From the blogosphere into the parliament: The role of digital technologies in organizing social movements. Issue 3 (September 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Braccini, Alessio Maria; Sæbø, Øystein; Federici, Tommaso
• Is Part Of: Information and organization. Volume 29:Issue 3(2019)
• Publication Date: 2019-09
• Subjects: Social movements -- Collective action -- Digital technologies -- Social media -- Movimento Cinque Stelle (the Five Star Movement); Information resources management -- Periodicals; Organizational change -- Periodicals; Information technology -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; Accounting -- Data processing -- Periodicals; Management information systems -- Periodicals; Comptabilité -- Informatique -- Périodiques; Systèmes d'information de gestion -- Périodiques; Electronic journals; 658.4
• DOI: 10.1016/j.infoandorg.2019.04.002
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1471-7727

Abstract

Abstract: In this paper, we present a process model exploring the roles played by digital technologies (DTs) in the organization of collective action (CA) of social movements (SMs) at different points in their lifecycles. The process model, which is based on an exploratory case study of the Italian Five Star Movement, relates the environmental conditions to the working logic, structure and use of DTs at three different stages of the SMs. We explain how these choices are adopted at each stage to address internal and environmental challenges and how they create further challenges to be addressed to pass to the next stage. We further explore the dynamics between the logic of connective and collective action and reflect on the growing need for structures and control. By so doing, our work addresses the need for a better understanding of the coevolution between DTs and organizational structures and of the ways in which DTs are used to mobilize people to sustain CA along the SM lifecycle. Highlights: We studied collective action (CA) in a social movement (SM) for 5 years We explored the evolution of SM organizational structures across three stages of their lifecycle We present a process model explaining the organization and praxes for the three phases We describe how social media and other digital technologies play different roles during the stages We describe how SM organize with different arenas for collective and connective action