Activists in the dark

Social media algorithms and collective action in two social movement organizations

Bibliographic Data

ID20501014
AuthorsMeghan Etter (0000-0002-8721-7821, King's College London, corresponding author), Michael Etter (King's College London), Oana Brindusa Albu (0000-0002-5539-003X, Copenhagen Business School)
Year2021
Volume28
Issue1
Pages68-91
Publication date2021-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOrganization (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1350-5084 • E-ISSN: 1461-7323
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1350508420961532
OpenAlexW3091170644
LanguageEN
Citations received48
References cited43

It is widely established that social media afford social movement (SM) organizations new ways of organizing. Critical studies point out, however, that social media use may also trigger negative repercussions due to the commercial interests that are designed into these technologies. Yet empirical evidence about these matters is scarce. In this article, we investigate how social media algorithms influence activists’ actualization of collective affordances. Empirically, we build on an ethnographic study of two SM organizations based in Tunisia. The contributions of this paper are twofold. Firstly, we provide a theoretical framework that specifies how algorithms condition the actualization of three collective affordances (interlinking, assembling, augmenting). Specifically, we show how these affordances are supported by algorithmic facilitation , that is, operations pertaining to the sorting of interactions and actors, the filtering of information, and the ranking and aggregation of content. Secondly, we extend the understanding of how social media platforms’ profit-orientation undermines collective action. Namely, we identify how algorithms introduce constraints for organizing processes, manifested as algorithmic distortion , that is, information overload, opacity, and disinformation. We conclude by discussing the detrimental implications of social media algorithms for organizing and civic engagement, as activists are often unaware of the interests of social media-owning corporations

Affordance · Algorithm · Collective action · Human–computer interaction · Information overload · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Social media · Social movement · Sociology · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Social Media and Politics

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Open DOIOpen Access