Grassroots organizing in the digital age: considering values and technology in Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street

Abstract

Power dynamics shape, and are shaped by, the tools used by participants in social movements. In this study we explore the values, attitudes, and beliefs of Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street stakeholders as they relate to their use of technology. This multi-method study applies the lens of value sensitive design [VSD; Friedman, B. (Ed.) (1997). Human values and the design of computer technology (vol. 72). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] to examine stakeholder values and sites of value tension. We contextualize our findings with qualitative observation of how these values are reflected in each organization's online spaces, including Facebook, Twitter, and key organizational websites, as well as private spaces such as email.We found liberty, the value most mentioned by Tea Party members, was not reflected in the movement's organizational websites and Facebook pages, where user autonomy is frequently undermined. However, the Occupy value of equality is supported in the movement's web presence. We also found a set of shared central values -privacy and security, inclusion, and consensus -underlying both Tea Party and Occupy's approach to organization and participation. Value tensions around privacy and inclusion emerged for both groups, as some members opted not to use these tools due to security concerns and leaders struggled to adapt their communication strategies accordingly.This study provides insight into the adoption and contestation of different technological tools within grassroots social movements, how those decisions are shaped by core values, and how conflicts over the use of digital tools can result from tension between how different stakeholders prioritize those values.

Political protest 2.0: Social media and the 2012 student strike in the province of Quebec, Canada

“…A content analysis of the 1500 #ggi tweets was conducted manually by the third author of this article with the help of a detailed codebook developed through the consideration of recent studies on Twitter-based political protest (for example, Valenzuela et al, 2012;Agarwal et al, 2014). Recent academic work on Twitterbased mass voter outreach and mobilization by formal political players during electoral campaigns was also taken into account throughout the development of the codebook (Giasson et al, 2013;Roebuck and Beange, 2013).…”

“…In the United States, Agarwal et al (2014) analyzed social media-based mobilization and organizing patterns linked to two grassroots social movements: the Tea Party movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement. W. Lance Bennett and Amoshaun Tolf (2010) examined how narratives travel over different networks in three specific contexts: protest, campaigns and social fora.…”

“…However, others have succeeded in garnering journalistic coverage, mobilizing support, and ultimately forcing governments and other formal political entities to acknowledge their presence and, in some cases, take some of their demands into account in their decision making (Valenzuela, 2013;Turcotte and Raynauld, 2014). Of interest is recent academic work on the Occupy movement (Milkman et al, 2012;DeLuca et al, 2013;Jensen and Bang, 2013;Agarwal et al, 2014;Croeser and Highfield, 2014;Kavada, 2015), the Coffee Party movement (Mascaro and Goggins, 2011;Mascaro et al, 2012), or student-led movements in Chile in 2013 (Garcia et al, 2012;Valenzuela et al, 2012;Scherman et al, 2015) or in Austria in 2009 (Maireder and Schwarzenegger, 2012). These studies provide an in-depth look at the ways in which and to what degree grassroots activists are turning to social media to disseminate information on specific positions, issues or events, generate and cultivate public support, organize and coordinate mobilization efforts, and engage in decentralized political action.…”

Introduction: The Networked Communication of Contentious Politics

“…The beliefs and values 7 that sustain the institutional edifi ce of democracy are articulated in discourse and enacted in social action systematically occurring outside institutional confi nes (Putnam 2000 8 ;Dahlgren 2009 ;Papacharissi 2010 ). Democracy as lived experience abstracted from the act of governance carried out by institutions is emplaced in the physical coordinates of public sites wherein face-toface interaction is contiguous to networked communication (the two often also being in dialectical opposition to each other, Hampton et al 2010 ;Lim 2013 ;Agarwal et al 2014 ). Such colocation has prompted the view that the panoply of public sites of collective action has been enlarged with liminal locales engendered by the mediatisation of politics (Couldry 2008 , p. 376) and networked communication practices of the citizenry at large (Castells 2007 ).…”

Participation in Brazilian Feminist Movements on social networks: a study on the campaign Meu Amigo Secreto (My Secret Santa)

“…The survey fills an important gap in researches on digital activism (AGARWAL et al, 2014;GHOBADI;CLEGG, 2015;LEONG et al, 2015;OH;AGRAWAL;RAO, 2013;WATTAL et al, 2010). Researches on the theme have achieved important progress in the understanding of short-term critical events and actions, but many contexts have not been exploited yet.…”