Democratic Socialists on Social Media: Cohesion, Fragmentation, and Normative Strategies

Abstract

This essay focuses on members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) political organisation in the US and the ambivalence of using social media as a primary means of communication for socialist information and culture. Relying on in-depth interviews with fifteen active members and leaders in DSA, this essay asks: How does socialist communication on social media encourage both cohesion and fragmentation for activists within the DSA? Locating and analysing key tensions felt by DSA members in response to their use of Facebook and Twitter, this project sheds light on the ways in which socialism is presently communicated to publics and counterpublics and identifies important challenges for the expansion of the socialist movement.

The Socialist Macro-Sect in the 'Digital Age': The Victorian Socialists' Strategy for Assembling a Counter-Public

“…Even these practices are complementary with digital media, as illustrated by the use of digital media to organise doorknocking. A study of DSA members' use of social media has parallel results to my own case study, finding that while social media served to widely promote socialist ideas, many activists were also ambivalent about the medium (Barnes 2020). The macro-sects' lack of interest in digital media contrasts with other schools, such as breathlessly techno-utopian work on "postcapitalism" (Mason 2015;Srnicek and Williams 2015), and more sober work on "digital socialism" ).…”

“…Also unlike Marxist micro-sects, neither the Vic-Socialists nor the DSA have their own newspapers, a 20th-century legacy form of communicationyet activists from both organisations tended to engage with popular socialist magazine Jacobin, which is not officially affiliated to any one organisation. Both organisations also strongly use digital media; yet, like VicSocialist activists, DSA activists are ambivalent about corporate social media (Barnes 2020). DSA members argued for collective social media pages to counter the social media tendency towards individualist fragmentation (Barnes 2020), a strategy also used by the Vic-Socialists with its public pages.…”

“…Additionally, the finding that the VicSocialists are ambivalent about digital media is paralleled by a study on parallel macro-sect the DSA (Barnes 2020). This study found that digital platforms such as Facebook and Twitter served contradictory purposes of cohesion and fragmentation.…”

“…There are fewer members, but members are more likely to be active. DSA activists interviewed by Barnes (2020) suggested that a relatively low proportion of their 50,000 members participate in faceto-face organisation. Like the digital parties, the DSA has a significantly larger membership than the VicSocialists.…”

“…Vic-Socialists activist and casual academic Daniel Lopez noted that a resident he spoke to on the doorstep in Brunswick had read an article Lopez wrote for US socialist magazine Jacobin, which he found on social mediaindicating the way digital connections and face-to-face connections can be complementary. The emphasis on face-to-face communication, given the limitations of digital media, is shared with DSA activists interviewed by Barnes (2020). Therefore this may be a key aspect of the socialist macro-sect, although face-to-face communication remains necessary in all party forms.…”