ACTIVIST GROUPS AND PRACTICES OF MOBILISATION

Activist Groups and Practices of Mobilisation

• Extract from a lecture on governance• Unit ‘Communication Technology & Change’

Activist Groups and Practices of Mobilisation

Activist Groups and Practices of Mobilisation

Activist Groups and Practices of Mobilisation

• Not “what to think’ but “what to think about” (Cohen 1963)

• Agenda-setting, salience– Affective salience – tone of message– Substantive salience – informational content– Transfer of ‘object’ from one agenda to another

“first-level agenda setting” (what to think about)– Attribute salience – “second-level agenda setting”

(how to think about)

Activist Groups and Practices of Mobilisation

• Inter-media agenda setting (Ragas and Kiousis 2010)• MoveOn.org’s Obama in 30 Seconds

– Political advertisement competition• Partisan media coverage (The Nation)

– Congruent (‘strong’) first-level agenda setting• Explored relation between affective salience and second-

level agenda setting• Obama official ads and MoveOn.org’s ads

– Strong correlation between Obama negative ads and MoveOn ads– Weak correlation between Obama positive ads and MoveOn ads

Activist Groups and Practices of Mobilisation

• GetUp! and MoveOn• Hybrid organisation “a blend of traditional

hierarchical decision-making by the core staff and Board, coupled with rapid response networked member participation” (Vromen and Coleman 2011: 80).

Activist Groups and Practices of Mobilisation

• Membership– Members do not pay to join or receive a service– Opt in to receive emails (and they can simply opt

out at anytime as well) on GetUp! campaigns. – Recipients of GetUp!’s emails choose to take

further action only on issues that matter to them.• What is this action? How is it political? Is it?

Activist Groups and Practices of Mobilisation

1. Send an email: to the federal or state legislature, a government agency, the government leader, a company; to a newspaper editor;

2. Make a phone call: to the federal legislature, the government leader, to fellow citizens to vote;

3. Sign an e-petition;4. Join a local action;5. Donate money; and/or6. Watch a video. (Vromen and Coleman 2011: 84)

Activist Groups and Practices of Mobilisation

• 2010 election• Focus: pollution, mental

health, and refugees• Rapid response– Voter enrolment issue– 70% of members supported– Launched High Court action– 3 week turnaround– 98,138 voters enfranchised

Issue Frequency %

Carbon Pollution 4 11.5

Mental Health 5 14

Refugees 3 8.5

Native Forests 1 3

Voter Enrolment 6 17

Tony Abbott’s Conservative Agenda 2 6

Internet Censorship 1 3

General Election Strategy, progressive agenda

2 6

Election Day, visibility, scorecards 5 14

Combination of carbon pollution, mental health, refugees

6 17

Total 35 100

GetUp! Member Emails by Election Issue 1 June - 23 August 2010 (85)

Activist Groups and Practices of Mobilisation

• ‘Clicktivism’?• One of the key opportunities

that the internet has presented to contemporary social movements is an improved capacity to organise high threshold offline actions. (Van Laer and Van Aelst 2010) – Creative function – Facilitating function

• 2010 GetUp! – 7,000 people offline activities– 20,000 hours volunteer work

Activist Groups and Practices of Mobilisation

• GetUp!’s agenda-setting capacity?• Media coverage

– Most neutral, including 88% of news stories

– Only 13 articles negative, mostly about Abbott & gender ads

– 76% did not mention political leaning– 12% called it progressive – 12% called it independent

• Vromen & Coleman argue that “the routinised recognition of GetUp! as a legitimate political player in Australia” (89)