THREE ESSAYS ON THE MATERIAL ENACTMENT OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PHD IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION and for the degree of DOCTEUR EN SCIENCES DE GESTION DE L’ECOLE DOCTORALE « ÉCONOMIE, MANAGEMENT, MATHÉMATIQUES, PHYSIQUE ET SCIENCES INFORMATIQUES » ED 405 UNIVERSITE PARIS-SEINE Presented and defended publicly the 17th of January 2019 by Seyed Reza MOUSAVI BAYGI JURY David AVISON Co-supervisor Professor Emeritus, ESSEC Business School (Cergy, France) Marie-Laure DJELIC Co-supervisor Professor, Sciences Po (Paris, France) Julien MALAURENT Co-supervisor Associate Professor, ESSEC Business School (Cergy, France) Marleen HUYSMAN Referee Professor, VU University (Amsterdam, Netherlands) Lucas INTRONA Referee Professor, Lancaster University (Lancaster, UK) Dominique CARDON Chair Associate Professor, Sciences Po (Paris, France) Aurélie LECLERCQ- Examiner Professor, IESEG School of Management (Lille, VANDELANNOITTE France) Résumé En accord avec l’intérêt récent porté aux mouvements sociaux dans la théorie des organisations et la littérature des systèmes d’information et face à la numérisation croissante des sociétés, j’adopte dans cette thèse de doctorat une perspective performative et post- humaniste pour étudier la matérialisation des mouvements sociaux avec, à travers et par les médias sociaux. En faisant cela, je vais au-delà des arguments communément entendus sur la question de savoir si les médias sociaux et leurs diverses fonctionnalités aident ou entravent la mobilisation et l'action collective, pour la simple raison que les médias sociaux défient des caractérisations aussi faciles que des relations de cause à effet. Tout comme les mouvements sociaux, les médias sociaux ont des frontières poreuses et des propriétés malléables. L'organisation dynamique, émergente et distribuée d'un mouvement avec, à travers et par les médias sociaux est un phénomène où il est de plus en plus indéterminé où se terminent les facteurs sociaux et se commencent les facteurs techniques. En reconfigurant la manière dont les interactions sociales se matérialisent, les médias sociaux fournissent non seulement de nouveaux sites pour le déroulement des processus organisationnels, mais participent également à la définition de leurs structures et de leurs résultats. Par conséquent, au lieu de séparer les médias sociaux des mouvements sociaux pour étudier leurs interactions - une manœuvre qui exclut toute enquête sur la constitution en place des deux - je reporte mon regard analytique sur les actions et les pratiques quotidiennes liées à l'activisme des médias sociaux. Empiriquement, je passe de insurrections progressistes ou antidictatoriales, souvent ii étudiés, à une montée sous-étudiée, mais de plus en plus importante, d’un mouvement politique : celui de la droite. Plus précisément, j'étudie l'émergence via les médias sociaux du mouvement du Tea Party ; une branche radicale du conservatisme américain qui présente un cas intéressant et pertinent pour étudier la manière dont les médias sociaux ont participé à la matérialisation d’une nouvelle forme d’organisation dans le domaine hautement institutionnalisé de la politique américaine. Pour étudier le rôle constitutif de la matérialité et les implications performatives de telles pratiques dans ce cas empirique, chaque essai de ma thèse met en avant un angle d'un triangle de “collectif-individuel-technologie”. D'un point de vue performatif et posthumanist, dans chaque essai, je traite le sujet (identité collective, activiste / utilisateur de médias sociaux et technologie des médias sociaux) comme un accomplissement processuel et un effet relationnel plutôt qu'une entité substantielle. Cette thèse doctorale contribue à la littérature organisationnelle et aux systèmes d'information. Plus précisément, dans chaque essai, je développe une compréhension “matérielle-discursive” du sujet, basée sur la pratique, qui est utile pour engager, étudier et donner un sens aux phénomènes liés à l'organisation des médias sociaux et à leurs conséquences. La nouveauté et la pertinence de ma contribution pour la littérature en théorie des organisations provient de la prise en compte du rôle constitutif de la matérialité dans les processus organisationnels, tandis que la nouveauté et la pertinence de ma thèse pour la littérature en systèmes d'information provient de la prise en charge des problèmes de contestation, de politique et d'agence collective vis à vis des médias sociaux. Finalement, j'apporte une contribution particulière en enquêtant le contexte peu étudié des mouvements de droite. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I wish to express my warmest and most sincere appreciation to the many remarkable beings without whom the completion of my dissertation would not have been possible. First of all, I want to extend my profound gratitude to my supervisors whose guidance and support always accompanied me during my PhD journey. I cannot begin to express enough thanks to Professor Marie-Laure Djelic for her continuous support of my research, her mentorship, patience, and immense knowledge; for believing in me even when—and especially when—I was doubting myself; for always having an open mind and a smile on her face; for her charismatic guidance and heartening support that created a space for me to explore, discover, and pursue my own interests; and for her invigorating feedback—pushing me to go further and not make compromises in pursuing my ideas. Knowing Marie-Laure has been the most formative experience of my PhD, without which I would not be where I am today. She has truly been my role model—a living example of the kind of scholar I wish I could become one day. I would also like to extend my sincere gratitude to Professor David Avison for his help, constructive feedback, and invaluable advice; for discovering and nourishing potentials that I did not even know I had in me; for his inspiring ever-insatiable taste for interesting research which incented me to do qualitative research in information systems; and for the freedom he conferred in me to find and walk my own path but at the same time making my PhD experience focused—tailoring elective courses and research assistantship modules to my iv research needs. I am ever thankful to David for the interest he has shown in my work throughout my PhD and for fostering my confidence in writing—helping me find my voice in English. I cannot fully convey the depths of David’s impact on my development as a researcher. I am truly indebted to Julien Malaurent for his steadfast support and unabating friendship; for being there and stepping up to help when I needed it the most; and for his ceaseless availability to offer valued feedback and irreplaceable advice—always a WhatsApp message away. I am ever grateful to Julien for paving the way for the last mile of my PhD, making it as smooth and untroubled as it could possibly be. My earnest thanks go to my committee members; to Professor Lucas Introna for his trailblazing work in the field—a ceaseless source of inspiration—and for his always thought-provoking feedback; to Professor Marleen Huysman, for her unmatched role in fostering a community of like-minded researchers at KIN Research Group, where I felt intellectually at home; and to Professors Dominique Cardon and Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, the great scholars whom I have always admired, for engaging with my work and being part of my dissertation committee. I would also like to thank the wonderful administrative staff of ESSEC PhD program. One cannot ask for a more caring, helpful, supportive, and friendly group of people than Lina Prevost and Christine Gil—always welcoming with a smile, always making it easier. I owe my heartfelt thanks to Mahya Ostovar, my best friend and my life partner, for her unfaltering faith in me; for being the best fellow traveler of the PhD journey that I could have hoped for—always there for me no matter what; for reading through any single paragraph I ever wrote in this dissertation; and for always being the good part of these years—the v embodiment of hope, optimism, and positive outlook. Thank you Mahya for being my rock. Also, my never-ending gratitude goes out to my family, the warmth of whose hearts knows no geography; to my parents for their kindness and love, for teaching me about being genuine, and for endowing me with freedom of thought; and to my siblings—whom I am yet to meet anybody else who can make me laugh as hard—for their abundant support, compassion, and encouragement. My warmest thanks go out to my friends, whose precious camaraderie, moral support, and beer co-consumption made these years more enjoyable: Joel Bothello, Hyemi Shin, Archita Sarmah, Nima Fazeli, Ionela Andreicovici, Alessandri Ghio, Amit Kumar, Sabra Khajehnejad, Bruno Noisette, Lolita Carry, Bastien Buchwalter, Yenee Kim, Negin Latifi, Arash Talebi, and Alborz Hassanzad—each one of whom made this journey more fun and delightful that it could have ever been. And I wish to especially thank Afshin Mehrpouya for being the older brother I did not have here in France. I would be remiss if I did not also acknowledge the many things without which this PhD would not have been possible: My laptops, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, Twitter, Python, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS languages, and any library I used in the development of my application. Finally, I would like to thank the many people of the internet who inspired me and taught me about programming. Paris 3 December 2018 vi PREFACE In our media-dominated information society people employed in constructing and distributing information moved or have been moved to the centre of the scene on which the drama of human coexistence is staged and seen to be played. —Zygmunt Bauman (2015) Movements in complex societies are disenchanted prophets. —Melucci (1996, p. 1) Long before Donald Trump becoming the master of Twitter (Boczkowski & Papacharissi, 2018), it was with the Tea Party Movement (TPM) that many on the right side of the political aisle in the United States began reinventing their political engagement and organization in the image of social media.