Making Sense of Social Change: Observing Collective Action in Networked Cultures

This article presents an overview of rising trends in the study of networked interactions conveyed by social media technologies and the emergence of new meanings associated with social change. In recent years, a healthy amount of studies has focused on ICT uses within collective action, considering social media tools to have become crucial components of many transnational movements and social change projects. Crossing boundaries between social movements theories, political science, and communication studies, literature suggests that ‘online activism’ and increasingly networked interactions may have transformed the meanings and definitions associated with ‘collective action’ and ‘social change’. To make sense of these meanings, we identify three approaches used by scholars, which focus on (i) the actual networking of actors, (ii) the diffusion of new repertoires and frames through networks, and (iii) making sense of new meanings conveyed within networked cultures. We conclude by suggesting the need for more comprehensive research to better observe and make sense of how's actors define collective action and how they use social media tools when striving to convey social change.     

The rise and fall of collective identity in networked movements: communication protocols,Facebook, and the anti-Berlusconi protest

This paper explores the impact of communication protocols on the development of collective identity in networked movements. It focuses primarily on how communication protocols change patterns of interactions and power relationships among the constituents of social movements. The paper suggests that the communication protocols of commercial social networking media lead to organizational centralization and fragmentation in social movements by eroding one of the preconditions of collective identity, namely solidarity. The empirical material presented is part of a PhD dissertation on a political protest movement and their use of Facebook as a core communication and organizational platform. The data gathering is multi-methodological and relies on both qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques in the form of a historical analysis of interaction patterns, and a content analysis of online conversations among activists.     

Are social networks technologically embedded?: How networks are changing today with changes in communication technology

Communication mediated by various technologies (from ordinary mail to today's Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)) provides important evidence for the study of social networks. Given that networks generate the possibility of interpersonal communication, data on technology use can provide important information on sociability. However, it is also true that personal networks not only shape, but also are shaped by technological means for communication, since these entail the re-constituting of social ties and the re-drawing of social boundaries. We use material from empirical studies carried out over the last 3 years to develop our hypothesis of the way forms of relationship change with technology. In particular, we try to understand the relationship between social networks (a set of social ties possessing one or more relational dimensions), exchanges between actors (made up of a succession of embodied gestures and language acts) and the various technical means for communication available today, which enable an exchange to be completed. Each of these three poles poses constraints on interaction, and provides resources for it, and thus all three shape the form relational practices take. Empirical data show how technological means of communication allow people to re-negotiate the constraints of individual time rhythms, and of who one communicates with. They also illustrate how the relational economy (and power) is affected by the deployment of communication technologies. Tools of communication provide new resources to negotiate individual timetables and social exchanges, making it possible to adjust roles, hierarchies and forms of power in relational economies. We argue that the general change observed over the last 20 years is from established roles to mutual reachability. The traditional communication model, where tele-communication is used to connect people who are physically separated from each other, is gradually being supplanted with a new pattern of “connected presence”. In this new mode other people are telephoned, “SMSed”, seen and mailed in alternated way and small gestures or signs of attention are at least as important as the message content itself.     

OUR Walmart: a case study of connective action

This article analyzes communication practices within networked social movements by exploring the network structure of an organization responsible for numerous labor actions and campaigns targeting the retail giant Walmart. This case study of the Organization United for Respect at Walmart (OUR Walmart) represents an initial attempt to map the network structure of an emergent form of labor organization. To better understand the relationship between communication and collective action, I utilize Bennett and Segerberg's [(2012). The logic of connective action: Digital media and the personalization of contentious politics. Information, Communication & Society, 15(5), 29] model of connective action to examine the organizational structure of OUR Walmart. I conducted semi-structured interviews with a dozen union representatives, OUR Walmart members, and current and former Walmart employees. My intention is to (1) delineate the network structure of a new and significant organizational form of class struggle and (2) consider the utility and validity of the logic of connective action. I conclude with a consideration of the limitations and affordances of the network structure of OUR Walmart for workers engaged in struggles for better working conditions and higher wages. This research finds support for Bennett and Segerberg's model of large-scale action networks. Moreover, this research suggests that organizationally enabled networks are an effective means of coordinating class struggle.     

Are older adults networked individuals? Insights from East Yorkers’ network structure,relational autonomy,and digital media use

ABSTRACT

Networked individualism is a critical concept about the transition of the societal shift from geographically bounded local groups to the contemporary network society comprised of sparse, permeable, and dynamic communication networks. An underlying assumption about networked individuals thus far in the literature is that they are at a younger age. There are fears that older adults have been left behind in this transition to networked individualism. In this study, we are the first to inquire to what extent ? and in what ways ? are older adults networked individuals. Using in-depth interviews with 41 older adults living in the East York area of Toronto, we used a combination of quantitative coding, thematic analysis, and individual profiling to analyze their social network structure, relational autonomy, and digital media use. Our findings render a rather complex and nuanced picture, showing three types of older adults along the spectrum of networked individualism: networked individuals, socially connected but not networked individuals, and socially constrained individuals. Although most participants are socially connected, those who are networked individuals actively manage and navigate multiple, diverse, and non-redundant social networks. Digital media use is neither necessary nor sufficient in qualifying a person as a networked individual as the great majority of East Yorkers ? even if not networked individuals ? integrate digital media into their everyday lives.     

Networked audiences and cultural globalization

Most research approaches globalization from a top‐down perspective that looks at how past economic, political, and cultural arrangements influence non‐Western cultures. This essay instead uses the concept of the networked audience as an entry point to understand the dynamics of cultural globalization. We first discuss the mass audience in relation to cultural imperialism/homogenization. We then examine the recent shift to the networked audience in the context of digital globalization, computer networking, and social media. Afterwards, we investigate how the conceptualization of global networked audiences contributes to new understandings of global cultures and exchanges. The network perspective suggests that the traditional conceptualization of globalization via the center‐periphery model no longer works, but rather that cultural flows through networks enable individuals to have some, but limited, agency and power to resist corporate and elite controls.     

How Theory and Research Inform Citizen Participation in Poor Communities: The Ecological Perspective and Theories on Self- and Collective Efficacy and Sense of Community

The engagement of residents in poor, disadvantaged communities has been a focus of social work practice since the early part of the twentieth century. In the person:environment configuration, a renewed appreciation is building for community-level factors in human behavior and functioning. Poor neighborhoods are transactional settings that can negatively impact human behavior and development. However, active citizen participation can positively impact neighborhoods, including strengthening residents' individual and collective capacities and relationships. This article uses the ecological perspective to examine the neighborhood as a transactional setting that influences individual and collective behavior and outcomes and citizen participation as vehicle for improving outcomes for residents living in poor communities. The article also discusses theory and research on self- and collective efficacy and sense of community to understand the motivation for and benefits of citizen participation. Implications for social work research and practice are discussed.     

The concept of social movement

Recent developments in social movement research have evidenced a greater underlying consensus in the field than one might have assumed. Efforts have been made to bridge different perspectives and merge them into a new synthesis. Yet, comparative discussion of the concept of ‘social movement’ has been largely neglected so far. This article reviews and contrasts systematically the definitions of ‘social movement’ formulated by some of the most influential authors in the field. A substantial convergence may be detected between otherwise very different approaches on three points at least. Social movements are defined as networks of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups and/or organizations, engaged in political or cultural conflicts, on the basis of shared collective identities. It is argued that the concept is sharp enough a) to differentiate social movements from related concepts such as interest groups, political parties, protest events and coalitions; b) to identify a specific area of investigation and theorising for social movement research.     

Organizations,coalitions, and movements

This article uses empirical evidence on networks of voluntary organizations mobilizing on ethnic minority, environmental, and social exclusion issues in two British cities, to differentiate between social movement processes and other, cognate collective action dynamics. Social movement processes are identified as the building and reproducing of dense informal networks between a multiplicity of actors, sharing a collective identity, and engaged in social and/or political conflict. They are contrasted to coalitional processes, where alliances to achieve specific goals are not backed by significant identity links, and organizational processes, where collective action takes place mostly in reference to specific organizations rather than broader, looser networks.     

Neighborhoods in the Network Society the e-Neighbors study

This study examines whether the Internet is increasingly a part of everyday neighborhood interactions, and in what specific contexts Internet use affords the formation of local social ties. Studies of Internet and community have found that information and communication technologies provide new opportunities for social interaction, but that they may also increase privatism by isolating people in their homes. This paper argues that while the Internet may encourage communication across great distances, it may also facilitate interactions near the home. Unlike traditional community networking studies, which focus on bridging the digital divide, this study focuses on bridging the divide between the electronic and parochial realms. Detailed, longitudinal social network surveys were completed with the residents of four contrasting neighborhoods over a period of three years. Three of the four neighborhoods were provided with a neighborhood email discussion list and a neighborhood website. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to model over time the number of strong and weak ties, emailed, met in-person, and talked to on the telephone. The neighborhood email lists were also analyzed for content. The results suggest that with experience using the Internet, the size of local social networks and email communication with local networks increases. The addition of a neighborhood email list further increases the number of weak neighborhood ties, but does not increase communication multiplexity. However, neighborhood effects reduce the influence of everyday Internet use, as well as the experimental intervention, in communities that lack the context to support local tie formation.     

Place,space, networks,and the sustainability of collective action: the Madres de Plaza de Mayo

This article provides a framework for analysing social movements and explaining how collective action can be sustained through networks. Drawing on current relational views of place and space, I offer a spatialized conception of social networks that critically synthesizes network theory, research on social movements, and the literature on the spatial dimensions of collective action. I examine the historic and contemporary network geographies of a group of human rights activists in Argentina (the Madres de Plaza de Mayo) and explain the duration of their activism over a period of more than two decades with regard to the concept of geographic flexibility. To be specific, first I show how, through the practice of place‐based collective rituals, activists have maintained network cohesion and social proximity despite physical distance. Second, I examine how the construction of strategic networks that have operated at a variety of spatial scales has allowed the Madres to access resources that are important for sustaining mobilization strategies. Finally, I discuss how the symbolic depiction of places has been used as a tool to build and sustain network connections among different groups. I conclude by arguing that these three dimensions of the Madres’ activism account for their successful development of geographically flexible networks, and that the concept of geographic flexibility provides a useful template for studies of the duration and continuity of collective action.     

Multitudinous identities: a qualitative and network analysis of the 15M collective identity

The emergence of network-movements since 2011 has opened the debate around the way in which social media and networked practices make possible innovative forms of collective identity. We briefly review the literature on social movements and ‘collective identity’, and show the tension between different positions stressing either organization or culture, the personal or the collective, aggregative or networking logics. We argue that the 15M (indignados) network-movement in Spain demands conceptual and methodological innovations. Its rapid emergence, endurance, diversity, multifaceted development and adaptive capacity, posit numerous theoretical and methodological challenges. We show how the use of structural and dynamic analysis of interaction networks (in combination with qualitative data) is a valuable tool to track the shape and change of what we term the ‘systemic dimension’ of collective identities in network-movements. In particular, we introduce a novel method for synchrony detection in Facebook activity to identify the distributed, yet integrated, coordinated activity behind collective identities. Applying this analytical strategy to the 15M movement, we show how it displays a specific form of systemic collective identity we call ‘multitudinous identity’, characterized by social transversality and internal heterogeneity, as well as a transient and distributed leadership driven by action initiatives. Our approach attends to the role of distributed interaction and transient leadership at a mesoscale level of organizational dynamics, which may contribute to contemporary discussions of collective identity in network-movements.     

Saving the Moral Capital of NGOs: Identifying One-Sided and Many-Sided Social Dilemmas in NGO Accountability

The literature on nonprofit management has embraced the concept of “accountability” to target urgent challenges related to NGO probity and integrity, and there have been attempts in the literature to use rational-choice-based governance approaches to solve them. Although the existing principal–agent frameworks provide important insights, they are limited to the analysis of financial relationships between NGOs and donors. We contribute to the literature in developing a comprehensive rational-choice-based governance approach to analyze all stakeholder relationships of NGOs. Applying the research program of ordonomics, we unpack two fundamental interaction problems: (a) the “stakeholder dilemma” between the NGO and a single accountability holder as a one-sided social dilemma and (b) the “competition dilemma” among rival NGOs as a many-sided social dilemma. We show that improving NGO accountability in relation to intended beneficiaries, peer organizations, and the general public also requires identifying the underlying governance problem as a competition dilemma focusing on collective self-regulation as a solution.     

Trusting Strangers: Work Relationships in Four High-Tech Communities

For the last ten years, anthropologists have been studying work, family and technology in Silicon Valley. Using intensive observation and ethnographic interviews, we have investigated the daily life of people in Silicon Valley in an ecosystem of research endeavours we have dubbed the Silicon Valley Cultures Project, supported by grants by the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, as well as through partnerships with the Institute for the Future. The latter collaborated to conduct ethnographic interviews on the details of work and technologically mediated communications in Bangalore, India, Dublin, Ireland, and the Taipei-Hsinchu corridor in Taiwan, revealing the complexities of global interconnections in families and workplaces. These projects have explored the penetration of work, technology and global interconnections into the daily lives of the people. We used a comparative approach, a multisite research design, to yield different research questions. Cross-site analysis allows us to see that differing social and technical infrastructures shape the way trust is built and maintained. Locating research sites in different locations also emphasizes the problematic nature of technologically-mediated relationships, since networks built at a distance and maintained virtually have risks that locally constructed networks do not. Workers in Silicon places are simultaneously inwardly-focused and embedded in a local context and connected to global economic and communications nodes. Interdependent high-tech work, often using technologically-mediated communication, requires a high degree of trust. The cultural construction of 'trust', and the culturally situated negotiation of trust relationships need to be explored in this context. High-tech knowledge work is done by networks of interdependent global workers that must share information, act under a severe time constraint, and establish effective relationships at a distance. The management of interpersonal and organizational expectations that is embodied in the concept 'trust' is an example of how locally constructed cultural realities are enacted on a global stage.     

Triangulating the Self: Identity Processes in a Connected Era

The increasing prevalence of digital social technologies in everyday life affects processes of self and identity in theoretically and empirically interesting ways. Based on face‐to‐face interviews (N = 17) and synchronous text‐based exchanges (N = 32) from a Facebook‐based population, I examine the conditions of identity negotiation in a networked era, and explore how social actors strike a presentational balance between ideal and authentic. I identify three key interaction conditions: fluidity between digital and physical, expectations of accuracy, and overlapping social networks. I argue that social actors accomplish the ideal‐authentic balance through self‐triangulation, presenting a coherent image in multiple arenas and through multiple media. I differentiate between two degrees of triangulation: networked logic and preemptive action.     

Ethnographic Cartographies: Social Movements,Alternative Media and the Spaces of Networks

Research on social movement networks has been defined by an emphasis on structural determinism and quantitative methodologies, and has often overlooked the spatial dimension of networking practices. This article argues that scholars have much to gain if (1) they move beyond the understanding of networks as organisational and communication structures, and analyse them as everyday social processes of human negotiation and construction, and (2) they pay attention to how networks between different organisations create multiple and overlapping spaces of action and meaning that define the everyday contexts of social movements. Drawing on ethnographic research within the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, this article explores the everyday dimension of political and communication networks. It shows that everyday networking practices are embedded in processes of identification and meaning construction, and are defined by a politics of inclusion and exclusion; introducing the concept of ethnographic cartography, it demonstrates that social movement networks are incorporated into everyday practices and narratives of place-making.     

Managing relationships on Facebook: A long-term analysis of leading companies in Germany

The purpose of this study is to investigate how companies manage relationships with publics on social media. Based on the concepts of functional and contingency interactivity, the study examines the long-term implementation of three interactive strategies derived from research on organization-public relationships: dialogic communication, transparent communication, and informal communication. The study sheds further light on relational outputs and outcomes. The results of content analyses of leading German companies’ Facebook pages in 2012, 2015, and 2018 indicate the growing importance of dialogic communication and informal communication. There is a constant relation between dialogic communication and the extent of user interaction, with the analysis suggesting that dialogic communication is used to manage critical user comments. Hence, the long-term study contributes to a deeper understanding of professionalization in corporate social media communication. It provides evidence for PR scholars and professionals that there are effective features on Facebook for managing sustainable relationships.     

Networked heirlooms: the affective and financial logics of digital estate planning

This article outlines the emergence of digital estate planning, a new way of managing post-mortem data, considering its cultural history and political stakes. I argue that Web 2.0 logics of interaction and inclusivity, and the subsequent valorization of social data, have led to a new form of accumulation. Unlike estate planners, who are legal professionals paid to manage the finances of wealthy clientele, digital estate planners are start-up company founders who handle the digital possessions of the masses. Because digital estate planning companies are not lucrative, often providing free services, they tend to quickly fold and vanish. Communicative traces do not contain intrinsic monetary worth in isolation. They are, however, speculatively valuable in aggregate, becoming potential networked heirlooms. They provide legible personality profiles of individuals to advertisers, government agencies, and companies such as Facebook and Google. Communicative traces also contain value in their capacity to produce and maintain social networks and affective bonds. Despite the failures of digital estate planning as an enterprise, networked heirlooms point to the dual financial and affective value of personal data under late capitalism.     

SOCIAL MOVEMENT NETWORKS VIRTUAL AND REAL

This paper discusses the impact of 'computer mediated communication' (or CMC) on political activism and social movements. CMC may be expected to affect collective action by improving the effectiveness of communication and facilitating collective identity and solidarity. However, the heterogeneity of social movements undermines generic arguments and their relationship to CMC. Accordingly, the potential consequences of CMC on three different types of political organizations are discussed: organizations mobilizing mainly participatory resources, organizations focusing on professional resources, and transnational networks. The potential to build 'virtual [social movement] communities' seems highest among sympathizers of movement organizations who act professionally on behalf of causes with vast resonance among the public opinion and low radical potential. All in all, the most distinctive contribution of CMC to social movements still seems to be instrumental rather than symbolic. Existing bonds and solidarities are likely to generate more effective mobilization attempts than was the case before the diffusion of CMC; it is more disputable though as to whether CMC may create brand new social ties where there were none.