[okfn-br] Fwd: [berkmanfriends] online activism

[Carolina Rossini]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Lewis, Kevin <lewis em ucsd.edu>
Date: Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 2:43 PM
Subject: [berkmanfriends] online activism
To: "berkmanfriends em eon.law.harvard.edu" <berkmanfriends em eon.law.harvard.edu
>


 Dear friends,



I wanted to share with you a recent publication that some members of this
community might find interesting- due to the nature of both the substance
and the journal.



The substance is that my co-authors and I examined, to our knowledge, the
first available dataset containing comprehensive economic and social data
(on donations and recruitment ties, respectively) on a massive online
social movement- the "Save Darfur Cause" on Facebook between 2007 and 2010.
We position this piece in the ever-growing body of literature which tends
to sing from the rooftops the ability of social media to revolutionize
political engagement; and instead, we find that the vast majority of Cause
members are both socially and economically inactive. In short, they don't
do anything else beyond the basic act of clicking the button to join the
Cause (we also run some more complex multivariate analyses about the
patterning of recruitment and donation behavior). I realize this finding
will be unsurprising to many; but again, we fear that the optimism that
often surrounds the transformative potential of social media too seldom
checks in with the facts of how common "successful" online movements
actually are and when, where, and why they are likely to take root (as
opposed to just pointing out THAT they take root and arguing that this is
important).



The journal is a new journal called Sociological Science- which explicitly
aims to combat some of the less pleasant tendencies of mainstream
publishing (in particular, it promises rapid review times; a review process
that is evaluative, not developmental; rigorous and relevant scholarship;
and unlike all other prominent sociology journals, it is open access). In
addition to this, the journal encourages active dialogue with readers, and
has a set-up on its website where readers can submit "reactions" to
articles much like blog comments. So this is both an advertisement for the
work and a solicitation for feedback- we would welcome any comments on the
article! Whether positive or (hopefully constructively) critical. (One
member of the Berkman community has already led the way in initiating a
helpful exchange.)



Article: http://www.sociologicalscience.com/structure-online-activism



Press release:
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/raising_an_army_of_armchair_activists



Thanks and have a great day!

 -Kevin



Kevin Lewis

Assistant Professor of Sociology

University of California, San Diego



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-- 
*Carolina Rossini*
*Project Director, Latin America Resource Center*
Open Technology Institute
*New America Foundation*
//
http://carolinarossini.net/
+ 1 6176979389
*carolina.rossini em gmail.com*
skype: carolrossini
@carolinarossini
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