also Hoffman, 1999; Rodner, Roulet,
Kerrigan, & Vom Lehn, 2020; Zietsma, Groenewegen, Logue, & Hinings, 2017).
As practices become habits and objectively accepted by the masses, they become
visible and in other terms identiable (Tolbert & Zucker, 1999). Such visibility
has also been shown to trigger processes of deinstitutionalization – notably by
prompting reexivity and (re-)examination of taken-for-granted arrangements
and social practices (Dacin & Dacin, 2008; Maguire & Hardy, 2009; Seo &
Creed, 2002).
While visibility can enhance the salience of certain practices, voices, and mean-
ings that are manifested in institutional arrangements (Clemente & Roulet, 2015),
it may also subordinate or divert attention away from others. This subordination
of alternative ways of “doing” or “being” often contributes to processes of insti-
tutional maintenance because the voices of marginalized actors are suppressed
or pushed into obscurity (Hudson et al., 2015; Mair & Martí, 2009). In this way,
visibility and obscurity represent two sides of the same coin – with both shaping
institutional processes in signicant ways.
Within institutional scholarship, the concept of visibility is often only implic-
itly acknowledged – in part because institutional arrangements are understood to
be supported by intangible sets of beliefs and values (Thornton & Ocasio, 2008)
or by discursive productions that are not necessarily accessible to or consumable
by all parties (Phillips & Oswick, 2012). Many foundational pillars of institutional
arrangements are taken for granted, which makes their very nature invisible, even
for those who enact them. Recently, however, studies have begun to emphasize vis-
ible material manifestations of institutions as “part of the way in which social pro-
cesses and organizations are enacted and stabiliz ed” (Monteiro & Nicolini, 2015, p.
61). Practices typically have, for example, a material aspect (Jones, Boxenbaum, &
Anthony, 2013) that makes them visible to others (Boxenbaum, Jones, Meyer, &
Svejenova, 2018) and, further, makes an actor’s engagement with an institu-
tion visible and the monitoring of practice diffusion possible (Chandler &
Hwang, 2015). Another stream of related research has shown how actors make
their beliefs and values “seen” by voicing them (Cornelissen, Durand, Fiss,
Lammers, & Vaara, 2015). Together, these streams of research suggest that
actors’ discursive productions are a reection of their interaction with institu-
tions (Meyer, Jancsary, Höllerer, & Boxenbaum, 2018; Wang et al., 2021), and
that through reexive interactions, audiences may become aware of the structures
underpinning institutions (Gray, Purdy, & Ansari, 2015; Raynard, Kodeih, &
Greenwood, 2020).
Whereas the visibility of practices, voices, and meanings has traditionally
been limited by the “spatial and temporal properties of the here and now,” the
development of information technologies has brought “a new form of visibility”
(Thompson, 2005, p. 35). By enabling expansive connectivity, decentralized con-
tent creation, and distributed content aggregation, social media and other digital

Platforms, Institutions and Visibilization 61
platforms have opened up opportunities for a wider range of actors to affect insti-
tutional processes (Etter et al., 2018; Illia et al., 2022). Marginalized actors, for
example, are able to leverage diverse media to air grievances and raise awareness
of endemic problems and social injustices (Harmon, 2019; Toubiana & Zietsma,
2017). Thus, whereas visibility and voice had previously been understood as a priv-
ilege of the large and powerful – i.e., those with high status, positions of authority,
or control over important and extensive resources (Deephouse & Carter, 2005;
Roulet, 2020), social media has leveled the playing eld to some extent (Etter
et al., 2018, 2019; Seidel, Hannigan, & Phillips, 2020). In particular, digital media
platforms have provided an inuential “podium” for marginalized actors (Wright,
Meyer, Reay, & Staggs, 2020), while making large and powerful actors more
vulnerable to intensive and widespread scrutiny (Daudigeos, Roulet, & Valiorgue,
2020; den Hond & de Bakker, 2007). In this sense, institutional arrangements may
be more easily challenged or maintained, even by marginal actors.
Another important change brought on by social media is that it has increased
the velocity of content dissemination by enhancing the speed and direction of
communication (Castelló, Etter, & Nielsen, 2016; Etter et al., 2019; Wang, Reger, &
Pfarrer, 2021). Hidden practices and events can be made public, often instanta-
neously or with very short time lags (Thompson, 2005). An illustrative example
can be seen in how social media has enabled widespread exposure of police vio-
lence against Black people, thereby generating awareness and triggering collective
mobilization (Ramsden, 2020). The increased velocity of content dissemination
has, thus, helped overcome temporal and spatial distance by enabling direct
engagement with communities who would otherwise have remained difcult to
reach through traditional channels (Breuer, Landman, & Farquhar, 2015; Heavey,
Simsek, Kyprianou, & Risius, 2020).
As a result of this change in scope and velocity, social media discourses have
become increasingly intrusive, unwieldly, and hard to control (Altheide, 2013;
Wang et al., 2021). Indeed, the uid and diffuse nature of social media commu-
nities make the control of content and exposure highly challenging (Etter et al.,
2019; Roulet, 2020). As Heavey and colleagues (2020, p. 1494) point out, “because
communication boundaries are porous on social media, messages targeted at one
audience may spillover to others and have a raft of unintended consequences.”
Thus, while digital platforms can help actors open up discourses in ways that can
mobilize collective action and tackle problematic aspects of institutions (Albu &
Etter, 2016; Thompson, 2005), they can also lead to discursive closure, both
intentionally and unintentionally (Etter & Albu, 2020).
In the next section, we build upon the above-presented insights on visibility
and institutional processes, situating them within an affordance-based perspec-
tive on technology. We then pull together insights from these different areas of
research to develop the concept of visibilization.
Technological Affordances and Visibilization
The widespread adoption of digital platforms for organizing has raised com-
pelling questions about the ways in which these technologies affect processes

62 ALI ASLAN GÜMÜSAY ET AL.
of coordination and collaboration (Barberá-Tomás, Castelló, de Bakker, &
Zietsma, 2019; Gegenhuber & Naderer, 2019; Leonardi, 2014; Leonardi & Vaast,
2017; Madsen, 2016; Seidel et al., 2020; Treem & Leonardi, 2013). The visibility
afforded by digital platforms is commonly assumed to facilitate the transmission
of information. However, recent studies also suggest that such visibility may have
negative implications, as it paradoxically generates closure through information
overload (Chen & Wei, 2019) and algorithmic distortion (Etter & Albu, 2020). It
is thus important to elucidate how visibilization gives voice to particular perspec-
tives, positions, and discourses while silencing or subordinating others. This is
particularly important in order to further unpack the dark side of, or the nega-
tive social consequences associated with, digitalization (Trittin-Ulbrich, Scherer,
Munro, & Whelan, 2021).
To gain a richer understanding that takes nuanced forms of visibility into
account, we adopt an affordance perspective that pays particular attention to
socio-materiality (Leonardi, 2012). From such a standpoint, it is the interplay or
imbrication (Leonardi, Huysman, & Steineld, 2013) of the separate but interact-
ing actors – be they social (i.e., users) or material (i.e., digital platforms) – that
facilitates the opening and closure of discourses. The material features of technol-
ogies (e.g., deleting, adding, or sharing functions) enable particular ways of creat-
ing and diminishing the visibility of discourses. At the same time, social actors or
users – having different intentions and capabilities – can affect visibility in ways
that open up or close down discourses. For example, through their use of these
technologies, social actors can coordinate activities, persuade public opinion,
or disturb collective action through negative, antisocial, thrill-seeking behavior
(Cook, Schaafsma, & Antheunis, 2018). Thus, it is the relational interplay between
features and contextual use that gives visibility to voices.
Recently, scholars have highlighted that visibility should also be understood
from the receiver’s perspective, namely for whom content becomes (in-)visible
(Treem et al., 2020). Indeed, some communication is only visible to a small in-
group or to actors who inhabit a semi-public sphere, while being invisible to many
others. For social movements and activists, these questions are important, as con-
tent can be targeted at small or even hidden groups for reasons of coordination
(Albu, 2019; Uldam & Kaun, 2018), or it can be targeted at larger audiences with
the aim of mobilization (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). Again, it is the interplay
between features and contextual use that shapes the different forms of visibility
and closure.
Furthermore, scholars have highlighted the mediating role of algorithms as
central to the forms of visibility and opaqueness specic to digital platforms
(Milan, 2015). Algorithms can be understood as “sets of coded instructions”
(van Dijck & Poell, 2013, p. 5) or “formalized rules embedded in technological
artifacts” (Coretti & Pica, 2018, p. 73) that have an “entangled, complex, and
dynamic agency” (Glaser, Pollock, & D’Adderio, 2021, p. 2) given the co-con-
stitution of technological features and social practices. Algorithms impact what
becomes visible as much as what becomes invisible on social media (Hansen &
Flyverbom, 2015). They do so by performing “sorting, ltering, and ranking
functions” (Neumayer & Rossi, 2016, p. 4) that steer attention and interactions

Platforms, Institutions and Visibilization 63
(van Dijck & Poell, 2013) or overrepresent certain forms of interaction and
devalue others (Bucher, 2012; Gillespie, 2014; Rieder, 2012). Research has shown
that algorithms may work against users’ aims of making certain discourses
visible (Poell & van Dijck, 2015) while closing others (Etter & Albu, 2020;
Uldam & Kaun, 2018). Indeed, organizations that run social media platforms
are often prot oriented and have designed algorithms to provide visibility to
certain content with the goal of increasing user engagement for purposes of data
collection and advertising (Gillespie, 2014).
Overall, then, we understand the visibilization process as one accomplished
by the interplay of openness and closure. This emerges from the interaction of
specic digital platform features (e.g., Twitter hashtags powered by algorithms,
wiki pages, etc.) and human actors’ contextual intentions and use (e.g., the demo-
cratic participation and freedom of speech promoted by activists). Visibilization,
in other words, is accomplished by human and nonhuman actors (Latour, 1996) –
including the underlying algorithmic and informational architectures of digital
platforms (e.g., trending hashtags, newsfeeds). This affordance-based perspec-
tive sensitizes scholars to the interplay between the materiality of technology
and users’ varying intentions, the combination of which can enhance or obscure
the visibility of practices, voices, and meanings that underpin institutional
arrangements.
METHODOLOGY
Research Context
The features of particular technologies, combined with their contextual use, cre-
ate diverse forms of (in-)visibility. To better understand these patterns, we traced
the emergence of the #SchauHin campaign in Germany, which sought to raise
awareness of systemic racism in everyday interactions. As the campaign touched
upon the highly debated issue of racism in German society, it attracted the atten-
tion of counter-actors, who sought to preempt and hinder its development.
We selected the #SchauHin campaign as a paradigmatic case study (Flyvbjerg,
2006), which provides a window into understanding technological affordances
and their potential role in institutional processes. The nature and development
of the campaign, in particular, provided an opportunity to examine how digital
platforms generate both visibility and closure for different discourses. We focused
on a 16-month period from September 2013 until December 2014 – however, we
continued to observe the case and collect data until June 2020. The idea for the
campaign was initially discussed on Twitter and then moved to Titanpad – a
digital, real-time collaborative text editing and writing platform that existed from
2010 to 2017. Although Titanpad facilitated a deeper engagement and develop-
ment of ideas among organizers and supporters, counter-actors soon gained
access and began disrupting development efforts. In response to this disruption,
the campaign moved, again, back to Twitter – which, as a microblogging and
social network platform, offered a very different set of technological features
than Titanpad.

64 ALI ASLAN GÜMÜSAY ET AL.
Due to the fact that the campaign moved across different digital platforms,
and because groups of users appropriated the same technological features in
divergent ways, #SchauHin provides an illuminating case in which to study how
technology shapes institutional processes. For our purposes, it is an ideal context
for understanding visibilization and how the appropriation of platform features
can create discursive openness and closure.
Data Sources
This study draws on both internal and external data sources of the campaign.
We were given access to #SchauHin organizers’ internal documents and data
les, which included internal memos, strategy documents, and email exchanges.
These data amounted to over 2,000 pages of visuals and text. We also examined
data from the Titanpad platform and took screenshots at various points in time.
Additionally, we examined the #SchauHin and #SchauHin2 Twitter proles,
manually screening 800 tweets with the hashtag #SchauHin. To supplement these
data, we collected an additional 18 media articles and 14 videos that covered the
campaign.
Data Analysis
To understand how the different groups of users utilized technological features
to inuence the campaign with its goal of drawing attention to systemic racism,
we employed a qualitative analytic approach (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 1994). As
our case could be classied as a digital social movement, we were initially inter-
ested in how the digital nature of the social movement impacted organizing and
mobilization. However, the emergence of counter-actors who sought to disrupt
#SchauHin alerted us to the struggle over visibility, and the potential role that
digital platforms may play in shaping this visibility. As we collected further data,
and as the #SchauHin campaign progressed, we identied commonalities and dif-
ferences in how users were enacting various technological features. These patterns
prompted us to reect upon how the features of Titanpad and Twitter impacted
the struggle over establishing #SchauHin – and, how they affected the campaign’s
broader goal of raising awareness of systemic racism.
To organize our data and emerging insights, we structured key events along a
chronological timeline. We, then, examined the content generated on Titanpad
and Twitter, mapping it onto the timeline to get a better understanding of how the
campaign developed and the actors involved. We also drew on internal documents
and media reports to help make sense of the activities and struggles that unfolded.
Once we were condent that we had identied and understood how different
platform features and their enactment enabled or hindered the development of the
campaign, we sought to gain a deeper understanding of how and why. Our coding
and discussions converged upon the importance of visibility, specically in terms
of the perspectives, opinions, and content that supported the campaign and those
that detracted or diverted attention away from it. We noted four features, in par-
ticular, that actors engaged with to generate or obscure visibility. These included
the adding/editing/deleting of content, the use of hashtags, the creation of proles,
and the trending topic algorithm. While the nature and levels of visibility can be

Platforms, Institutions and Visibilization 65
somewhat idiosyncratic to the platforms, we focused on broader indications of
visibility such as the volume of interactions, as manifested in discussions, tweets,
likes, prole follows, as well as the trending of messages. We then examined how
visibility shaped discursive openness and closure by foregrounding particular
perspectives and positions, while silencing or subordinating others.
FINDINGS
The emergence and development of #SchauHin was marked by an ongoing
struggle between supporters of the campaign and counter-actors who actively
tried to prevent and disrupt mobilization efforts. Central to this struggle was the
visibility of communicated content – an affordance that was differentially appro-
priated by users to enable, facilitate, or hinder the development of the campaign.
As supporters tried to generate visibility and open up discourse around daily
racism, counter-actors sought to hinder such efforts by obscuring content and
enacting discursive closure. Below, we begin with a short overview of how the
campaign started. We, then, describe how four digital platform features were dif-
ferentially used by each group of actors to accomplish divergent aims. We high-
light, in particular, how the interplay between different technological features and
their contextual use shaped the struggle around visibility and invisibility.
Initiating the Campaign
The idea for the #SchauHin campaign emerged during a conference at the
Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Berlin on September 2, 2013. Activists, bloggers,
and journalists came together to discuss topics such as blogging about sexism and
racism, the role of the mass media, and the differences between the mass media,
social media, and the blogosphere. One central theme that repeatedly emerged
was the lack of visibility of stories and experiences from people confronting rac-
ism. One panelist suggested creating a hashtag to start a conversation and allow
people to share their experiences of daily racism:
Can I make a suggestion rst? The issue is racism and sexism. This is actually the ultimate
opportunity, where these different blogospheres on the internet have possibly just come
together, where probably people from both areas and even more are watching the livestream.
Maybe in the livestream you can discuss what kind of hashtag could be used for everyday rac-
ism as a topic. And “everyday racism” is too long, so something shorter please. (Panel discus-
sion “Rassismus & Sexismus ab_bloggen” (blog_away racism and sexism))
Conference participants took up this call and began enlisting people to help
nd an appropriate and catchy name for the hashtag, which could be used to draw
attention to systemic racism in day-to-day encounters:
Looking for a hashtag for everyday racism. Got ideas? #abbloggen ((@User1) September 2, 2013)
The @User2 is looking for a Twitter hashtag to ag up everyday racism. Any ideas? #abbloggen
((@User3) September 2, 2013)
Within four days after the conference, people had tweeted multiple suggestions
including #MeinSchland (MyGermany), #keinRassistaber (notaRacistbut) and

66 ALI ASLAN GÜMÜSAY ET AL.
#rausschrei (outcry). Below are a few examples of how people engaged in the call
to nd a hashtag:
@User2 @User4 #meinschland and #rausschrei are the ones I like best. #keinRassistaber is also
good, but a bit too long. ((@User5) September 6, 2013)
The #-everyday racism suggestions included: #allrass #DeinRassismus #zumausderHautfahren
#AFD #keinRassistaber. What do you think of #meinschland? ((@User2) September 6, 2013)
As more and more people began participating in the search for a hashtag, organ-
izers made the decision to move the conversation to the open platform Titanpad.
As a web editor, Titanpad provided a way to make views and information visible
through written exchange. This effectively enabled more in-depth discussions and
engagement. Organizers announced the switch to Titanpad in a tweet:
The search for a hashtag for everyday racism in Germany continues. Here: http://t.co/Fd4vFdB5a3
Ideas? ((@User2) September 6, 2013)
The move to Titanpad marked the beginning of the planning phase of the
campaign, as organizers sought to generate visibility for it and open up discourse.
Once the planning phase was complete, the organizers launched the campaign
by moving to Twitter. Each of these two platforms provided different techno-
logical features, which were differentially used by supporters and counter-actors.
Table 1 provides an overview of the technological features and summarizes how
they were activated to accomplish divergent ends.
Table 1. Technological Features, Practices and Implications for Visibility.
Technological Features
That Impact Visibiliza-
tion Process
Organizer/Supporter Practices Counter-Actor Practices
Adding, editing, and
deleting content
(user-driven)
Generating visibility by creating
content, sharing ideas, and
coordinating activity. For
example, voting, posting,
commenting.
Obscuring and distorting visibility
by spamming or adding off-topic
content, posting derogatory or
antagonistic comments, deleting
previously established content. For
example, sexist and racist slurs.
Hashtagging
(user-driven)
Generating and amplifying
visibility by structuring and
collating content to facilitate
search function and content
dissemination. For example,
using a hashtag and creating a
hashtag campaign.
Obscuring visibility by “hijacking”
the hashtag to create confusion
and misinformation. For example,
using the hashtag in association
with different (typically vague or
opposing) content.
Creating a prole
(user-driven)
Generating and focusing visibility
by creating a “go-to” place
to post and nd information
(prole owner or administrators
control the content)
Obscuring and diverting visibility by
creating a similar prole in terms of
style and name to divert attention
away from original content
Trending
(algorithm-driven)
Generating, amplifying, and
focusing visibility (intentional –
by encouraging more Tweets)
Aimed at obscuring content, yet amplifying
and focusing visibility (unintentional –
by tweeting to divert visibility)

Platforms, Institutions and Visibilization 67
Feature 1: Adding, Editing, and Deleting Content
The Titanpad platform allowed users to add, edit, and delete content – how-
ever, this feature could be used for fundamentally different purposes. Whereas
organizers and supporters used it to generate visibility for the campaign and
its goal of ending systemic racism, counter-actors used it to hinder such
efforts. Specically, the adding, editing, and deleting features of Titanpad
were used, on the one hand, to aggregate ideas and voices – generating visibil-
ity for the outcomes of such collaborative efforts. Yet, on the other hand, they
were also used to distort and alter content in ways that created confusion and
obscured visibility.
Generating Visibility and Discursive Openness
Because the Titanpad link could be shared openly, it created an opportunity for
people to join the conversation. Anyone with the link could comment, add sug-
gestions, and edit or delete content. With the move to Titanpad, there were more
coordinated efforts to come up with a hashtag. Several additional hashtags were
proposed and discussed – e.g., #auf180, #SchauHin, #jederfremd, or #raus schrei.
After each proposed hashtag, users were free to add comments and respond to
others’ comments. Below is an example of one such exchange that took place on
September 6, 2013:
“auf180+1” is an interesting suggestion, I think! [editorial note: in German “auf180” means
that a person is at 180 (degrees), i.e., boiling, furious.] Short, succinct, symbolizes the anger,
the rage associated with everyday racism. +1! thanks, just occurred to me because I often feel
that way about this topic. Ilikealot!+1 +1 is about the anger you feel? I think that is connected
to it, but it shouldn’t be in the foreground. It’s more about the injustice that is connected to rac-
ism –> injustice? Auf180 shows a reaction, a feeling – this includes the injustice, the grief and
all that, but it is the result, not the cause? Well, it is not absolutely necessary for the hashtag
to describe the cause, is it? It is quite powerful when the hashtag symbolizes: This happens
every damn day, this is reality, this makes us sad, angry – and: This is unfair. Schaut hin – open
your eyes. Apropos: #Schauhin would also be a good suggestion:) You save two characters
with Auf180 to describe the incident compared to Schauhin The only problem: It doesn’t men-
tion racism but still good, I nd it somehow ‘more exciting’ > why are you at 180? > read on,
eye-opener
I would prefer #Schauhin,1 because it contains a request to open your eyes. I find that great!
+1 even better if we had something with activity #TuWasDagegen [editorial note: do some-
thing about it] is quite long Schauhin is concise, short and not a direct attack but pointing
out. great! +1 oh well, I also think Schauhin is great! active! challenging! and it makes the
problem so clear, because people always just close their eyes when it comes to everyday rac-
ism. and “just open your eyes” is something I often use in the context of racism/sexism!
Yes, SchauHin is actually not that bad. I’m torn between #Auf180 and #SchauHin#Auf180
would mean anger and means that you don’t want to accept it. A little resistance. A little
more aggressive.
#SchauHin I like even better.

68 ALI ASLAN GÜMÜSAY ET AL.
- abblocken. inspired by the event “abbloggen,” because the aufschrei hashtag [editorial note:
#outcry, referring to sexism] doesn’t mean that it’s about sexism and was quite clear. +1
- Rausschrei – pro: Strong +contra: Too close to Aufschrei/Another thought: The combination of
the R of racism + Aufschrei) is too close to the “raus” (out) in “Ausländer raus” (foreigners out),
right, I did not consciously realize that. scratch scratch
- Maybe search for Reinschrei completely independent of aufschrei? Otherwise the trolls will
come immediately and it will be the same discussion as with other words, wouldn’t it be? Trolls will
come anyway, but the connection to aufschrei is not obvious to me, does not have to be here, de-
nitely attracts them faster … my concern is that the hashtag dies right at the beginning (it doesn’t
last long enough because of aufschrei. sorry)s
- Diversity perhaps? As a challenge to the understanding of integration as assimilation?
As the above exchange illustrates, there were lively debates about the pros and
cons of different terms and their potential to be adopted by others to generate
visibility for the campaign. After the discussion, the organizers decided to con-
duct a vote on the hashtag names proposed. Users were instructed to vote by
typing a “+1” after the suggested hashtag that they liked most. The proposed
hashtag #SchauHin received the most votes and was therefore selected as the
name for the campaign. An excerpt from September 6, 2013, shows the call for
votes, and the report of the nal results:
Dear all,
Collect hashtag suggestions for everyday racism here, evaluate, and decide quickly:)
If “scratch” is written THREE TIMES after a word, then we drop it.
I’ll copy favorites to the top, less discussed ones to the bottom.
Deadline: 3.45 PM (German time). Otherwise things will get out of hand:) Soo, we have enough
suggestions now. I’ll list the top suggestions (you are welcome to help me) and with a +1 you can
mark your agreement (no comments, the comments can be inserted below):
The voting ends at 3.55 (4 PM is tooo late):
- Abblocken +1+1
- Rausschrei +1
- Auf180 +1+1+1+1+1 +1+1+1+1+1
- AllRass +1+1+1+1
- SchauHin +1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1
- Rassismus247+1
- Tagesrassismus+1
Obscuring Content and Facilitating Discursive Closure
When the discussion on Titanpad moved to the subject of when the hashtag
should be launched, trolls gained access and began hindering coordination by
adding off-topic content as well as nonsensical, derogatory or antagonistic com-
ments (spam). The following is one example of such trolling content – which
involved making racist, antisemitic and sexist remarks:

Platforms, Institutions and Visibilization 69
penis hahan: DDDDDDDDDD
hello where isd the acction against natzis? xDD: DDDDDDDDDDDDD
t. Spurdo Spöhnke
snibeda snab: DDDDDDDD9gag army was here
:DDDD
fug: D:D:D:D:D
What is this about?
xDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Everyday racism is nicecreated by Jews. You have to know!
I have enough books here.
+My name is [name], I was always waiting for Krautchannel, PENIS
VAGINAL-STEEP LOL. I am 13 and would like to have intercourse with
Overageguys (HOOKERS KIDS KNOWN NOTHING OF MY SEXUAL
COMPLIMENASd
Hail Lucke!
NAZIS here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=
oTue3jEaOKEasd
SAW
SAW
SAW
SAW
SAW
SAW
SAW
SAWd
These trolls were counter-actors, in that they participated by creating con-
fusion and diverting attention to drown out or silence voices. Such destructive
activities were afforded by the open editing function of the Titanpad platform.
The organizers of the campaign tried to manage trolls by deleting their content,
warning users, and refocusing the discussion. Fig. 1 provides a screenshot of such
efforts, showing a highlighted section with the comment: “Nazi propaganda was
deleted here” (added rounded rectangle 1). However, this was later followed by
additional derogatory and insulting comments.
The right side of Fig. 1 shows a chat in which organizers and supporters
openly discussed how to manage trolls (added rounded rectangle 2). One user
asked whether “Everyone can delete everything that OTHERS are writing?”
(added rounded rectangle 3) and received an afrmative response – thus illustrat-
ing how Titanpad’s features for adding, editing, and deleting afforded discursive
closure and silencing.
In light of the challenges of managing trolls and the difculty of agreeing
upon a launch date for the hashtag, some users suggested to just go ahead –
as the timing was not that important. Organizers agreed with the suggestion
and launched the hashtag on Twitter without waiting for the nal results of
the vote.

70 ALI ASLAN GÜMÜSAY ET AL.
Feature 2: Hashtagging
The Twitter feature of hashtagging enables users to categorize content and con-
versations under a linguistic marker. This feature effected visibilization in very
different ways. On the one hand, it was appropriated by supporters to increase the
visibility of racist norms, beliefs, and practices – which could now be grouped and
amalgamated under the hashtag #SchauHin. On the other hand, it was appropri-
ated by counter-actors to obscure visibility through the misappropriation of the
hashtag in an attempt to redirect content and silence anti-racist discourse (i.e.,
discursive closure).
Generating Visibility and Discursive Openness
The hashtag #SchauHin was publicized on Twitter in early September 2013,
along with a call for people to share their experiences of racism in their daily lives:
And the hashtag for (or rather against) everyday racism saw the light of day at 3.55 PM:
#SchauHin – http://t.co/Fd4vFdB5a3 ((@User2) September 6, 2013)
The hashtag was immediately picked up, as users began to share their experi-
ences of micro-racism in day-to-day encounters. Table 2 provides examples of
some of the experiences that were shared in the tweets. Users tweeted about a
variety of personal experiences – be they in the workplace, schools, or univer-
sities, or during encounters with strangers, government agencies, or real estate
Fig. 1. Titanpad Screenshot (Rectangles Added).

Platforms, Institutions and Visibilization 71
agents – making visible the systemic nature of these various acts. By providing an
umbrella term and a way to bring together and amalgamate content, the hashtag
opened the discourse and provided supporters an opportunity to amplify the vis-
ibility of daily racism.
Table 2. Selection of #SchauHin Tweets.
Topic Tweets
Work environment Job: I call and give my name. Sorry, job’s gone, they say. German friend
calls, job’s still available, interview too. #SchauHin – (@User6)
September 6, 2013
#schauhin, if at a job interview the topic is honor killings and forced
marriage and not your qualications! – (@User7) September 6, 2013
Public agencies When the ofcial at the asylum ofce (!) calls Afghan refugees “Taliban
rabble.” #SchauHin – (@User8) September 6, 2013
Girlfriend (Italian citizen born in GER) at a public agency: Employee
speaks to her: CAN … YOU … UNDERSTAND … ME …?
#SchauHin – (@User9) September 6, 2013
Police racial
proling
The constant police checks at Munich Central Station, with no grounds
for suspicion. Never German looking men. #SchauHin – (@User10)
September 6, 2013
“You could be an illegal,” a policeman said to me for the 10th time on the
train. #racialproling #SchauHin – (@User8) September 6, 2013
Schools and
universities
A teacher told a classmate of Turkish descent who was chatting in class:
“You are a guest in this country, so behave yourself.” #SchauHin – (@
User11) September 6, 2013
Winter. A friend wants to borrow my gloves for a short time. Teacher: “No,
she needs them herself, it’s colder here than in Africa.” #SchauHin –
(@User12) September 6, 2013
Public debate When the media features people saying that the racist murders are the
fault of the migrants themselves. #SchauHin – (@User13) September
6, 2013
When a friend on FB shares an NPD poster and defends herself by saying
that she is against racists, but the “content” is right. #SchauHin – (@
User14) September 6, 2013
Housing market A friend of mine didn’t get an appointment to view an apartment until he
gave “Becker” (name of the girlfriend) on the phone. #SchauHin – (@
User15) September 6, 2013
When the landlord rejects an American because he would never be able
to get along in her house as a “black.” #SchauHin – (@User16)
September 6, 2013
Public setting 12-year-old me on my bike: “ring ring.” Pedestrian turns around and back
again. And says loudly: - For something like this I will not step aside.
#SchauHin – (@User17) September 6, 2013
Sentences that start with “I have nothing against you but …” #SchauHin
– (@User18) September 6, 2013
Obscuring Content and Facilitating Discursive Closure
Similar to what happened on Titanpad, counter-actors engaged in disruptive
efforts to hinder the campaign and its goal of drawing attention to systemic rac-
ism. Counter-actors misappropriated the hashtag, using it in association with

72 ALI ASLAN GÜMÜSAY ET AL.
racist tweets and content. In the organizers’ internal documents and in media
reports, these were referred to as attempts to “hijack the hashtag” (e.g., Meissner,
2014). For instance, in a news article about far-right extremism and social media,
Nasman (2015) notes: “Well, it seems far-right groups have begun hijacking
hashtags and overwhelming the discussion with far-right views. Take the anti-
racism hashtag #schauhin, for example.”
Oftentimes, the subversive nature of counter-actors’ tweets was not imme-
diately obvious. For example, they were often ambiguous or phrased in a simi-
lar style as the tweets from #SchauHin supporters – pointing out, for example,
seemingly negative experiences, personal restrictions, and changes that the tweets’
authors opposed:
“I’m not allowed to see the hair of the headscarf girls. #schauhin”;
“I can’t get my kebab with pork. #schauhin”;
“Haribo is now also available in Halal! #schauhin”;
“I feel marginalized as an NPD voter. #schauhin.”2
By tweeting content that was irrelevant, belittling, and antagonistic to the
overarching purpose of the campaign, counter-actors distracted and diverted
attention away from the “relevant” and focal content of the campaign. In this
way, trolls and their counter-efforts sought to obscure and thus close down anti-
racist discourse.
Feature 3: Creating a prole
Generating Visibility and Discursive Openness
When Twitter users create a prole, they create a kind of business card, brand,
or biography of who they are and what is important to them. The organizers
of the #SchauHin campaign created a prole for the movement to explain what
the campaign was about, what its goals were, and how people could get involved
and engaged. Using the same Twitter prole name and handle as the hashtag
#SchauHin, organizers sought to create a “go-to” prole page to further increase
visibility and recognition for the campaign. Fig. 2 shows the Twitter prole pic-
ture, which prominently features the hashtag.
Fig. 2. Twitter Prole Picture.

Platforms, Institutions and Visibilization 73
The prole page was used to tweet, retweet, like, and respond to other tweets
with the hashtag #SchauHin – thereby generating and amplifying visibility for
the campaign. As people began following the new prole page to stay informed,
the prole page provided a way to focus attention and amalgamate a wider range
of content relevant to the goal of ending systemic racism. It also provided a link
to the #SchauHin website. In this way, the prole page contributed to opening
discourse about daily racism.
Obscuring Content and Facilitating Discursive Closure
Counter-actors tried to disrupt the campaign through the creation of prole pages
that were similar in name and visual design. One prole, for instance, just added
a “2” to the end of the account handle, calling itself @SchauHin2. It used the
same logo and a similar color palette as @SchauHin. Fig. 3 provides a screenshot
of the prole page, where the text in the added rounded rectangle reads: “Join in:
Use the hashtag #SchauHin for all national tweets against a foreign takeover. Let’s
create solidarity and unity!”
Importantly, while a Twitter handle must be unique, a Twitter name does
not have to be. So, while the Twitter prole itself is @SchauHin2, the account’s
owners call themselves SchauHin. Again, there is a conation: the two proles
advocate effectively opposite views while having the same name and looking
very similar. Hence, counter-actors used the feature of creating a prole to divert
attention away and obscure the original #SchauHin campaign. As Fig. 3 shows,
the SchauHin2 Twitter prole gathered a fair amount of attention and involvement –
with over 150 followers, and more than 1,200 (re-)tweets with over 6,000 likes.
Fig. 3. SchauHin2 Twitter Prole Screenshot (Rectangle Added).

74 ALI ASLAN GÜMÜSAY ET AL.
Due to these proles and tweets by counter-actors, the #SchauHin organizers
were aware of the need to clearly communicate the meaning of the hashtag and
reinforce the goal of the campaign. In an interview, one of the organizers of the
#SchauHin campaign explained how the emergence of these “fake” proles high-
lighted the signicance of the campaign:
The Twitter accounts existed very early on at the beginning of the hashtag (…) And as I said,
the racist tweets underscore the point of #SchauHin. How else can this ugly face of our society
be demonstrated so clearly? And the zeal of the racists says a lot about these people: They want
to prevent a debate on racism at all costs and focus on their own agenda. I think these desperate
attempts only show the relevance of this debate. So: No, the campaign has not been subverted and
it is not a turning point – these tweets are nothing new. The point of #SchauHin is well known.
These tweets only make this debate more important. (Initiator of #SchauHin in an interview with
Focus Online (Rohler, 2014))
Feature 4: Trending
Trending is an automated Twitter feature supported by underlying algorithms
that draw attention to topics deemed “hot” or that are generating “buzz” within a
certain time frame. It is determined by a combination of three criteria: popular-
ity, novelty, and timeliness. By automatically identifying and agging trending
hashtags, Twitter foregrounds these hashtags and increases their visibility – while
indirectly backgrounding others. As occurred in the case of hashtags and prole
pages, the trending feature impacted visibilization in very different ways, leading
to both discursive openness and closure.
Generating Visibility and Discursive Openness
When the organizers launched the campaign, they encouraged supporters to start
tweeting under the hashtag – as a way to generate a large number of tweets in a
short period of time. #SchauHin became a trending topic in Germany on the day
of its initiation and remained on the list for three days. Fig. 4 shows a screenshot
of the Twitter trends for Germany. In other words, the Twitter algorithm identi-
ed it as one of the most used and discussed hashtags on Twitter in Germany.
As a trending topic, #SchauHin attracted the attention of several print media
outlets in Germany, such as Süddeutsche Zeitung, Tagesspiegel, and Stern. Several
articles noted the quantity of tweets in a very short time frame and used this
to deduce its signicance (e.g., Adeoso, 2013). According to some, the trending
of the hashtag provided clear indications of the existence of systemic racism.
Visibility was therefore increased to audiences outside Twitter. As one user noted:
How can you say that there is no #racism in Germany: the hashtag #schauhin has
only existed for 8 hours and already it is the second most frequent tweet” ((@User19)
September 6, 2013). The trending topic feature on Twitter thus helped amplify the
visibility of the campaign and its goal of contributing to end systemic racism.
Obscuring Content and Facilitating Discursive Closure
Counter-actors’ efforts to obscure the campaign by appropriating the #SchauHin
hashtag had the unintended effect of adding to the overall number of tweets that

Platforms, Institutions and Visibilization 75
“fed into” Twitter’s trending algorithm. In other words, fake proles and the con-
tent generated by trolls contributed (albeit largely unintentionally) to enhancing
the visibility of the #SchauHin campaign. As noted above (see Fig. 4), the @
SchauHin2 prole tweeted or retweeted over 1,200 times and liked tweets over
6,000 times in the rst year. Thus, on one level, counter-actors’ disruptive efforts
generated discursive closure (i.e., they diverted attention, created confusion,
and drowned out anti-racist discourse). Yet, on another level, they unintention-
ally amplied visibility because the attempt to “hijack” the original #SchauHin
hashtag paradoxically contributed to making it a trending topic on Twitter in
Germany.
Summary: The Struggle for Visibility
Both Titanpad and Twitter were used to plan and execute the #SchauHin cam-
paign. On both platforms, counter-actors who opposed the goal and efforts of
drawing attention to everyday acts of racism tried to disrupt #SchauHin. On
Titanpad, counter-actors and trolls were very effective in hindering coordination
and planning. As soon as they gained access to the open platform, they were free
to delete and edit relevant content, as well as add irrelevant, derogatory, or antag-
onistic content. Moreover, they could do this while remaining fairly anonymous.
Such counter-efforts took on a different form on Twitter because of its different
features. While counter-actors and trolls were also free to add content, Twitter’s
features did not allow them to delete or edit content other than their own. In
addition, Twitter allows for a clear attribution of content to specic accounts or
Twitter handles. Despite this attribution, however, counter-actors have identied
creative ways to mask it – such as, in our case, creating proles that mirrored the
actual #SchauHin account or posting tweets that mimicked aspects of the cam-
paign’s content and styles of argumentation. As our case showed, the struggle
between organizers/supporters and counter-actors played out quite differently on
Fig. 4. #SchauHin as Trending Topic on Twitter.

76 ALI ASLAN GÜMÜSAY ET AL.
Titanpad and Twitter. These differences were, in large part, due to variations in
the affordances provided by each platform.
In the following months, the discursive struggle between supporters and
counter-actors continued. As counter-actors ramped up their efforts to close and
silence anti-racist discourse, #SchauHin organizers planned and then executed
a campaign to “reclaim the hashtag” – encouraging Twitter users to again tweet
more about their experiences of daily racism (cf. Fig. 5). Thus, the struggle for
visibility continued.
Fig. 5. #SchauHin Prole.
DISCUSSION
Social media and other digital platforms have fundamentally transformed ways
of connecting, collaborating, and mobilizing (Dobusch & Schoeneborn, 2015;
Etter & Albu, 2020; Vaast & Kaganer, 2013). They have become sites of interac-
tion, debate, and conict – allowing individual voices to be aggregated in ways
that can simultaneously generate discursive openness and closure. In this article,
we sought to understand how digital technology – and platforms in particular –
can enable and hinder institutional processes through what we refer to as visi-
bilization, i.e., the enactment of technological features to foreground particular
perspectives, positions, and discourses and give voice to them, while silencing or
subordinating others.
By adopting an affordance-based lens to the #SchauHin movement, we were
able to identify how the contextual use of platform features by human actors

Platforms, Institutions and Visibilization 77
impacted the visibility of discourses that sought to draw attention to and coun-
ter systemic racism. By examining the struggle between supporters and counter-
actors, we highlighted the different implications of the affordance of visibility.
We showed how a particular technological feature can be interpreted and used
in radically different ways to make content more or less visible. The tweeting
feature on Twitter, for example, can be assigned very different meanings and
opportunities for action. In our case, supporters of #SchauHin used this fea-
ture to generate visibility and discursive openness, whereas counter-actors used
the same feature to obscure visibility and fuel discursive closure (Deetz, 1992;
Leonardi & Jackson, 2004).
Our empirical case was one of discursive struggle between groups of actors
with opposing interests and agendas. One group sought to use the digital plat-
forms to mobilize action against everyday acts of racism by making deeply
ingrained practices and behaviors visible. Their efforts, however, were met with
resistance from counter-actors, who used the same platforms to divert and hinder
mobilization – e.g., by creating content that was off-topic, antagonistic, deroga-
tory, or confusing. By analyzing how actors differentially enacted a variety of
technological features, we captured the nuanced ways in which platforms can be
strategically used to formulate, disseminate, or obscure content – making visible
or invisible the meanings, practices, and structures that underpin institutional
arrangements.
Our study contributes to research at the intersection of technology and insti-
tutional theory in two ways. First, we contribute to understandings of how tech-
nological affordances inuence discursive struggles. Concretely, we showed how
digital platforms have opened up opportunities and ways for a wide range of
actors to gain voice – notably, through enabling an aggregation of individual
voices that might otherwise have been marginalized or silenced by more powerful
actors. Second, we further our understandings of how technology can enable or
hinder institutional processes through the process of visibilization.
Platform Features, Visibility, and Institutional Processes
We contribute to a relational understanding of technological affordances (see
also King et al., 2022) – particularly focusing on the affordance of visibility and
its implications for institutional processes. As digital platforms have become
“essential infrastructures” for collaborating and organizing (Bohn, Friederici, &
Gümüsay, 2020; see also Friederici, Meier, & Gümüsay, 2020; Logue & Grimes,
2021), they are important in the toolkit of institutional entrepreneurs and those
who seek to mobilize power or resources to shape institutions (Maguire, Hardy, &
Lawrence, 2004). Using the #SchauHin case, we illustrate how platform users –
by strategically selecting what they showed and how they showed it – were able to
instrumentally inuence mobilization and the aggregation of voice (Clemente &
Roulet, 2015; Etter & Vestergaard, 2015).
Different features of platforms can signicantly impact institutional arrange-
ments. In this way, insights from our study speak to recent calls to examine and
theorize the interplay between technology and (de-)institutionalization (Logue &

78 ALI ASLAN GÜMÜSAY ET AL.
Grimes, 2021; van Rijmenam & Logue, 2020). Our ndings illustrate how this
interplay is not only shaped by technological affordances but also by unintended
consequences that may be rooted in platform features. In our case, counter-actors
sought to impede the #SchauHin campaign and its goal of deinstitutionalizing
racism. The technological feature of hashtagging affords various actors with
contradicting interests to foreground their interpretation and suppress that of
others of a particular issue of contestation (e.g., daily racism). Our analysis has
shown how this process is enacted in a complex and dynamic socio-material pro-
cess, whereby the visibilization and obscuring of content contributes to (de-)
institutionalizing processes. In our case, however, the efforts to enact technologi-
cal features to divert attention and sow confusion through counter-activists had
partially the opposite effect. Specically, their addition of content (despite being
racist, antisemitic and sexist, nonsensical, etc.) paradoxically increased the vis-
ibility of the campaign and supported its efforts toward deinstitutionalization
by contributing to the overall number of tweets with the #SchauHin hashtag.
This phenomenon resonates with research at the intersection of institutional
theory and paradox studies (Gümüsay, Smets, & Morris, 2020; Smith & Tracey,
2016), showing how technological affordances can generate paradoxical out-
comes depending on actors’ attempts to effect institutions. Relatedly, there is a
possible socio-technical paradox that may be explored at the intersection of the
open culture sought by activists and the discursive closure sought by destruc-
tive trolls. Certain platform features may encourage open organizing (Dobusch &
Schoeneborn, 2015), which is the very factor that attracts practices that effectively
hijack such openness.
Digital platform features offer actors a wide variety of opportunities that may
have important implications for maintaining or disrupting institutional arrange-
ments (Logue & Grimes, 2021). For example, hashtagging on Twitter provides
a way to categorize and amalgamate content in ways that amplify visibility and
voice. It enables individuals or marginalized actors to raise awareness of endemic
problems and collectively mobilize against highly institutionalized practices and
beliefs. However, hashtags may be vulnerable to being “hijacked” by counter-
actors who seek to disrupt mobilization efforts (Albu & Etter, 2016) and maintain
institutional arrangements. An understanding that technological features are not
objective things-in-themselves but rather “things for us to use” may enable schol-
ars to appreciate how potential struggles play out through the way technological
features are enacted. A natural corollary of this is that platforms cannot be exam-
ined in isolation from the way that actors mobilize them.
Thus, an important implication is that social media and other digital platforms
are reshaping power dynamics in signicant ways – not only by giving voice to
peripheral actors but also by making the practices and actions of powerful actors
subject to widespread scrutiny (Etter & Vestergaard, 2015; Gillespie, 2010, 2018).
Power and institutions have been a central and recurring theme in institutional
research (Lawrence & Buchanan, 2017), and we can expect social media to play
an important role in altering power relationships between individuals, groups,
and organizations (Etter et al., 2019). Future research could further unpack how
digital platforms might affect institutional processes differently compared to

Platforms, Institutions and Visibilization 79
mobilization and coordination efforts that take place physically or face to face –
i.e., where connectivity and interaction are more limited by temporal and spatial
constraints. In addition, future research could examine further the entanglement
of digital and analog domains around institutions (Gümüsay & Smets, 2020).
Visibility Struggles and Technological Affordances
Our case showed how the interplay between material features and contextual use
by supporters and counter-actors inuenced the visibility of content in ways that
generated both discursive openness and closure. On the Titanpad platform, for
example, actors could add and delete specic content to open up or close down
discourse by aligning or misaligning it with a particular perspective, position,
or stance. On Twitter, supporters of #SchauHin generated and amalgamated
content to fuel discursive openness, while counter-actors generated opposing or
confusing content to generate discursive closure. In this way, platforms constitute
social spaces where actors might engage in a struggle around meaning-making
(Albu & Etter, 2016; Etter & Albu, 2020).
Yet, at the same time, platforms themselves have agency with regard to what
they make visible or invisible (Leonardi, 2012). Although users actively appro-
priate and adapt platform technologies for their particular interests and agen-
das, the properties and architectures of these platforms also shape content and
usage (Costa, 2018). They may even do so in ways that implicitly support prac-
tices like trolling and harassment (Massanari, 2017). Twitter and Facebook, for
example, have been criticized for fueling ideological polarization (Dylko et al.,
2017), disinformation (Tucker et al., 2018), and lter bubbles or echo chambers
(Pariser, 2011) that decrease the likelihood of encountering ideologically cross-
cutting content. In response to such criticisms, there have been attempts to alter
certain aspects or features of digital platforms. An illustrative example would be
Twitter’s move to ag tweets with warnings and public interest notices – most
notably, agging several of former US President Donald Trump’s tweets for “glo-
rifying violence.” By agging a tweet, Twitter requires users to take an extra step
of clicking a “view” button to access the tweet. Moreover, users are restricted
from directly retweeting or “liking” the tweet. This move by Twitter has generated
intense debate and mixed responses especially in Silicon Valley. Whereas some in
the tech industry praised this feature, others cautioned that such interventions
move digital platforms into the sphere of political activism and inuence. Thus,
despite some platforms’ claims of being apolitical, they are rarely ever neutral
(Costa, 2018; Gümüsay & Reinecke, 2022) – as their features are often based on
opaque algorithmic systems of content moderation and user governance designed
to orchestrate relationships in favor of advertisers or competent manipulators
(Gillespie, 2010, 2018).
CONCLUSION
Digital platforms provide infrastructures for expansive and immediate connectiv-
ity. They have become arenas of interaction that facilitate, regulate, and shape

80 ALI ASLAN GÜMÜSAY ET AL.
communication between ever-shifting coalitions that form and dissolve around
each issue (van Dijck, 2013). Using the case of #SchauHin, we have shown
how technology – and digital platforms in particular – can inuence discursive
struggles and contestation around highly institutionalized practices, beliefs, and
behaviors. Our study thus joins the call for a better appreciation of how digi-
tal technology interacts with institutions and how it can fundamentally trans-
form ways of mobilizing to effect change (Hinings et al., 2018; see also Berente
& Seidel, 2022; Gurses, Yakis-Douglas, & Özcan, 2022; Jarvis, Eden, Wright, &
Burton-Jones, 2022; Schildt, 2022). It does so by underscoring the importance of
and the struggle around generating visibility and by disentangling how actors’
contextual intentions and use of digital technological features enable or under-
mine processes of visibilization.
NOTES
1. SchauHin translates literally to “look there” or more colloquially to “open your
eyes.”
2. The NPD is an extreme far-right party in Germany.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are grateful to the editorial team of this special volume, in particular Thomas
Gegenhuber, and our two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. We
would also like to express our appreciation to #SchauHin for offering us data
access. Finally, we would like to thank the Humboldt Institute for Internet and
Society for open access funding support.
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