Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2012 Social Media and Social Movements: A Critical Analysis of Audience's Use of Facebook to Advocate Food Activism Offline Ginevra Corinna Elvira Adamoli Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION SOCIAL MEDIA AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF AUDIENCE’S USE OF FACEBOOK TO ADVOCATE FOOD ACTIVISM OFFLINE By GINEVRA CORINNA ELVIRA ADAMOLI A Dissertation submitted to the School of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2012 Ginevra Corinna Elvira Adamoli defended this dissertation on October 12, 2012. The members of the supervisory committee were: Andrew Opel Professor Directing Dissertation Deana Rohlinger University Representative Jennifer Proffitt Committee Member Jeanette Castillo Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the dissertation has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii This dissertation is dedicated to my loving dog Maya (2005-2010) iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to express my gratitude to all members of my committee for the guidance they provided through this process of learning and discovering. My appreciation goes to my Chair, Dr. Opel for his patient and help in pushing me and challenging me in developing this project. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with such an influential person who has showed me how to become a better scholar and human being. I am also very grateful to my outside member Dr. Deana Rohlinger for the time spent in her office talking to me and her efforts above and beyond the call of duty in walking me through the dissertation process and supporting me. I want to thank Dr. Castillo for lending me many books that I found useful for my dissertation and for sharing her own dissertation with me. In addition I want to express my gratitude to Dr. Proffitt for her rigid but indispensable academic criticism. She has influenced, inspired, and improved my academic writing and critical skills. Last, I want to thank the College of Communication in financially and emotionally supporting me throughout these years. This could not have been possible without the help of many people including Dr. McDowell, the administrative staff and my colleagues who have been an essential part of getting through this process. Many thanks to my dear friends Ania, Sophie, Margot, Shruti, and Asha. Last, I want to take the time to thank my life partner Shawn who has been extremely patient and supportive of the choice I made to pursue a career in academia and have supported me through the ups and downs of this journey. Thank you for believing in me. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables .................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... ix Abstract ............................................................................................................................... x I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 1 1.1. Overview ......................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Food Issues ........................................................................................................ 8 1.3 Problem Statement and Purpose of Study ....................................................... 12 1.4 Research Questions ......................................................................................... 16 II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND RESEARCH ........................................................ 18 2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 18 2.1.1 Through the Lens of Habermas ........................................................ 19 2.1.2 Public Sphere: Yesterday, today and tomorrow ............................... 20 2.1.3 Criticism of the Public Sphere and Habermas .................................. 25 2.1.4 Public Sphere and Mass Media in the 21st Century .......................... 28 2.1.5 From Habermas to Social Movements and Mass Media .................. 34 2.1.6 Theory of Communicative Action of Habermas .............................. 37 2.1.7 Why Using Habermas for the Right to Know rally .......................... 41 2.2 Network Analysis ............................................................................................ 46 2.2.1 Castells ............................................................................................. 48 2.2.2 Toward a link between Habermas and Castells ................................ 52 2.3 Leadership ....................................................................................................... 56 2.4 Defining Social Movement .............................................................................. 61 2.5 The Rise of the Citizen-Consumer .................................................................. 63 2.6 Understanding Social Movements and the Emergence of Food Movement ......................................................................................... 67 2.6.1 Food Movement ................................................................................ 68 2.7 Mass media and Social Movements: Moving toward Online Activism .......... 72 2.7.1 Social Media and Social Movements ............................................... 77 III. METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................................... 81 3.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 81 v 3.2 Methods ........................................................................................................... 81 3.2.1 Participants ....................................................................................... 81 3.2.2 Interviews ......................................................................................... 83 3.2.2.1 In-depth Interviews ............................................................ 83 3.2.3 Coding .............................................................................................. 87 3.2.4 Qualitative Content Analysis ............................................................ 89 3.3 Choosing a Multi-Method Approach .............................................................. 94 3.4 The Case Study: The Right to Know Rally .................................................... 95 IV. THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND FACEBOOK ........................................................ 97 4.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 97 4.2 The Right to Know Rally: Emergence .......................................................... 102 4.3 I feel like me on Facebook: Facebook as an Open and Inclusive Space for Discussion ...................................................................................................... 103 4.4 Quality of Discussions ................................................................................... 112 4.4.1 Limits of Facebook in regard to the Concept of the Public Sphere 122 4.5 Social Networks and Social Spheres ............................................................. 125 4.6 Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................ 134 V. LEADERSHIP ON FACEBOOK ....................................................................... 140 5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 140 5.2 Leadership in the R2R Movement ................................................................. 142 5.3 Credibility ..................................................................................................... 147 5.4 Social Networks and Leadership on the R2R Event Pages on Facebook ...... 156 5.5 Leadership Fails, Rally Fails ......................................................................... 161 5.6 Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................ 165 VI. MOBILIZING WITHIN AND OUTSIDE FACEBOOK ................................... 169 6.1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 169 6.2 How to use Facebook to promote action among users .................................. 171 6.3 People not able to attend but still participated ............................................... 175 6.4 Building social networks offline through Facebook ..................................... 181 6.5 Limits of Facebook in getting people involved and assessing their involvement offline ................................................................................................................. 186 vi 6.5 Assessing effectiveness of Facebook through perceptions of interviews ..... 188 6.6 Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................ 194 VI. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................