The Structure of Online Activism
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Kevin Lewis, Kurt Gray and Jens Meierhenrich The structure of online activism Article (Published version) (Refereed) Original citation: Lewis, Kevin, Gray, Kurt and Meierhenrich, Jens (2014) The structure of online activism. Sociological Science, 1. pp. 1-9. ISSN 2330-6696 DOI: 10.15195/v1.a1 © 2014 The Authors, Sociological Science This open-access article has been published and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction, in any form, as long as the original author and source have been credited. This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/55821/ Available in LSE Research Online: February 2014 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. The Structure of Online Activism Kevin Lewis,a Kurt Gray,b Jens Meierhenrichc a) University of California, San Diego; b) University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; c) London School of Economics and Political Science Abstract: Despite the tremendous amount of attention that has been paid to the internet as a tool for civic engagement, we still have little idea how “active” is the average online activist or how social networks matter in facilitating electronic protest. In this paper, we use complete records on the donation and recruitment activity of 1.2 million members of the Save Darfur “Cause” on Facebook to provide a detailed first look at a massive online social movement. While both donation and recruitment behavior are socially patterned, the vast majority of Cause members recruited no one else into the Cause and contributed no money to it-suggesting that in the case of the Save Darfur campaign, Facebook conjured an illusion of activism rather than facilitating the real thing. Keywords: social networks; social movements; social media; online activism; Facebook; Save Darfur Editor(s): Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule; Received: September 16, 2013; Accepted: October 16, 2013; Published: February 18, 2014 Citation: Lewis, Kevin, Kurt Gray, and Jens Meierhenrich. 2014. “The Structure of Online Activism.” Sociological Science 1: 1-9. DOI: 1234567890 Copyright: c 2014 Lewis, Gray, and Meierhenrich. This open-access article has been published and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction, in any form, as long as the original author and source have been credited. ocial media have changed the world. The ical activist’s involvement with social media have S ability to connect instantly with friends, fam- remained important but unexplored topics. ily, and strangers alike has transformed the way In this article, we examine the institutional relationships are created and maintained and emergence and evolution of one of the largest altered the very structure of our social fabric activist communities ever established online and (Brown 2011; Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe 2007; offer tentative conclusions about its significance Rosenfeld and Thomas 2012). On a societal level, for collective action in a digital age. While rec- social media create unprecedented opportunities ognizing the importance of the Internet as a for information flow (Sparrow, Liu, and Weg- communication device—and the multiple func- ner 2011), affective expression (Golder and Macy tions of networks for social movements (Diani and 2011), social influence (Bond et al. 2012), and McAdam 2003; Passy and Giugni 2001)—our fo- apparently even democratic revolution (Allagui cus is on the Internet as a means of recruitment and Kuebler 2011). Although much has been and fund-raising. The ubiquitous social network written on the relationship between the Inter- website Facebook offers an unprecedented oppor- net and the civic engagement of individuals and tunity to examine both these facets of online groups (Anduiza, Cantijoch, and Gallego 2009; activism. Although researchers have increasingly Dahlgren 2009; Hara and Huang 2011), empirical turned to Facebook to learn about friendship studies of online activism are surprisingly scarce. networks (e.g., Lewis, Gonzalez, and Kaufman Furthermore, these studies are largely limited 2012; Wimmer and Lewis 2010), less attention has to analyses of social movement website text and been paid to the website’s role in social mobiliza- hyperlink data, on one hand (e.g., Ackland and tion. Causes (http://www.causes.com) is a free O’Neil 2011; Lusher and Ackland 2011; Shumate online platform for activism and philanthropy 2012), or analyses of interview, survey, or “media that is widely recommended by other activist ethnographic” data, on the other (e.g., Maireder websites such as Movements.org. Causes’s Face- and Schwarzenegger 2012; Nah, Veenstra, and book application allows Facebook users—an esti- Shah 2006; Pickerill 2001). Although this work mated 1.15 billion of whom are active each month sheds light on collective frames, interorganiza- (http://newsroom.fb.com)—to join, and donate tional linkages, and the behaviors and perceptions money to, specific social causes (e.g., earthquake of some activists, the nature and scale of the typ- survivors in Haiti) or nonprofit organizations(e.g., sociological science | www.sociologicalscience.com 1 February 2014 | Volume 1 Lewis, Gray, and Meierhenrich The Structure of Online Activism Aflac Cancer Center) called “Causes.” Members and 59 percent of all dollars had been donated. may also recruit other members to a Cause by The years 2008 and 2009 were characterized by sending them invitations to join. In an effort to intermittent spikes in donations with no apparent assess the promise and limits of social media as a regularity, and most of the Cause’s remaining in- tool of social movements, we report herein find- creases in membership were due to new members ings from an ongoing inquiry into the structure who were recruited rather than new members of online activism, with particular reference to who had joined independently (Fig. 2). By the antigenocide activism (Busby 2010; Givan, Soule, end of the data collection period, membership and Roberts 2010). Our empirical focus is the and revenue had both largely plateaued. conflict in Darfur, described variously as “geno- Although recruitment and donation activities cide” and “war,” and the moral movement that it were clearly unevenly distributed across time, has spurred (de Waal 2007; Hagan and Palloni they were also unevenly distributed across ac- 2006; Hamilton 2011). tivists. Despite the Cause’s longevity and mas- At its height, the Save Darfur Cause was one sive size, only a fraction of Cause members ever of the largest Causes on Facebook, with more engaged in any type of “activism” beyond the than 1 million members who had collectively do- basic act of joining (Fig. 3). Focusing only on nated more than $100,000. Our data include members who joined within the first 689 days the full donation and recruitment history of all (N = 1; 085; 463) so that the proportion of re- current members as of January 27, 2010. In cruiters and donors is not artificially truncated, other words, for the 989-day period beginning on 72.19 percent of members never recruited and May 15, 2007 (the date the Cause was founded), 99.76 percent of members never donated (see the we compiled comprehensive data on who joined online supplement for details). Of those mem- when; who recruited whom; and who donated bers who did recruit, nearly half (45.57 percent) how much, and when (see the online supplement recruited only one other person, and of those for details). To our knowledge, it is the first data members who donated, 94.72 percent did so only set of its kind in containing precise longitudinal once. In other words, the vast majority of the data on the growth and donation activity of a Cause’s size and income can be attributed to a massive online social movement (and one of the very small number of “hyperactivists.” The most largest social movements in U.S. history, rivaling active recruiter, for instance, single-handedly re- the U.S. civil rights movement) and on the micro- cruited a total of 1,196 new members (0.1 per- level linkages among its members. We address cent of Cause membership), whereas the most three basic questions: What was the nature and generous donor contributed a total of $2,500 (2.8 distribution of Facebook activism in the Save percent of funds raised). In fact, by going back in Darfur campaign? How did this behavior unfold time and removing only the top 1 percent most over time? How important were social networks influential Cause members—including all of their to facilitating electronic protest? recruits, the recruits of their recruits, and so on, as well as all of their donations, the donations of their recruits, and so on—62.84 percent of Cause Results membership and 46.54 percent of funds raised disappear. Over time, then, diminishing increases As of January 27, 2010, the Save Darfur Cause in the Cause’s overall size were exacerbated by included 1,174,612 members who had collectively drastic reductions in donation and recruitment donated $90,776 (Fig. 1). Of these members, rates: more and more people did less and less 949,959 (80.87 percent) were recruited by other (Fig. 4). members, whereas 224,653 (19.13 percent) had Though exceptionally rare, the acts of re- joined independently. The Cause experienced a cruiting and donating were still governed by cer- period of rapid growth immediately following its tain regularities.