Digital Citizenship and Political Engagement: The Challenge from Online Campaigning and Advocacy Organisations

282 Pages·2017·3.4 MB·English

by  Ariadne Vromen (auth.)

INTEREST GROUPS, ADVOCACY AND DEMOCRACY SERIES
Digital Citizenship and
Political Engagement
The Challenge from Online Campaigning
and Advocacy Organisations
Ariadne Vromen
Interest Groups, Advocacy and
Democracy Series
Series Editor
Professor Darren Halpin
Head of the School of Sociology
Research School ofSocial Sciences
The Australian National University
Australia
The study of interest groups and their role in political life has undergone
somewhatofarenaissanceinrecentyears.Longstandingscholarlythemes
such as interest groups influence mobilization, formation, and ‘bias’, are
beingaddressedusingnewandnoveldatasetsandmethods.Therearealso
new and exciting themes, such as the role of ICTs in enabling collective
action and the growth of global advocacy networks, are being added.
Contemporary debates about the role of commercial lobbyists and profes-
sionalized interest representation are also highly salient. Together, they
drawaneverlargerandbroaderconstituencytothestudyofinterestgroups
and advocacy. This series seeks to capture both new generation studies
addressing long standing themes in new ways and innovate scholarship
posing new and challenging questions that emerge in a rapidly changing
world. Theseriesencouragescontributionsfrompoliticalscience(butalso
abutting disciplinessuch as economics, law, history, international relations
andsociology)thatspeaktothesethemes.Itwelcomesworkundertakenat
thelevelofsub-national,nationalandsupra-national politicalsystems,and
particularly encourages comparative or longitudinal studies. The series is
opentodiversemethodologiesandtheoreticalapproaches.Thebookseries
willsitalongsideandcomplementthenewJournalofthesamename.
Moreinformationaboutthisseriesat
http://www.springer.com/series/14850
AriadneVromen
Digital Citizenship and
Political Engagement
The Challenge from Online Campaigning
and Advocacy Organisations
AriadneVromen
UniversityofSydney
Sydney,Australia
InterestGroups,AdvocacyandDemocracySeries
ISBN978-1-137-48864-0 ISBN978-1-137-48865-7 (eBook)
DOI10.1057/978-1-137-48865-7
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A
CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Likeanybook,thisonehashadalonghistory.Ifirststarteddoingresearchon
onlinecampaigningandadvocacygroupsin2006,onthebackofaprojecton
how youth organisations were changing in the digital context. I had an
immediate sense that GetUp would be important and influential within
Australian politics. They also kept drawing me back into their orbit, so in
betweenotherprojects,Iendedupwithfourseparateperiods(2006,2010,
2013 and 2015) of being in the field, collecting data. This research has
culminated in this book that demonstrates the effect of ten years of GetUp
onbothtransnationaladvocacyandorganising,andprogressivemovements
inAustralia.IwouldliketothankallthecampaignersIinterviewedoverthe
last ten years for their time and help, but in particular Mark Connelly who
facilitatedmyresearchaccessin2010and2015.
Obviously,Ididnotdoallofthisresearchalone,andIgratefullyacknowl-
edgethefabulousresearchassistantsIhaveworkedwithovertime.Thanksto
Claire Chivell, who worked with me, conducting interviews in the early
period of 2006, and (now Dr) Billy Coleman, who worked with me in
2010, and our active collaboration resulted in two journal articles; and
more recently, I have been lucky to have Francesco Bailo, Gianluca Scattu
andMichaelVaughantohelpmebringitalltogether.
Asthishasbeenalong-termproject,Ihavepresentedpapersfromitmany
timesandhavebenefittedfromfeedbackandencouragementfrommyextraor-
dinary international network of critical participation and digital movement
scholars. I would like to acknowledge the insights and active engagement
I have had from Lance Bennett, Alex Segerberg, Henrik Bang, Michel
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Micheletti, David Marsh, David Karpf, Brian Loader, Michael Xenos, Aaron
Shaw,AnastasiaKavada,CarolJohnson,AnikaGauja,PeterChen,KathGelber
andBenSpiesButcher.
Thanks especially to the editor of this series, Daren Halpin, who kept
gently encouraging me, even when I thought I couldn’t get the book
written. And to the team at Palgrave who didn’t make me feel like too
muchofanerrantstudentwhenIkeptaskingforextensions.
Lastly, thanks to my partner, Diarmuid Maguire, who generously read
thefinaldraftandevenenjoyedit,andmydogZelda,whoneverceasesto
amuseme.
Iacknowledgethatelementsofthisbook’sanalysishaveappearedinmy
previouspublications,including:
(cid:129) Ariadne Vromen (2015) ‘Campaign Entrepreneurs in online collec-
tive action: GetUp! in Australia’ Social Movement Studies, 14(2),
pp.195–213.
(cid:129) Ariadne Vromen and William Coleman (2013) ‘Online campaigning
organisations and storytelling strategies: GetUp! in Australia’ Policy
andInternet5(1),pp.76–100.
(cid:129) Ariadne Vromen and William Coleman (2011) ‘Online movement
mobilisation and electoral politics: the case of GetUp!’ Communica-
tion,PoliticsandCulture,44(2),pp.76–94.
(cid:129) Ariadne Vromen (2008) ‘Political change and the internet in
Australia: introducing GetUp’ Tapio Hayhtio and Jarmo Rinne
(eds) Net working/Networking: Citizen initiated Internet Politics,
TampereUniversityPress,Tampere,pp.103–126.
C
ONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
2 DigitalCitizenshipandPoliticalEngagement 9
3 SocialMediaUseforPoliticalEngagement 51
4 HybridOnlineCampaigningOrganisations 77
5 StorytellingandChangingValues 127
6 EntrepreneurialLeadershipStyles 157
7 DiffusionandSharingintheAdvocacyOrganisationSector 191
8 Conclusion:TheFutureofDigitalCitizenshipandPolitical
Engagement 225
References 239
Index 261
vii
L F
IST OF IGURES
Fig.3.1 Youngcitizens’useofFacebookforpolitics(%ofall
Facebookusers) 57
Fig.3.2 Followingnewsandpoliticalactorsonsocialmedia 62
Fig.4.1 GrowthinGetUpmembership2006–2015 87
Fig.4.2 Financialyearincome2006–2015 91
Fig.4.3 Declaredpoliticalexpenditure2007–2015 91
Fig.4.4 Declarabledonationsas%oftotalincome 92
Fig.4.5 ComparingGetUp’sdeclaredelectoralexpendituretypes
2007–2015 94
Fig.4.6 GetUpFacebookandTwitterfollowers2011–2015 102
Fig.4.7 Socialmediaandcampaigns:Snowdenanddataretentionpolicy 103
Fig.4.8 GetUpmediamentionsinmajorAustralianmedia,
Factiva(2011–2015) 106
Fig.4.9 GetUpjobadonethicalJobswebsiteJanuary2016(accessed
http://www.ethicaljobs.com.au/Members/GetUpAus/
surge-director) 114
Fig.4.10 Tacticssuggestedtomembers,June1–August23,2010 115
Fig.4.11 2010GetUpmediacoveragebyissue 120
Fig.6.1 GetUpNationalDirectors’mediamentions 171
Fig.6.2 Comparingthreehybridcampaigningorganisation
Directors’mediamentions 171
Fig.7.1 Issueagendaofpanelsrunatthreeactivistconferences 214
ix
L T
IST OF ABLES
Table3.1 Youngcitizens’useofTwitterforpolitics(%ofallTwitterusers) 57
Table4.1 Historicisingtheshifttohybridonlinecampaigningorganisations 80
Table4.2 GetUpmemberemailsbyissue,June1–August23,2010 116
Table4.3 GetUp2010electionissuesandcampaigntactics 118
Table6.1 BackgroundandtrajectoriesofGetUpcampaigners(atJune
2012) 164
Table6.2 BackgroundandtrajectoriesofGetUpcampaigners(atMarch
2016) 165
Table6.3 BackgroundsofcurrentandrecentcampaignersatAvaaz
(atMarch2016) 165
Table6.4 Onlinecampaigningorganisationdirectors 170
Table6.5 Leadershipthemesandconstructingthestoryofself 176
Table7.1 Whoisinvitedtospeakatactivistconferences 211
Table7.2 IndividualsandorganisationsinvitedtobothProgressive
AustraliaandProgress2013conferences 212
xi