From Self Expression to Collective Action

Social Media – Dr. Giorgos Cheliotis (gcheliotis@nus.edu.sg)Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore

Introduction

We have reviewed ‘traditional’ definitions and issues associated with collective action and public goods provision

We explained that people’s intrinsic motivations to contribute to a public good may be threatened by a number of factors but can also be reinforced by other factors, which also depend on the characteristics and design of a community, including its organization

Increasing use of the Internet and the new ways of communication that it enables have created new possibilities for collectivity

In particular, more or less independent actions of self-expression can be much more easily pooled together, leading to the formation of small or large groups with a shared purpose, sometimes even fueling entire highly distributed movements for social change

We will review some of these developments, contrasting them to more traditional understandings of collective action, and in light of a new understanding of online collectivity

CNM Social Media Module – Giorgos Cheliotis (gcheliotis@nus.edu.sg)2

Collective Action

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Common wisdom in collective action theory and practice dictates that smaller groups are more efficient than large groups because group identity and norms can foster cooperation and action can be better coordinated through organization

Also, that free-riding (benefiting from the public good without contributing to it) is a key issue, which can be somewhat mitigated with the creation of ‘selective incentives’ (i.e. private, excludable rewards), that only active contributors will reap in addition to the public good which can be enjoyed by all (public, non-excludable reward)

This would lead one to believe that loosely coordinated efforts at large-scale collective action would be doomed to failure as coordination would be too costly, private rewards may not be strong enough to generate a critical mass of contributions, and many potential contributors would rather wait-and-see rather than risk a significant personal investment of time and resources with possibly minimal impact

Yet, we have many examples of online collective action that works just like that can be considered at least a partial if not always complete success!

Examples

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Flash mobs

Online protest

Offline protest

Large-scale dissemination

Large online repositories

Many online communities work at the provision of openly shared tools and resources. Wikipedia is a prominent example of a public good that can be enjoyed by all. Many more examples in the production of cultural, educational and functional public goods (music and visual repositories, open educational resources, open source software, etc.)

Several successful attempts at utilizing online communication to gather individuals with little or no prior affiliation at a specific location for a public performance that is usually meant to surprise and entertain

Many examples of information and digital content disseminated extremely quickly online thanks to the largely uncoordinated actions of large numbers of users (document leaks of public interest, internet memes, news, reports on state censorship and violations of human rights, internet vigilantism, human flesh search engine)

User-driven dissemination of political statements and protest messages, via email, blogs, and other social media platforms. Displays of support and solidarity with distant others, e.g. during the recent Iran elections and ensuing violence, during the heated debates on the US health care reform bill, or in criticism of state censorship in China.

Use of online communication for the coordination of street protests in many parts of the world, famously in the ‘Battle of Seattle’, but more recently for nearly any large-scale protest, especially where highly distributed and otherwise uncoordinated groups need to coalesce together and where public offline communication may be suppressed

Caveat

Not all collective actions will be to everyone’s liking; they may often challenge the status quo, for better or worse

Many of the examples in the literature are situated in the space of oppositional and usually left-wing politics

Some protests will be forbidden in the countries where they take place

The same communication tools that are used by, say, political dissidents, could also be used by environmentalists, but also by terrorists

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Our aim is thus not to celebrate any and all forms of online collective action, but to appreciate how they depart from traditional conceptions of such action and to recognize the potential for ICTs to enable new forms of bottom-up collectivity

The Internet effect

The more obvious reason why large-scale collective action online is more feasible is the lower communication costs for individuals, as well as the increased symmetry in online communication, where anyone can be a broadcaster to one’s social circles

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Communication is central for collective action

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“Many of the largest obstacles to collective action efforts are communicative and organizational in nature”

Bimber et al, 2005

Locating and contacting potential

participants

Persuading them to contribute in short and long

term

Coordinating their actions as their

numbers increase

Crossing the boundaries Interestingly, Internet communication,

especially social media platforms not only reduce the overall cost of communication and coordination, but also promote the open publication and sharing of individual speech acts, thus making it easier to cross the boundaries between private and public communication

Thus enabling the formation of distributed spaces of affinity, collective identity and knowledge which can be tapped into for collective action

At the expense of some lost privacy in communication

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Traditional vs. modern collective action

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Goal

Organizers*

Participants

Traditional approachhierarchical, more rigidly

coordinated

New approachloosely coordinated,

collective goals emerge from individual goals

Goal

Strengths to both approaches; in practice, they may fuse into

mixed model of interaction and

engagement

public-private boundary

* event organizers, political parties, civil society organizations, special interest groups, lobbies, etc.

Who is influential in new landscape?

Hacker-activists, or ‘hacktivists’ who combine advanced digital literacies with the pursuit of a social-political agenda

Bloggers, and especially networks of bloggers, which are collectively powerful, even if individually powerless, circumventing censorship and other forms of speech suppression using ICT’s

Anyone with a high digital “L”/literacy, i.e. anyone who knows how and what to effectively communicate online (beyond technical skills)

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This does not mean that established structures of power disappear

Several cases of politically motivated persecution and even jailing of bloggers around the world, when deemed a threat to social order

Increased state monitoring of online communication and clampdown on the dissemination of sensitive information or calls to unrest

Outside of politics, mainstream media attempts to retain dominant position by cultural-economic and legal means

Viral information and internet memes

Loosely coordinated networks of internet users rely on some shared affinities and the quick transmission of commonly understood messages across large numbers of users

This begs the question: what forms of content are more ‘viral’ online, i.e. more likely to ‘infect’ the minds of those who receive them and get processed and resent, instead of being filtered out?

Advertisers have been pondering these questions for a long time now; same for scholars studying the evolution of human culture and the spreading of powerful ideas (e.g., ideologies, stereotypes, religious dogmas, etc.)

Of special interest in social media is the phenomenon of internet memes, i.e. user-generated content that spreads like wildfire from one user to another through imitation and replication, often becoming an integral part of contemporary internet culture

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What is a successful meme?

According to the original definition by Dawkins, a successful meme is characterized by Fidelity: maintains its identity while spreading Fecundity (includes concept of susceptibility): high

probability of infection Longevity: sustainable infection

Several scholars have attempted to theorize culture as the dissemination of memes which have agency and infect human carriers who feel compelled to propagate them

The study of ‘memetics’ has been plagued by problems in reaching a consensus over what exactly constitutes a meme, and in finding irrefutable evidence for their existence, leading to much criticism

But the concept of memes is appealing to many and the word has escaped both memeticists and Dawkins, to become a staple of internet culture

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Preliminary lessons from the study of memes Although a major feature of internet culture, memes have not yet received the

academic attention and study they deserve

Possible reasons: moving targets, hard to accurately trace online, controversial and comedic content, fueled by subcultures that are not widely understood

According to study by Knobel and Lankshear (2006), successful internet memes operate in affinity spaces and are characterized by:

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HumorRich

intertextualityAnomalous

juxtapositions

Intentionally quirky, offbeat, bizarrely funny , not to everyone’s taste

Filled with references to popular culture and often to specific subcultures

Juxtaposing starkly contrasting themes, moods, ideologies, in a playfully provocative manner

The same elements can be traced in mainstream popular culture and advertizing; also becoming increasingly common online

Role of memes in oppositional politics Successful memes, even those more squarely aimed at entertaining their

receivers, exhibit often a subversive character, perhaps also a deconstructive character, as elements of a counter-culture that aims to challenge established conventions on propriety, values and communication

“If we don’t like their contagious ideas, we need to produce some of our own” (Knobel and Lankshear, 2006)

Memes constantly change, evolve, through appropriation and remixing, while retaining their original character, thus becoming more viral and increasing their longevity by staying fresh

Countermemes can be produced to attack and neutralize undesirable memes

Memes can be easily misunderstood by viewers outside of the affinity space in which they were developed and are thus distinct from mainstream broadcast content: often aiming to reinforce and propagate subcultures rather than appeal to a wide audience; but some escape these limitations to achieve broader appeal

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Thoughts on design…

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How does a social media platform encourage the crossing of private-public boundaries to ease collective action?

How much coordination, organization and a priori goal-setting is necessary in order to be effective?

What is an optimal trade-off between protecting users’ privacy and identity on the one hand and encouraging public contribution on the other?

Think about types of online content that have made an

impression on you and what it is about it that is so

appealing; also, about its origins and message

Under which circumstances are users more likely to produce viral content that can infect the minds of many? How can a community encourage this?

How can an online community help users develop the types of literacies necessary for living in an internet culture and effectively communicating with others in it?

Credits and licensing Front page photo by a trying youth (license: CC BY-NC-ND)

Protest photo by slimmer_jimmer (license: CC BY-NC-ND)

Keyboard photo by julian- (license: CC BY-NC-ND)

Loudspeaker photo by corono (license: CC BY)

Photo collage by jek in the box (license: CC BY-NC-ND)

16 CNM Social Media Module – Giorgos Cheliotis (gcheliotis@nus.edu.sg)

Original content in this presentation is licensed under the Creative Commons Singapore Attribution 3.0 license unless stated otherwise (see above)