Effective Social Campaigns and Emotional Mobilization
One picture of Movimiento15 by Guillermo Viciano, May 2011 (Flickr).
(Read in French) Emotions play a key role in the inception, expansion, and longevity of social campaigns. A strong emotional impetus is useful not only for prompting bodies and brains to act, but for also generating collective identities and solidarity among very diverse members of social campaigns. Within the past few decades, the academic field of sentiment analysis has emerged, mapping temporal assessments of positive or negative sentiment trends for various topics, or highlighting specific keywords in conversations or tweets that illustrate users’ sentiments over the duration of a social campaign. Coupled with the sentiment analysis curated by data analysts for the 15M movements (read this article on Movimiento15 and decentralization) and feedback provided through interviews with various 15M participants, this post will illustrate the importance of emotional mobilization for effective social campaigns.
Researcher Óscar Marín Miró has created a visual tool that tracks the prevalence of various emotions in over 1 million tweets related to 15M between April 1, 2011 and June 29, 2011. His analysis not only tracks the presence of emotion-related keywords in tweets, but also measures the “emotional charge” of tweets or the proportion of original messages with an affective component out of the total. His study concluded that on average, 15M tweets had double the emotional charge of normal tweets during that time period. Additionally, this charge rises steeply during the initial weeks of May 2011 when the encampments began. Not surprisingly, indignation is the dominant emotion in the tweets; however, empowerment also proves to be a quite significant emotion in his data over the period analysed.
The time period that sees the greatest emotional charge coincides with the stage of the demonstrations during which protestors used their mobile phone cameras to document police violence against nonviolent protestors. They were able to stream this online in real time and posted images on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. This galvanized the Spanish public in favour of the protestors, and the number of individuals gathered in the squares increased exponentially from that point forward. For instance, on May 17th, one day after the police tried to violently dismantle an encampment in Barcelona, close to 20,000 more people gathered to occupy the square, chanting, “The revolution has started!” These images and videos sparked a sense of indignation, solidarity, and empowerment between originally disparate networks of people and mobilized them into action.
Interestingly, happiness is an emotion that does not feature prominently in the twitter analysis conducted by Miró, but that is frequently cited as important in interviews with participants of the 15M movement. The Indignados facilitated happiness through the use of humour. Placards displayed slogans that subverted popular culture such as “We are not anti-system, the system is anti-us” or “Dear crisis, it’s not you – it’s me.” Other signs in the encampments displayed Google searches for “Spanish democracy” turning up “Spanish democracy not found.” Online, a group of demonstrators started a Twitter parody account called @acampadapolicia, which tweeted as if police officers had been the ones occupying the squares. Again, this helped to build community and solidarity; however, interview subjects noted that this type of humour was important for diffusing tense and stressful situations. Moreover, “It was great to be able to laugh during the occupations because it made staying in the square for a prolonged period of time not feel like an obligation,” explained one protestor. In this way, happiness lowered the cost of participation and was partially responsible for the longevity of the movement.
The 15M case study illustrates that emotions are essential for mobilizing individuals into action. While this observation is hardly novel, it is interesting to note the manner in which digital tools can structure emotions. An online hashtag for instance, can set the emotional tone of a physical protest. Of course, there are other factors that are necessary for the emergence and strength of social campaigns; however, as Javier Toret notes, “The crisis is a necessary condition, but it alone was not sufficient to trigger what happened and what was expressed in 2011.” Countries like Italy, Greece, and Ireland that are not culturally dissimilar to Spain and that experienced the same political and economic ills as a result of anti-austerity measures, did not witness protests as large as 15M. “Movements need an emotional spark, an impulse, a trigger,” Toret concludes.
Challenging Stereotypes of the Slacktivist: A Look Into The People’s Climate March
NYPD_hearts_climate_justice-15, picture of Steve Lambert (Flickr). Victoria Estok approached NYPD officers along the People’s Climate March and asked if she and Steve Lambert could take a photo with them. Officers mentioned they are not allowed to make political statements. These photos are not meant to show any endorsement by individual officers, and only demonstrate good will towards the participants.
(Read in French) The People’s Climate March was the largest gathering of individuals seeking to change climate change in history. The march in New York City involved 400,000 people and 1,574 organizations on September 21, 2014. To put things into perspective, one of the largest marches of the Civil Rights Movement, the March on Washington, had anywhere from 200,000 to 300,00 people in attendance.
While the size of the The People’s Climate March in New York City itself is astonishing, the March was not confined to New York. There were 2,646 solidary events in 162 countries across the world. At the most basic level, the People’s Climate March consequently challenges Malcolm Gladwell’s central argument on “slacktivism”, that social media platforms lack the ability to form close and personal ties that will enact change. The People’s Climate March is an example where individuals not only interacted with the issue online, but also took to the streets in unprecedented numbers.
The question then shifts to how the People’s Climate March achieved such an unprecedented turnout. One reason for the widespread participation was the emphasis on participating in a March that would go down in history. Both Elana Brown, a Campaigner from Avaaz, and Stuart Basden, President of 350.org Toronto, noted the central message of not missing out on a “once in a lifetime opportunity”. This message was broadcasted through social media and on various posters on every subway in the City.
A second reason for the widespread participation was the use of coalitions. The March was organized by a coalition comprised of more than 1,500 organizations around the world. While one might argue that this was consequently a decentralized movement, the key organizer was 350.org. Nevertheless, no single organization was responsible for the messaging or outlining specific goals. In examining the composition of The People’s Climate March, Dana R. Fisher, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, initial findings demonstrate that approximately 20% of those surveyed at the March in New York came with an organization.
Moreover, the study’s initial findings also demonstrate that 82% of individuals at the March had signed a petition in the year prior to the protest, and 57% had contacted an elected government representative. One can begin to see that while more participants came to the March with family and friends than with organizations, there were a large proportion of participants who were civically active.
Lastly, another reason for widespread participation could also be accredited to the organizers use of digital tools to disseminate logistical plans and information on the March. Social media undoubtedly played a significant role in disseminating information prior to, and during, the March as is evidenced by the fact that #PeoplesClimate generated 956.33 million social impressions on Twitter alone. Most importantly to the question on what brought 400,000 people out to the March in New York, digital tools were integral to getting the message out there beforehand. PeoplesClimate.org posted information on the March’s goals and contact information to get involved and detailed information on the logistics surrounding the March that included everything to bus routes from various states and Canada.
From this one can reasonably conclude that the individuals flooded the streets of New York in unprecedented
numbers due to the utility social media tools and the Internet brought to disseminating important details of the March, the value of incorporating various voices through forming a coalition of organizations, in addition to the idea that the March was history in the marking.
The massive participation of a variety of individuals from different backgrounds has been used as a metric to deem the campaign successful. The campaigns Twitter account (@Peoples_Climate) summarized the value of such widespread participation highlighting that it is an “omnipresent counterpoint” to inaction as 400,000 people have demonstrated their commitment to addressing climate change. Therefore, the People’s Climate March not only provides us with clear tactics on how to incite mass participation, but also shows the value of having thousands of voices calling attention to an issue that is often overlooked.
Special thanks to Elana Brown, Executive Assistant from Avaaz and Stuart Basen, President of 350.org Toronto and Dana R. Fisher, Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland for their insights.
Direct diplomacy : an interactive blog
For the second year, a practicing diplomat and a young academic have begun an online exploration of the new phenomenon of digital diplomacy.
This research into the use of the internet by practitioners of diplomacy and newly-empowered individuals involving in global affairs is meant to be more than a review of practices, successes and risks in the emerging field. Our goal is to open a dialogue with our readers, to engage in the two-way communication that is the hallmark of Web 2.0.
We’d like to get your views, both those of you that are practitioners yourselves and those of you in the general public interested in the subject. We look forward to your participation.
With this goal in mind, we are now launching a new section of the blog for comments and suggestions. Over to you to continue our discussion!
Movimiento 15 (15M) and decentralization
Movimiento 15M valencia 20-05-2011, picture of Fito Senabre (Flickr).
(Read in French) Sweeping across the plazas of Spain in 2011, the grassroots anti-austerity and free culture campaign known as Movimiento 15 (15M) has, as the Guardian’s Katherine Ainger argues, so deeply permeated the Spanish psyche that “indignation is becoming a generalized condition.” On Sunday, May 15, 2011, close to 20,000 people attended demonstrations in more than fifty Spanish cities, mobilized by the slogan “Real Democracy Now! We are not merchandise in the hands of politicians and bankers!” They understood Spain’s economic crisis to be inseparable from a political one, and called for a restoration of participatory democratic politics. During the weeks that followed, thousands of Indignados (Indignants) occupied the plazas of Spain, exploiting the power of digital tools to both share information and compel people into action. The assemblies were non-hierarchical open assemblies that anyone could partake in and embodiments of the participatory democracy for which the Indignados called. They took the ruling elites by surprise.
Organizing itself to ensure its survival
Contrary to popular belief, the movement was not spontaneous. It had been planned by a number of civil society groups for months, and had a highly complex organizational structure (read Theo Milosevic’s article on the importance of structure for scaling). By June 2011, when it became clear that the police were going to dismantle the camps, the movement made a concerted decision to take advantage of the growing momentum and evolve in order to ensure its survival. Rather than call for participants to “toma la plaza” (“take the square”), members were summoned to “toma los barrios” (“take the neighbourhoods”). At regular intervals throughout the year, the neighbourhood assemblies meet in Madrid at the Sol General Assembly to discuss their progress and share ideas. The decentralization of the movement has been, for the most part, responsible for its survival; however, the transition from the plaza to the barrio has not been without its challenges.
While already a horizontally structured movement, the Indignados began their move from Spain’s urban centres to the periphery with the hashtags #We’reNotLeaving #We’reMoving. They were also keen to let law enforcement authorities know that #WeKnowTheWayBack. This shift to the barrio is also reflected by Twitter analytics. A number of scholars studying the evolution of 15M concluded that when classified by urban or local origin, tweets indicated a trend towards decentralization from the urban to the local.
The advantages of decentralization are numerous. According to one individual who participated in 15M in both Madrid and his local assembly, “The neighbourhood assembly was more efficient because it was flexible. We didn’t waste time with absurd nuances.” Indeed, many barrios opted to make decisions by majority rule as opposed to by consensus, which was the process in the plazas and was often quite cumbersome and inefficient. While some barrios still reached decisions by consensus, neighbourhood assemblies tended to be more homogenous groups, and thus reached decisions more swiftly.
Revitalizing older movements to deal with more local issues
Additionally, the neighbourhood assemblies addressed issues that were more salient for that particular barrio. They mediated between the immediate problems of their barrio and the more general or abstract discourses of the plazas. In Mortalez, a neighbourhood east of Madrid, an older population meant that issues related to health and pensions were atop the agenda. In San Blas, the neighbourhood assembly created a Time Bank, which allows neighbours to exchange services amongst themselves without money. Instead, the unit of currency is one hour of a person’s labour, providing incentives and rewards for work, and putting economic power back in local hands. In Madrid, neighbourhood assemblies formed the Brigadas Vecinales de Observacíon de los Derechos Humanos (the Neighbourhood Bridgaes for Human Rights Monitoring), which have been successful in both publicizing police brutality of immigrants in cities with large immigrant communities and shaming the police forces into stopping this practice.
One of the most important outputs of the neighbourhood assemblies has been the Stop Desahucios campaign to stop forced evictions. Here, neighbourhood assemblies partnered with their local branch of the Plataforma de Afectados por lo Hipoteca (PAH), the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages, to stop evictions. The neighbourhood assemblies allied with one another to share information and aid in coordination. They played a large role in collecting information about planned evictions, registering them online, and organizing mobilizations of activists on eviction dates. Between 2011 and 2012, they managed to stop over 100 evictions in Madrid alone. This horizontal network clustering around a particular issue is a structure that may prove useful in other social campaigns. Here, decentralization worked because those who were most familiar with a particular problem in a barrio were also those who were most qualified to fix it.
The movement to the barrios revitalized the role of the neighbourhood assembly, which after playing a crucial role in the local democratic transition process of the 1970s, had largely become demobilized. When these neighbourhood assemblies became “invitation only” during the 1990s, a great deal of sectarianism occurred between neighbourhood groups and sentiments of mutual distrust swelled.
Potential drawbacks of the decentralization process
Nevertheless, the move to the barrios has not been entirely seamless. Decentralization has meant that some barrios see smaller numbers of participants than others or so few numbers of participants that they do not exist at all. In others, the individuals who attend meetings are not representative of the barrio as a whole, ensuring that one particular group monopolizes the decision-making process.
Additionally, one interview participant noted a decline in attendance when it became too cold or too hot. In Lavapiés, a neighbourhood in Madrid, there was great debate over where exactly to hold the neighbourhood assembly meetings. The neighbourhood’s main square, Plaza de Prosperidad, has the advantage of being the most recognizable and central meeting point of the city; however, it possesses no trees or shade, which made meetings during the summer months unbearable. Some assemblies have stopped sending their chairs to the coordinating meetings between assemblies because of transportation difficulties or bad weather. These are concerns that other social campaigns considering decentralization would do well to ponder.
One common concern about decentralization is leadership diffusion, which can create greater uncertainty and a loss of control over decision-making processes. This was less of an issue in this particular case because in order to practice participatory and deliberative democracy, the movement decided that it should have no leaders. Instead, decisions were to be arrived at by consensus and rotating moderators and spokespeople were used for assembly meetings. This was to ensure that no one group or person was able to monopolize the agenda or to emerge as a leader. In the plazas, this slowed the decision-making process considerably. Neighbourhood assemblies veered away from consensus decision-making in certain instances and were thus more efficient.
A centralized organizational hierarchy may be less effective if a social campaign requires a great deal of flexibility and individualization. Here, while the demonstrators were united in their fight against the configuration of the two-party political system and austerity measures, they were a heterogeneous group with no explicitly defined goals. The movement to the barrios forced them to work on finding solutions to these political and economic problems at the micro level, which proved more efficient. It’s also worth noting that the structures of the neighbourhood assemblies were already in place in the barrios. Even if they had proven to be ineffective in the past, there was at least a process and a model already established. They were not starting from scratch. In campaigns where these structures do not exist, leadership diffusion and disorganization may emerge as major problems. Finally, the choice of organizational design is highly dependant on the type of people available to the campaign. Where a campaign has a highly trusted membership and a great deal of momentum and ideology to leverage, decentralization is more effective than when a campaign is unsure of the commitment level of its members.
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