Social Movements on the Internet: Together Alone or Alone Together?

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS ON THE INTERNET: TOGETHER ALONE OR ALONE

TOGETHER? ECIS 2013 – Utrecht – Friday, June 7

Juan D. Borrero, University of Huelva, [email protected]

Antonio Díaz Andrade, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, [email protected]

Cathy Urquhart, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, UK [email protected]

http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~Vlaan107/ecis/files/ECIS2013-0620-paper.pdf

Does Social Networking Facilitate Collective Action?

• A study of a Facebook Anti-Austerity political campaign, Democracia Real Ya!

• Our preliminary framework suggests that social influences, social capital and the technology platform itself all contribute to collective action through SNS

• We analysed FB posts between17th of July and the 10th of September 2012 and used grounded theory method to analyse those posts

Findings• Voice – the intention is to be seen and heard beyond the online

community

• Multiple agendas - heterogeneous community with very different ideas about to how to go forward

• Call for action – a focus on organising action which is challenging

• Identity – community is united in their disenfranchisement and lack of voice

• Future work will look at other campaigns such as UK Uncut

• COME SEE OUR POSTER – Is Castells right about social media? What role does social capital play? We are interested in debating with you!

11/06/13

IntroductionThe growing popularity of social media platforms is

transforming the ways in which people not only communicate but also demonstrate (Castells, 2012).

Research problem:1) To uncover the patterns of online activism.2) How online activism might trigger mechanisms for

collective action.Research Question:How is social media used by civil society to facilitate

collective action?

ResultsThe massive economic crisis in Spain surfaced many divisions in Spanish society and provoked the eruption of social movements. The posts on DRY’s site reflect those divisions. People are characterized in one of two ways: bankers, politicians, speculators and rich people on one side, and ordinary people who perceive they have been left behind and are unfairly carrying the burden of the severe austerity measures imposed by the government. The table below shows open codes taken from the data along with the corresponding concept.

Example Focused Codes Open Codes

Particular agendas

selfish behaviour; against internal divisions; “not addressing the core issues”; “lack of strategic vision”; lack of shared goals; dominant factions that restrict internal freedom of speech; calls for unity; calls for order; call for organisation; unity

Heterogeneous composition

internal disagreements; negative comments among the protesters; grudges between employees and independent entrepreneurs; inappropriate internal behaviour; calls for avoiding symbols, flags; “call for responsible action”; message of unity; call for a constructive discussion; “calls for a rational discourse”

Perceived lack of progress

“these protests go nowhere”; ephemeral results from the social movements; mobilisation with no results; “too much noise but nothing happens”; “losing momentum”; demoralising effect of limited success; “we complain but do nothing”; “nothing will change”; pessimism; “hopeless actions”

Focused Codes CategoryStruggling for visibility, Platform for expression

Voice

Particular agendas, Heterogeneous composition, Perceived lack of progress

Multiple agendas

Calls for mobilisation, Platform for transformation, Reinvigorating civil society

Call for action

Disenfranchised, Clampdown, Sacrifice, Representativeness

IdentityMethodThe unit of analysis of this study is ¡Democracia Real YA! (DRY) www.democraciarealya.es, an online citizen’s grassroots movement that started in 2011 in Spain. Their members identify themselves as the “unemployed, poorly remunerated, freelancers, vulnerable workers and youth”. Their slogan reads: “We owe nothing, we pay nothing”.

Data was collected from the messages posted on DRY’sFacebook site between July and September 2012. Sampling was designed toward theory construction (Charmaz, 2006). Data analysis was conducted according to the tenets of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). The theory that results may be tested in subsequent quantitative research. The figure below represents the four stage model research design. We have used only the first two in this research in progress.Research design using Grounded Theory (adapted from Idrees et al., 2011; Urquhart, 2013)

Similar concepts are clustered into categories. Thus, this high level description of DRY postings sets the stage for the salient categories that emerge from the grounded theory analysis. The four categories that naturally arose in the previous table are shown with their category in the table below.

The emergent categories reveal three overlapping reasons for using SNS to facilitate collective action:

1. to defend against what is perceived as the threat of neo-liberal policies,2. to enhance the decision-making capability of the protesters in the

political system, and3. to claim the right of being the genuine representatives of people’s

interests.

ConclusionsEven though DRY members do not represent a homogeneous, cohesive group with an easily identifiable common purpose, a large group of people disaffected with dominant system cohabit in the online environment and struggle to make their voice heard in the offline world. The evidence suggests that technology has somewhat increased the opportunity of enrolling more supporters that otherwise could not have been able to join the group.

Our analysis shows that there are heterogeneous groups cohabiting in the online environment, and using social media as a platform to make their voices heard. The challenge for them remains in gaining space in the political decision-making process that takes place offline. They may indeed have achieved being ‘together alone’, but there is still difficulty in accessing power structures that would enable them to achieve social change.

Future work1) Examining the apparent connections between

categories to suggest theories which can explain the data before us, but using two different cases.

2) Theoretical integration of our emerging theory with existing literature.

Social Social MovementsMovements onon thethe Internet: Internet: TogetherTogether AloneAlone oror AloneAlone TogetherTogether??

Juan D Borrero Antonio Díaz Andrade Cathy UrquhartUniversity of Huelva Auckland University of Technology Manchester Metropolitan [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]