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: 10.15195/v1.a1 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 In this article, we examine the institutional S ability to connect instantly with friends, fam- emergence and evolution of one of the largest ac- ily, and strangers alike has transformed the way tivist communities ever established online and of- relationships are created and maintained and fer tentative conclusions about its significance for altered the very structure of our social fabric collective action in a digital age. While recogniz- (Brown 2011; Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe 2007; ing the importance of the Internet as a communi- Rosenfeld and Thomas 2012). On a societal level, cation device—and the multiple functions of net- social media create unprecedented opportunities works for social movements (Diani and McAdam for information flow (Sparrow, Liu, and Weg- 2003; Passy and Giugni 2001)—our focus is on ner 2011), affective expression (Golder and Macy the Internet as a means of recruitment and fund- 2011), social influence (Bond et al. 2012), and raising. The ubiquitous social network website apparently even democratic revolution (Allagui Facebook offers an unprecedented opportunity and Kuebler 2011). Although much has been to examine both these facets of online activism. written on the relationship between the Inter- Although researchers have increasingly turned net and the civic engagement of individuals and to Facebook to learn about friendship networks groups (Anduiza, Cantijoch, and Gallego 2009; (e.g., Lewis, Gonzalez, and Kaufman 2012; Wim- Dahlgren 2009; Hara and Huang 2011), empirical mer and Lewis 2010), less attention has been studies of online activism are surprisingly scarce. paid to the website’s role in social mobilization. Furthermore, these studies are largely limited Causes (http://www.causes.com) is a free on- to analyses of social movement website text and line platform for activism and philanthropy that hyperlink data, on one hand (e.g., Ackland and is widely recommended by other activist websites O’Neil 2011; Lusher and Ackland 2011; Shumate such as Movements.org. Causes’s Facebook appli- 2012), or analyses of interview, survey, or “media cation allows Facebook users—an estimated 1.15 ethnographic” data, on the other (e.g., Maireder billion of whom are active each month (http:// and Schwarzenegger 2012; Nah, Veenstra, and newsroom.fb.com)—to join, and donate money Shah 2006; Pickerill 2001). Although this work to, specific social causes (e.g., earthquake sur- sheds light on collective frames, interorganiza- vivors in Haiti) or nonprofit organizations (e.g., tional linkages, and the behaviors and perceptions Aflac Cancer Center) called “Causes.” Members of some activists, the nature and scale of the typ- may also recruit other members to a Cause by ical activist’s involvement with social media have sending them invitations to join. In an effort to remained important but unexplored topics. assess the promise and limits of social media as a sociological science | www.sociologicalscience.com 1 February 2014 | Volume 1 Lewis, Gray, and Meierhenrich The Structure of Online Activism 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 supplement for details). Of those members who when; who recruited whom; and who donated did recruit, nearly half (45.57 percent) recruited how much, and when (see the supplement for only one other person, and of those members details). To our knowledge, it is the first data who donated, 94.72 percent did so only once. In set of its kind in containing precise longitudinal other words, the vast majority of the Cause’s size data on the growth and donation activity of a and income can be attributed to a very small massive online social movement (and one of the number of “hyperactivists.” The most active re- largest social movements in U.S. history, rivaling cruiter, for instance, single-handedly recruited the U.S. civil rights movement) and on the micro- a total of 1,196 new members (0.1 percent of level linkages among its members. We address Cause membership), whereas the most generous three basic questions: What was the nature and donor contributed a total of $2,500 (2.8 percent distribution of Facebook activism in the Save of funds raised). In fact, by going back in time Darfur campaign? How did this behavior unfold and removing only the top 1 percent most in- over time? How important were social networks fluential 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. First, the two behaviors were inception, acquiring over one-fifth of its eventual strongly associated: donors were more than twice membership size and one-quarter of its eventual as likely as nondonors to recruit, and recruiters revenue in just the first two months. By the end were nearly four times as likely as nonrecruiters of 2007, 64 percent of all members had joined, to donate. Second, Cause members’ odds of do- and 59 percent of all dollars had been donated. nating increased by 258 percent, and their odds The years 2008 and 2009 were characterized by of recruiting increased by 11 percent if they had intermittent spikes in donations with no apparent joined independently rather than having been regularity, and most of the Cause’s remaining in- recruited—suggesting that the most active mem- sociological science | www.sociologicalscience.com 2 February 2014 | Volume 1 Lewis, Gray, and Meierhenrich The Structure of Online Activism 1,400,000 $100,000 Membership $90,000 1,200,000 Donations $80,000 1,000,000 $70,000 $60,000 800,000 $50,000 600,000 $40,000 Total revenue Total members 400,000 $30,000 $20,000 200,000 $10,000 0 $0 15-Jul-07 15-Jul-08 15-Jul-09 15-Jan-08 15-Jan-09 15-Jan-10 15-Sep-07 15-Sep-08 15-Sep-09 15-Nov-07 15-Nov-08 15-Nov-09 15-Mar-08 15-Mar-09 15-May-07 15-May-08 15-May-09 Figure 1: Development of an online social movement.