More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/

research-article

The Role of Social Computing Technologies in Grassroots Movement Building

Authors:

Sucheta Ghoshal,

Amy BruckmanAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), Volume 26, Issue 3

Article No.: 18, Pages 1 - 36

https://doi.org/10.1145/3318140

Published: 05 June 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Social movement organizing is becoming increasingly dependent on communication technologies. How can Computer-Supported Cooperative Work systems support grassroots organizations in facilitating collective action through democratic participation? In this article, we study Science for the People-Atlanta, a social movement organization dedicated to building a grassroots movement around science activism. We used action research, both participating in the organization and studying it. We use the Freirean model of participatory communication theory to unpack the movement-building process of SftP-Atlanta. The Freirean model provides a three-step, iterative process for sustainable movement building: forming a collective identity, moving toward collective action, and engaging in reflexive dialog. We analyze both the perceived strengths and weaknesses of their sociotechnical practices in supporting the organization as they iteratively go through the phases of the Freirean model. Finally, we identify inclusivity, privacy/security, and social translucence as three values desirable for sociotechnical practices of grassroots organizing.

References

[1]

Mark Ackerman. 2000. The intellectual challenge of CSCW: The gap between social requirements and technical feasibility. Human-Computer Interaction 15, 2 (2000), 179--203.

Digital Library

[2]

Alessandro Acquisiti and Ralph Gross. 2006. Imagined communities: Awareness, information sharing, and privacy on the Facebook. In Proceedings of the International Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies.Springer, Berlin, 36--58.

Digital Library

[3]

Alessandro Acquisti, Laura Brandimarte, and George Loewenstein. 2016. Privacy and human behavior in the age of information. Journal of Economic Literature 54, 2 (2016), 442--492.

[4]

Linda Alcoff. 2016. The problem of speaking for others author(s). Cultural Critique 20, 20 (2016), 5--32. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1354221.

[5]

Joon Sang Baek, Sojung Kim, Yoonyee Pahk, and Ezio Manzini. 2018. A sociotechnical framework for the design of collaborative services. Design Studies 55 (2018), 54--78.

[6]

Shaowen Bardzell. 2010. Feminist HCI: Taking stock and outlining an agenda for design. In Proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1301--1310.

Digital Library

[7]

Erling Björgvinsson, Pelle Ehn, and Per-Anders Hillgren. 2010. Participatory design and “democratizing innovation.” In Proceedings of the 11th Biennial Participatory Design Conference (PDC’10). 41--50.

Digital Library

[8]

Javier Borge-Holthoefer and Walid Magdy. 2014. Content and network dynamics behind Egyptian political polarization on Twitter. Computers 8 Society (2014), 1--30.

[9]

Allan Collins, Diana Joseph, and Katerine Bielaczyc. 2009. Design research: Theoretical and methodological issues. Journal of the Learning Sciences 13, 1 (2009), 15--42.

[10]

Sasha Costanza-Chock. 2018. Design justice: Towards an intersectional feminist framework for design theory and practice. In Proceedings of the Design Research Society 2018.

[11]

danah boyd. 2008. Why youth heart social network sites: The role of networked publics in teenage social life. In Foundation Series on Digital Learning -- Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. MacArthur (Ed.), MIT Press, 119--142.

[12]

John Dewey. 1927. The Public and Its Problems. Swallow Press, Athens, OH.

[13]

B. Dick. 2001. Action research: Action and research. In Effective Change Management Using Action Learning and Action Research: Concepts, Frameworks, Processes, Applications, S. Sankaran, B. Dick, R. Passfield, and P. Swepson (Eds.). Southern Cross University Press, Lismore, NSW, 21--27.

[14]

Jill P. Dimond, Michaelanne Dye, Daphne Larose, and Amy S. Bruckman. 2013. Hollaback&excl;: The role of collective storytelling online in a social movement organization. In Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW’13). 477--490.

Digital Library

[15]

Carl DiSalvo. 2009. Design and the construction of publics. Design Issues 25, 1 (2009), 48--63.

[16]

Carl Disalvo, Andrew Clement, and Volkmar Pipek. 2013. Communities: Participatory design for, with and by communities. In Proceedings of the International Handbook of Participatory Design. Routledge, 182--209.

[17]

Lynn Dombrowski, Ellie Harmon, and Sarah Fox. 2016. Social justice-oriented interaction design. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS’16). 656--671.

Digital Library

[18]

Paul Dourish and Ken Anderson. 2006. Collective information practice: Exploring privacy and security as social and cultural phenomena. Human-Computer Interaction 21, 3 (2006), 319--342.

Digital Library

[19]

Pelle Ehn. 2008. Participation in design things. In Proceedings of the 10th Conference on Participatory Design (PDC’08). 92--101.

Digital Library

[20]

Nahed Eltantawy and Julie B. Wiest. 2011. Social media in the Egyptian revolution: Reconsidering resource mobilization theory. International Journal of Communication 5 (2011), 1207--1224.

[21]

Thomas Erickson, Wendy A. Kellogg, and IBM T. J. Watson. 2000. Social translucence: An approach to designing systems that support social processes. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 7, 1 (2000), 59--83.

Digital Library

[22]

Mary Flanagan, Daniel C. Howe, and Helen Nissenbaum. 2008. Embodying values in technology: Theory and practice. In Information Technology and Moral Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 322--353.

[23]

Marcus Foth, Jaz Hee-jeong Choi, and Christine Satchell. 2011. Urban informatics. In Proceedings of the ACM 2011 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW’11). 1--8.

Digital Library

[24]

Paulo Freire. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Bloomsbury Publishing.

[25]

Paulo Freire. 2000. Cultural action for freedom (2000 ed). Harvard Educational Review, Cambridge, MA.

[26]

Batya Friedman. 1996. Value-sensitive design. Interactions 3, 6 (1996), 16--23.

Digital Library

[27]

S. Grundy. 1982. Three Modes of Action Research. Deakin University Press

[28]

R. Hardin. 2015. Collective Action. Resources for the Future.Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en8lr=8id=GAseCwAAQBAJ8oi=fnd8pg=PP18dq=hardin+2015+collective8ots=SnVRB-SmvD8sig=SeI4MPZsXNINJ76VQMWZpzAMpNM.

[29]

Sandra G. Harding. 1986. The Science Question in Feminism. Cornell University Press.

[30]

Gillian R. Hayes. 2011. The relationship of action research to human-computer interaction. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 18, 3 (July 2011), 1--20.

Digital Library

[31]

K. G. Herr and G. L. Anderson. 2014. The Action Research Dissertation: A Guide for Students and Faculty. Sage Publications.

[32]

Tad Hirsch and John Henry. 2005. TXTmob: Text messaging for protest swarms. In Proceedings of the CHI’05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 1455--1458.

Digital Library

[33]

E. Hopkins, D., Joyce, B., and Calhoun. 2002. A Teacher’s Guide to Classroom Research. Open University Press.

[34]

Lily C. Irani and M. Six Silberman. 2013. Turkopticon: Interrupting worker invisibility in amazon mechanical turk. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 611--620.

Digital Library

[35]

Finn Kensing and Joan Greenbaum. 2013. Heritage: Having a say. In The International Handbook of Participatory Design. Routledge, 21--36.

[36]

John Kolko. 2010. Abductive thinking and sense making: The drivers of design synthesis. Design Issues 26, 1 (2010), 1--28.

[37]

Christopher A. Le Dantec and Carl DiSalvo. 2013. Infrastructuring and the formation of publics in participatory design. Social Studies of Science 43, 2 (2013), 241--264.

[38]

Christopher A. Le Dantec, Erika Shehan Poole, and Susan P. Wyche. 2009. Values as lived experience: Evolving value sensitive design in support of value discovery. In Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’09). 1141--1150.

Digital Library

[39]

John Lofland. 1996. Social Movement Organizations: Guide to Research on Insurgent Realities. Aldine de Gruyter, New York.

[40]

Gilad Lotan, Erhardt Graeff, Mike Ananny, Devin Gaffney, Ian Pearce, and danah boyd. 2011. The Arab spring| the revolutions were tweeted: Information flows during the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. International Journal of Communication 5 (2011), 31.

[41]

P. McLaren. 2000. Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution. Rowman 8 Littlefield Publishers.

[42]

Jean McNiff and Jack Whitehead. 2011. All you Need to Know About Action Research (2nd ed.). Sage Publications.

[43]

Meredith Ringel Morris, Scott Counts, Asta Roseway, Aaron Hoff, and Julia Schwarz. 2012. Tweeting is believing? Understanding microblog credibility perceptions. In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW’12). 441--450.

Digital Library

[44]

Mark W. Newman, Debra Lauterbach, Sean A. Munson, Paul Resnick, and Margaret E. Morris. 2011. It’s not that I don’t have problems, I’m just not putting them on Facebook. In Proceedings of the ACM 2011 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW’11). 341--350.

Digital Library

[45]

Leysia Palen and Paul Dourish. 2003. Unpacking “privacy” for a networked world. In Proceedings of the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’03). 129--136.

Digital Library

[46]

Francesca Polletta. 2002. Freedom is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements (2004 ed.). The University of Chicago Press.

[47]

Gary B. Rush and R. Serge Denisoff. 1971. Social and Political Movements. Appleton-Century-Crofts.

[48]

Jan Servaes. 2006. Participatory communication (research) from a Freirean perspective. African Media Review 10 (Sept. 2006), 73--91. Retrieved from http://pdfproc.lib.msu.edu/?file=/DMC/African Journals/pdfs/africa media review/vol10no1/jamr010001006.pdf.

[49]

Jan Servaes and Patchanee Malikhao. 2005. Participatory communication: The new paradigm? In Media and Glocal Change. Rethinking Communication for Development. Nordicom, Sweden, 91--103.

[50]

Dong Hee Shin. 2010. The effects of trust, security and privacy in social networking: A security-based approach to understand the pattern of adoption. Interacting with Computers 22, 5 (2010), 428--438.

Digital Library

[51]

David A. Snow and Sarah Anne Soule. 2010. A Primer on Social Movements. WW Norton. 292 pages.

[52]

Lee Staples. 2016. Roots to Power: A Manual for Grassroots Organizing. Praeger Publishers Inc. 483 pages. Retrieved from https://vufind.carli.illinois.edu/all/vf-knx/Record/15696699/Description.

[53]

Stephanie Stokes. 2017. Atlanta’s first food forest aims to increase access to fresh produce. 90.1 FM WABE (Sept. 2017). Retrieved from https://www.wabe.org/atlantas-first-food-forest-aims-increase-access-fresh-produce/.

[54]

Sidney G. Tarrow. 2011. Power in Movement : Social Movements and Contentious Politics. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from https://books.google.com/books?hl=en8lr=8id=zpeVVfesY2AC8oi=fnd8pg=PR138dq=tarrow+power+in+movement8ots=rH2eR2Vzv28sig=RNH0tUXV3B5JoUbRDoTwstSwmjQ#v=onepage8q=tarrowpowerinmovement8f8equals;false.

[55]

Zeynep Tufekci. 2017. Twitter and Tear Gas. Yale University Press.

[56]

Zeynep Tufekci and Christopher Wilson. 2012. Social media and the decision to participate in political protest: Observations from Tahrir square. Journal of Communication 62 (2012), 363--379.

[57]

Volker Wulf, Konstantin Aal, Ibrahim Abu Kteish, Meryem Atam, Kai Schubert, Markus Rohde, George P. Yerousis, and David Randall. 2013. Fighting against the wall: Social media use by political activists in a Palestinian village. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1979--1988.

Digital Library

[58]

Volker Wulf, Kaoru Misaki, Meryem Atam, David Randall, and Markus Rohde. 2013. ‘On the ground’ in Sidi Bouzid: Investigating social media use during the Tunisian revolution. In Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW’13) . 1409--1418.

Digital Library

[59]

Susan P. Wyche, Elisa Oreglia, Morgan G. Ames, Christopher Hoadley, Aditya Johri, Phoebe Sengers, and Charles Steinfield. 2012. Learning from marginalized users: Reciprocity in HCI4D. InProceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work Companion (CSCW’12). 27--28.

Digital Library

Cited By

Gligorić KZbinden RChiolero AKıcıman EWhite RHorvitz EWest R(2024)Measuring and shaping the nutritional environment via food sales logs: case studies of campus-wide food choice and a call to actionFrontiers in Nutrition10.3389/fnut.2024.123107011Online publication date: 4-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2024.1231070
Das DGandhi DSemaan B(2024)Reimagining Communities through Transnational Bengali Decolonial Discourse with YouTube Content CreatorsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869008:CSCW2(1-36)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686900
Tran A(2024)Doing What Counts: Following Eviction Data from the Community to the CourtCompanion Publication of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3656156.3665128(15-18)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3656156.3665128
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

The Role of Social Computing Technologies in Grassroots Movement Building
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Collaborative and social computing theory, concepts and paradigms
      1. Computer supported cooperative work
    2. Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing
  2. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. HCI theory, concepts and models

Recommendations

Toward a Grassroots Culture of Technology Practice
CSCW

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can support grassroots social movements toward greateroutreach and better day-to-day communication. In this paper, we present the results of action research with alarge-scale grassroots social movement, ...
Design and the Politics of Collaboration: A Grassroots Perspective
CSCW '19 Companion: Companion Publication of the 2019 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

This workshop aims to advance our knowledge of how CSCW technologies can be better aligned with grassroots politics of collaboration. What politics are inherent in CSCW tools and techniques? How can we examine whether so- ciotechnical systems support ...
Deconstructing Community-Based Collaborative Design: Towards More Equitable Participatory Design Engagements

Participatory Design (PD) is envisioned as an approach to democratizing innovation in the design process by shifting the power dynamics between researcher and participant. Recent scholarship in HCI and design has analyzed the ways collaborative design ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction Volume 26, Issue 3

June 2019

254 pages

ISSN:1073-0516

EISSN:1557-7325

DOI:10.1145/3328720

Editor:
Kristina Höök
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2019 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 05 June 2019

Accepted: 01 February 2019

Revised: 01 February 2019

Received: 01 February 2018

Published in TOCHI Volume 26, Issue 3

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

30
Total Citations
View Citations
876
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)166
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)29

Reflects downloads up to 24 Dec 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Gligorić KZbinden RChiolero AKıcıman EWhite RHorvitz EWest R(2024)Measuring and shaping the nutritional environment via food sales logs: case studies of campus-wide food choice and a call to actionFrontiers in Nutrition10.3389/fnut.2024.123107011Online publication date: 4-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2024.1231070
Das DGandhi DSemaan B(2024)Reimagining Communities through Transnational Bengali Decolonial Discourse with YouTube Content CreatorsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869008:CSCW2(1-36)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686900
Tran A(2024)Doing What Counts: Following Eviction Data from the Community to the CourtCompanion Publication of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3656156.3665128(15-18)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3656156.3665128
Tran ADisalvo C(2024)Counting Up: Designing Agonistic Data Collection in the Court RoomProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661616(3257-3271)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643834.3661616
Flawn LSoden R(2024)Autonomy, Affect, and Reframing: Unpacking the Data Practices of Grassroots Climate Justice ActivistsProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661585(3016-3028)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643834.3661585
Pendse SMassachi TMahdavimoghaddam JButler JSuh JCzerwinski M(2024)Towards Inclusive Futures for Worker WellbeingProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36374148:CSCW1(1-32)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3637414
Jo JXie JAiyer PKnearem TCarroll J(2024)Infrastructuring Community Fridges for Food CommoningProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36373528:CSCW1(1-27)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3637352
Jahn LEngelbutzeder PRandall DBollmann YNtouros VMichel LWulf V(2024)In Between Users and Developers: Serendipitous Connections and Intermediaries in Volunteer-Driven Open-Source Software DevelopmentProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642541(1-15)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642541
Tran AGuo GTaylor JChan KRaymond EDisalvo C(2024)Situating Datasets: Making Public Eviction Data Actionable for Housing JusticeProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642452(1-16)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642452
Engelbutzeder PJahn LBerns KKirschsieper DWulf-Miskati DSchäfer FRandall DWulf V(2024)Utopian Design Space: Practical Concerns and Transformative AmbitionsInteracting with Computers10.1093/iwc/iwae055Online publication date: 13-Dec-2024
https://doi.org/10.1093/iwc/iwae055
Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Article

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Issue’s Table of Contents