scholarly journals Activism in the time of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-305
Author(s):  
Peter R. Grant ◽  
Heather J. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Health Economic ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Isolation ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Social Identification ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Emotional Climate ◽  
Social Inequities

In many countries, COVID-19 has amplified the health, economic and social inequities that motivate group-based collective action. We draw upon the SIRDE/IDEAS model of social change to explore how the pandemic might have affected complex reactions to social injustices. We argue that the virus elicits widespread negative emotions which are spread contagiously through social media due to increased social isolation caused by shelter-in-place directives. When an incident occurs which highlights systemic injustices, the prevailing negative emotional climate intensifies anger at these injustices as well as other emotions, which motivates participation in protest actions despite the obvious risk. We discuss how the pandemic might shape both normative and non-normative protests, including radical violent and destructive collective actions. We also discuss how separatism is being encouraged in some countries due to a lack of effective national leadership and speculate that this is partially the result of different patterns of social identification.

Networked Collective Actions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyunjin Seo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
South Korea ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
South Korean ◽  
History Of ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
Key Participants

Massive and sustained candlelight vigils in 2016–2017, the most significant citizen-led protests in the history of democratic South Korea, led to the impeachment and removal of then President Park Geun-hye. These protests took place in a South Korean media environment characterized by polarization and low public trust, and where conspiracy theories and false claims by those opposing impeachment were frequently amplified by extreme right-wing media outlets. How then was it possible for pro-impeachment protests seeking major social change to succeed? And why did pro-Park protesters and government efforts to defend Park ultimately fail? An agent-affordance framework is introduced to explain how key participants (agents), including journalists, citizens, social media influencers, bots, and civic organizations, together produced a broad citizen consensus that Park should be removed from office. This was accomplished by creatively employing affordances made available by South Korea’s history, legal system, and technologies. New empirical evidence illustrates the ongoing significant roles of both traditional and nontraditional agents as they continue to co-adapt to affordances provided by changing information environments. Interviews with key players yield firsthand descriptions of events. The interviews, original content analyses of media reports, and examination of social media posts combine to provide strong empirical support for the agent-affordance framework. Lessons drawn from citizen-led protests surrounding Park Geun-hye’s removal from office in South Korea are used to offer suggestions for how technology-enabled affordances may support and constrain movements for social change elsewhere in the world.

Bridging Women Rights Networks

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serpil T. Yuce ◽  
Nitin Agarwal ◽  
Rolf T. Wigand ◽  
Merlyna Lim ◽  
Rebecca S. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Cooperative Networks ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Digital Activism ◽  
Network Support ◽  
Diffusion Of Information ◽  
The Arab Spring ◽  
Women Rights

In recent mass protests such as the Arab Spring and Occupy movements, protesters used social media to spread awareness, coordinate, and mobilize support. Social media-assisted collective action has attracted much attention from journalists, political observers, and researchers of various disciplines. In this article, the authors study transnational online collective action through the lens of inter-network cooperation. The authors analyze interaction and support between the women's rights networks of two online collective actions: ‘Women to Drive' (primarily Saudi Arabia) and ‘Sexual Harassment' (global). Methodologies used include: extracting each collective action's social network from blogs authored by female Muslim bloggers (23 countries), mapping interactions among network actors, and conducting sentiment analysis on observed interactions to provide a better understanding of inter-network support. The authors examine these two distinct but overlapped networks of collective actions and discover that brokering and bridging processes can facilitate the diffusion of information, coalition formation, and the expansion of the networks. The broader goal of the study is to examine the dynamics between interconnected collective actions. This research contributes to understanding the mobilization of social movements in digital activism and the role of cooperative networks in online collective action.

The more the merrier? The effects of system-aggregated group size information on user's efficacy and intention to participate in collective actions

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Hao Lee ◽  
Carlin Littles
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Collective Efficacy ◽  
Group Size ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Curvilinear Relationship ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Intentions To Participate

PurposeSocial media platforms are increasingly used by activists to mobilize collective actions online and offline. Social media often provide visible information about group size through system-generated cues. This study is based on social cognitive theory and examines how visible group size on social media influences individuals' self-efficacy, collective efficacy and intentions to participate in a collective action among groups with no prior collaboration experiences.Design/methodology/approachA between-subject online experiment was conducted with a sample of 188 undergraduate participants in a large public university in the United States. Six versions of a Facebook event page with identical contents were created. The study manipulated the group size shown on the event page (control, 102, 302, 502, 702 and 902). Participants were randomly assigned to one of the six conditions and asked to read and assess an event page that calls for a collective action. Then their collective efficacy, self-efficacy and intentions to participate were measured.FindingsThe results showed that the system-aggregated group size was not significantly associated with perceived collective efficacy, but there was a curvilinear relationship between the group size and perceived self-efficacy. Self-efficacy partially mediated the relationship between group size and intentions to participate; collective efficacy did not.Originality/valueThe study contributes to social movement theories by moving beyond personal grievance and identity theories to examine how individuals' efficacy beliefs can be affected by the cues that are afforded by social media platforms. The study shows that individuals use system-generated cues about the group size for assessing the perceived self-efficacy and collective efficacy in a group with no prior affiliations. Group size also influenced individual decisions to participate in collective actions through self-efficacy and collective efficacy.

Role of Social Media and Emotion in South Korea’s Presidential Impeachment Protests

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (01) ◽  
pp. 1950002 ◽  
Author(s):  
HEE MIN ◽  
SEONGYI YUN
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Organizational Form ◽  
Collective Actions

Previous studies have shown that social media is effective in large-scale mobilization, facilitating leaderless and more flexible forms of resistance. However, some scholars argue that this type of mobilization suffers from a lack of organizational form and collective identity. This paper shows that social media-centered networks can in fact promote collective actions powerful enough to challenge a corrupt president. We also prove the role of emotions in collective actions. Using an empirical analysis of the 2016 Presidential Impeachment Protests surrounding “Choi Soon-sil Gate,” we first demonstrate the effects of social media activities on participation in collective actions. Next, we explore the effects of anger on social media activities and participation. In short, this study reveals a new angle on social media’s influence in mobilizing collective actions by analyzing the effect of emotions on participation. In this process, social media activities are escalated by emotional outbreaks, and participation then increases throughout a given collective action.

scholarly journals Riders, Rights and Collective Action

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holm-Detlev Köhler
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Union Power ◽  
Power Resources

The aim of this chapter is to develop a conceptual framework for analysing the collective actions and organisational practices of delivery and transportation gig-workers, building on Rosa Luxemburg’s colonisation concept and on the power resources theory employed in current trade union analysis. The empirical bases are recent surveys and studies on platform work, the analysis of websites and social media communities for the collective action of platform workers and conversations with platform activists in several European countries. The specific characteristics of platform workers’ collective actions and organisational practices are examined with a view to identifying their potential and the opportunities they afford in the light of different trade union power resources.

Social Media and Cyberactivism

2018 ◽  
pp. 369-393
Author(s):  
Chris Stiff
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Online Resources ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
The Future ◽  
Hearts And Minds

When created, social media was merely a somewhat frivolous method of disseminating media to others within an online network. Since then it has evolved to become a key facet of online life. This chapter examines how social media has fostered cyberactivism, the propagation of political and social change through the use of online resources. It first considers broad motives for social media use and how these may map onto cyberactivism. The chapter then investigates how classic models of offline collective action may apply to online versions of this behavior. It also asks if cyberactivism actually has any meaningful effect or, if not, if it simply provides users with the illusion of philanthropy without contributing anything authentic, that is, “slacktivism.” Finally, the chapter considers the future of cyberactivism, and how continued developments in social media mean the online arena will only become more important when attempting to change hearts and minds.

scholarly journals Social Identification and Collective Action Participation in the Internet Age: A Meta-Analysis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serap Akfirat ◽  
Mete Sefa Uysal ◽  
Fatih Bayrak ◽  
Tolga Ergiyen ◽  
Emir Üzümçeker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Social Identification ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Group Type ◽  
Internet Age ◽  
Moderator Effects ◽  
The Relationship

There is a debate about the dynamics of participation in collective actions in the Internet age whether different or not from the engage in conventional ones. Some scholars claimed that the role of shared social identity is relatively unimportant in the Internet age. In order to clarify whether collective actions in the digital age still rely on social identification or not, we conducted a meta-analysis of 40 studies (N = 16,933) focused on digitally-mediated collective actions. We examined the relationship between social identification and collective action, and the possible moderator effects of group type, participation type, and WEIRDness of sample. We found a strong relationship between social identification and collective action participation. Group type was a significant moderator showing the relationship is much stronger in the emergent group compared to the pre-existing group. We discussed the theoretical implications of the results emphasized the basic dynamics of collective actions.

Emotional Consequences of Collective Action Participation

2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (12) ◽  
pp. 1587-1598 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia C. Becker ◽  
Nicole Tausch ◽  
Ulrich Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Positive Affect ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Behavioral Consequences ◽  
The Future ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Positive And Negative Emotions ◽  
Willingness To Engage

The present research examines the emotional and behavioral consequences of collective action participation. It demonstrates that “positive” and “negative” emotions can be experienced simultaneously as a result of collective action participation, yet it is important to distinguish outgroup-directed from self-directed emotions. Results of two experiments ( N = 71 and N = 101) that manipulated participation in collective action illustrate that whereas collective action participants experience more outgroup-directed anger and contempt, they feel more self-directed positive affect. Furthermore, collective action participation predicted willingness to engage in moderate and radical collective actions in the future. These relations were mediated by outgroup-directed, but not by self-directed, emotions, suggesting that outgroup-directed rather than self-directed emotions play a crucial role in the maintenance of protest behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Rise UP!: A content analytic study of how collective action is discussed within White nationalist videos on YouTube

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110405
Author(s):  
Ian Hawkins ◽  
Muniba Saleem
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
White Identity ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Psychological Mechanisms ◽  
Quantitative Content ◽  
The Social ◽  
Identity Model

There are worldwide concerns about the rise of White nationalism and its implications for intergroup relations in multicultural societies. Social media, in particular, has allowed far-right groups to easily share their perspectives with and influence others in support of their ideologies. Yet, few studies have empirically examined what psychological factors are discussed within this content to motivate collective action. A quantitative content analysis of 100 White nationalist videos on YouTube reveals that social outgroups (Muslims, immigrants, feminists) are frequently discussed as threats to Whites’ status. Not only were calls for collective action discussed in at least 12% of videos, themes surrounding White identity and injustice faced by Whites were often underlying these calls, consistent with the theoretical propositions of the Social Identity Model of Collective Action. These results are novel as they identify psychological mechanisms referenced in White nationalist social media that motivate collective actions among White Americans.

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