#digital_disruption @amnesty international: from digital to networked to hybrid activism - A case study of the meaning and adoption of digital activism in changing 20th century civil society organisations

Like many organisations in the 21st century, longstanding civil society organisations are facing new challenges in adapting to the digital age. This thesis addresses those concerns through an exploration of the social meaning and contextualised effects of digital activism at case study Amnesty International. It provides a socio-cultural account of AI and a conceptual perspective on digital activism as part of Amnesty's digitalisation processes. It explores existing concerns around the tension between the potential of digital activism for more decentralised, grassroots movements through broadened political participation, and the more centralised and hierarchical structures developed by long-standing humanitarian organisations - a problem which has been described as the tension between networks and hierarchies (e.g. Lindgren 2013a: 24-25) or between sovereignty and networks (Galloway & Thacker 2007: 1). This study contends that there are analytical issues and conceptual implications in describing the new activism as "digital", as what I shall call "digitality" here is neither the sole nor the primary feature along which activism has changed in recent years. The study will argue that digital activism is conceptually dysfunctional because practices described as digital activism aren't always based predominantly on digital activities, which is reflected in participants' descriptions of the phenomenon. Digitality as a descriptor is therefore misleading. The concepts of networked activism (activism based on wide social networks as facilitated by digital technology) and hybrid activism (activism based on top-down and bottom-up co-construction) will therefore be suggested as potentially more suitable descriptions or categories for what has thus far been called digital activism. Those attributes were highlighted as the dominant characteristics of the new activism by study participants. The thesis further argues that humanitarian organisations are facing difficulties in conceptualising and adopting digital activism to the extent that digital activism has become disruptive to them. For that purpose, the thesis draws on Simon Lindgren's (2013a) work on the sociology of digital disruption. The thesis argues that digital disruption occurs as a result of digital activism challenging hierarchical organisational structures, practices, and cultures, leading to structural and cultural changes. It further argues that, in response to the cultural and structural challenges posed by digital activism, the organisation is moving away from an understanding of digital activism and culture as something that is digital towards something that is networked, which is reflected in participant views and the organisation' restructuring of its digital work from a centralised to a networked model. There are also tentative efforts at Amnesty International to move beyond a network model towards co-constructive (hybrid) working practices with its constituencies. As evidence for the disruptive potential of digital activism the thesis will provide staff members' differing views of digital media and digital activism, uncertainty surrounding the terminology for digital activism, and the organisation's continuously changing integration of digital work (digitalisation). The findings draw on data from a multi-method quasi-ethnographic case study of digital activism conceptualisations and practices at Amnesty International. The methods include participant observation offline at the organisation's headquarters in London, online observation in the internal Amnesty International Social Media Managers' Facebook group, and 20 interviews with AI staff members

#digital_disruption @amnesty international: from digital to networked to hybrid activism - A case study of the meaning and adoption of digital activism in changing 20th century civil society organisations

Like many organisations in the 21st century, longstanding civil society organisations are facing new challenges in adapting to the digital age. This thesis addresses those concerns through an exploration of the social meaning and contextualised effects of digital activism at case study Amnesty International. It provides a socio-cultural account of AI and a conceptual perspective on digital activism as part of Amnesty's digitalisation processes. It explores existing concerns around the tension between the potential of digital activism for more decentralised, grassroots movements through broadened political participation, and the more centralised and hierarchical structures developed by long-standing humanitarian organisations - a problem which has been described as the tension between networks and hierarchies (e.g. Lindgren 2013a: 24-25) or between sovereignty and networks (Galloway & Thacker 2007: 1). This study contends that there are analytical issues and conceptual implications in describing the new activism as "digital", as what I shall call "digitality" here is neither the sole nor the primary feature along which activism has changed in recent years. The study will argue that digital activism is conceptually dysfunctional because practices described as digital activism aren't always based predominantly on digital activities, which is reflected in participants' descriptions of the phenomenon. Digitality as a descriptor is therefore misleading. The concepts of networked activism (activism based on wide social networks as facilitated by digital technology) and hybrid activism (activism based on top-down and bottom-up co-construction) will therefore be suggested as potentially more suitable descriptions or categories for what has thus far been called digital activism. Those attributes were highlighted as the dominant characteristics of the new activism by study participants. The thesis further argues that humanitarian organisations are facing difficulties in conceptualising and adopting digital activism to the extent that digital activism has become disruptive to them. For that purpose, the thesis draws on Simon Lindgren's (2013a) work on the sociology of digital disruption. The thesis argues that digital disruption occurs as a result of digital activism challenging hierarchical organisational structures, practices, and cultures, leading to structural and cultural changes. It further argues that, in response to the cultural and structural challenges posed by digital activism, the organisation is moving away from an understanding of digital activism and culture as something that is digital towards something that is networked, which is reflected in participant views and the organisation' restructuring of its digital work from a centralised to a networked model. There are also tentative efforts at Amnesty International to move beyond a network model towards co-constructive (hybrid) working practices with its constituencies. As evidence for the disruptive potential of digital activism the thesis will provide staff members' differing views of digital media and digital activism, uncertainty surrounding the terminology for digital activism, and the organisation's continuously changing integration of digital work (digitalisation). The findings draw on data from a multi-method quasi-ethnographic case study of digital activism conceptualisations and practices at Amnesty International. The methods include participant observation offline at the organisation's headquarters in London, online observation in the internal Amnesty International Social Media Managers' Facebook group, and 20 interviews with AI staff members

The problem of history in digital activism: Ideological narratives in digital activism literature

The past decades have generated a wealth of literature on digital activism. Even so, the phenomenon has been little historicised. This paper engages in a deconstructionist exercise on historical references in digital activism literature towards exploring implicit meaning-making in a symbolic-interactionist tradition. It identifies four distinct narratives: 1) a technology narrative [activism as technology-driven]; 2) a communications narrative [activism on the basis of communication options]; 3) an online-off-line narrative [activism based on an online-off-line dichotomy]; and 4) an engagement narrative [activism based on its affordances for public engagement]. The paper argues that these narratives contribute to a distinct, polysemic, and paradoxical understanding of digital activism as a phenomenon that is technologically driven (technological determinism), and both distinct to and enmeshed with traditional activism. In doing so, this narrative analysis shows a range of underlying ideological assumptions in digital activism study and conceptualisation, which informs how the phenomenon is understood today

The social media life of climate change: platforms, publics, and future imaginaries

Social media is a transformative digital technology, collapsing the “six degrees of separation” which have previously characterized many social networks, and breaking down many of the barriers to individuals communicating with each other. Some commentators suggest that this is having profound effects across society, that social media have opened up new channels for public debates and have revolutionized the communication of prominent public issues such as climate change. In this article we provide the first systematic and critical review of the literature on social media and climate change. We highlight three key findings from the literature: a substantial bias toward Twitter studies, the prevalent approaches to researching climate change on social media (publics, themes, and professional communication), and important empirical findings (the use of mainstream information sources, discussions of “settled science,” polarization, and responses to temperature anomalies). Following this, we identify gaps in the existing literature that should be addressed by future research: namely, researchers should consider qualitative studies, visual communication and alternative social media platforms to Twitter. We conclude by arguing for further research that goes beyond a focus on science communication to a deeper examination of how publics imagine climate change and its future role in social life

Affordances and <i>platformed visual misogyny</i> : a call for feminist approaches in visual methods

With social media technologies, feminist perspectives have reached parts of society traditionally uninterested in or fundamentally opposed to them. While feminist activists and allies have employed technological affordances for support, belonging, and justice, the same tools are used by actors of the alt-right to gag feminist voices. As it circulates, anti-feminist content sustains heteropatriarchy and damages women beyond the symbolic by means of trolling, doxxing, and meme wars. We address this through a review of feminist visual methods applied to the analysis of imaginaries of digital gendered hate in four case studies: (1) Greta Thunberg memes in the DENY Facebook group; (2) “Fanquan Girls” meme wars in the Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement; (3) visual artefacts shared under the Twitter hashtag #SisterIDoBelieveYou; and (4) cartoons of Grace Mugabe relating to presidential succession produced in seven African countries. By reflecting on the ethos behind these four cases, we identify specific benefits to be gained from working with feminist visual methods, and contour a novel phenomenon: platformed visual misogyny

When URLs on social networks become invisible : Bias and social media logics in a cross-platform hyperlink study

Extant research has addressed various concerns of representativeness in digital social research including: bias in researchers’ selection of online spaces, foci on single-platform approaches, and limited or skewed samples due to API (application programming interface) restrictions. This paper adds to that work through an illustration of tool bias towards specific social media logics (e.g., Twitter logics) in a URL-based network across/within social media sites (illustrative case study = greenwashing). These “biases” are implicit in design, mirror extant societal trends, and are reinforced through platform biases. As such, researchers using such tools (above all, non-computational scholars) may have little awareness of these subliminal influences. The paper consequently argues that (a) tool choices often fall prey to issues in representation, reinforcing existing biases on a subliminal level; and, that (b) non-platform-specific creative situational approaches (like cross-platform URL explorations) provide a much-needed understanding of wider platform dynamics that highlight such biases