Many scholars discuss the role of social media in the context of social movements, but there remain major disagreements regarding the precise role that social media plays. One area that deserves more in-depth study is the affordances of social media for constructing collective identity. This article examines the case of an Iranian women's rights campaign page on Facebook, "My Stealthy Freedom," using an analysis of textual and visual content. The article examines how online campaign pages on Facebook contribute to the formation of collective identity and the construction of a campaign narrative. Following the analysis, the authors discuss how photobiographic campaigns-social media users sharing personal photos and adjoining personal narratives in support of a cause-illustrate two affordances of social media for construction of collective identity: affordances for discourse and affordances for performance. Affordances for discourse contribute to the collective action framing process through sharing of grievances and collectively negotiating meaning. These affordances also contribute to a collectively and incrementally constructed narrative by sharing personal stories that resonate with the group. Affordances for performance focus on the enactment of protest through transgressive photobiographies deliberately staged to convey the movement message to broader audiences. Here, transgressive photobiographies are defined as modular performances that can be adopted for the repertoires of contentious politics through protesting of laws and norms, such as the mandatory hijab. These transgressive performances create group solidarity through engagement in risk, thereby contributing to the formation of group identities.
Abstract:The activity of the Facebook Group, "Join the Coffee Party Movement" (Coffee Party) is studied during a 7-month period leading up to and following the 2010 United States Midterm election. During this time, Coffee Party Facebook page administrators posted 872 parent posts that received 152,762 comments from group members. Utilizing our previously established method for extracting and analyzing electronic trace data, we constructed a weighted social network from the parent posts and associated comments. We measured network centralization and total post activity for the entire network and identified individuals with high betweenness centrality across three dimensions: 1) Time, 2) Parent Post Category and 3) Specific Parent Posts. We report three key findings. First, the structure, centralization and leadership within the network differ in four key time periods: the time preceding the midterm election, the week of the midterm election, the time immediately following the midterm election and the time period when the new Congress was sworn in. Second, the Coffee Party Administrators act as agenda setters with the parent posts, but show significant variation in their comment participation over time. Third, participants in the discourse alter their discourse role according to specific parent post and category. Our findings have implications for issue groups and candidates who utilize social media tools to mobilize support and engage with supporters.
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