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How Activists Are Both Born and Made: An Analysis of Users on Change.org

Authors:

Shih-Wen Huang,

Minhyang (Mia) Suh,

Benjamin Mako Hill,

Gary HsiehAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '15: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 211 - 220

https://doi.org/10.1145/2702123.2702559

Published: 18 April 2015 Publication History

Abstract

E-petitioning has become one of the most important and popular forms of online activism. Although e-petition success is driven by user behavior, users have received relatively little study by HCI and social computing researchers. Drawing from theoretical and empirical work in analogous social computing systems, we identify two potentially competing theories about the trajectories of users in e-petition platforms: (1) "power" users in social computing systems are born, not made; and (2) users mature into "power" users. In a quantitative analysis of data from Change.org, one of the largest online e-petition platforms, we test and find support for both theories. A follow-up qualitative analysis shows that not only do users learn from their experience, systems also "learn" from users to make better recommendations. In this sense, we find that although power users are "born," they are also "made" through both processes of personal growth and improved support from the system.

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Cited By

Olejnik M(2024)When is grassroots lobbying effective? The case of the e-petitions at the national level in the UKInterest Groups & Advocacy10.1057/s41309-024-00208-813:2(213-243)Online publication date: 29-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-024-00208-8
Warncke-Wang MHo RMiller MJohnson I(2023)Increasing Participation in Peer Production Communities with the Newcomer HomepageProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36100717:CSCW2(1-26)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610071
Alshehri MSu N(2023)Comfort Activism: Online Photography for Social Change in a Minority GroupProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35794687:CSCW1(1-33)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3579468
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

How Activists Are Both Born and Made: An Analysis of Users on Change.org
1. Human-centered computing

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Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '15: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2015

4290 pages

ISBN:9781450331456

DOI:10.1145/2702123

General Chairs:
Bo Begole
Huawei, USA
,
Jinwoo Kim
Yonsei University, Korea
,
Program Chairs:
Kori Inkpen
Microsoft Research, USA
,
Woontack Woo
KAIST, Korea

Copyright © 2015 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 ACM 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]

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SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 18 April 2015

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CHI '15

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SIGCHI

CHI '15: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 18 - 23, 2015

Seoul, Republic of Korea

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CHI '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 486 of 2,120 submissions, 23%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

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CHI 2025

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ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 26 - May 1, 2025

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Cited By

Olejnik M(2024)When is grassroots lobbying effective? The case of the e-petitions at the national level in the UKInterest Groups & Advocacy10.1057/s41309-024-00208-813:2(213-243)Online publication date: 29-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41309-024-00208-8
Warncke-Wang MHo RMiller MJohnson I(2023)Increasing Participation in Peer Production Communities with the Newcomer HomepageProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36100717:CSCW2(1-26)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3610071
Alshehri MSu N(2023)Comfort Activism: Online Photography for Social Change in a Minority GroupProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35794687:CSCW1(1-33)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3579468
Lee C(2023)COVID Non-Conformity via the Korean National Petition: Citizens’ Responses to Pandemic Biopolitical Social ControlCritical Criminology10.1007/s10612-023-09706-831:2(327-342)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-023-09706-8
SEYİDOV IAKÇAY E(2022)Exploring Change.Org as a Digital Heterotopia: A Foucauldian Approachİlef Dergisi10.24955/ilef.958572Online publication date: 31-May-2022
https://doi.org/10.24955/ilef.958572
Cheng RHill B(2022)Many Destinations, Many Pathways: A Quantitative Analysis of Legitimate Peripheral Participation in ScratchProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35551066:CSCW2(1-26)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555106
Wu YEdwards WDas S(2022)“A Reasonable Thing to Ask For”: Towards a Unified Voice in Privacy Collective ActionProceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491102.3517467(1-17)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3491102.3517467
Bright JPilet JSoubiran TBermudez SCarey Libbrecht L(2021)Origines et impacts des hyper-utilisateurs et hyper-utilisatrices en cyberdémocratie. Le cas du pétitionnement en ligneParticipations10.3917/parti.028.0125N° 28:3(125-149)Online publication date: 30-Apr-2021
https://doi.org/10.3917/parti.028.0125
Contamin JKies RPaye OPilet J(2021)Introduction. La participation politique en ligne au révélateur du pétitionnement électroniqueParticipations10.3917/parti.028.0007N° 28:3(7-45)Online publication date: 30-Apr-2021
https://doi.org/10.3917/parti.028.0007
Quintana Pujalte AAlmansa-Martínez A(2021)Intereses que movilizan a la comunidad digital de change.org: más allá de lo políticoGlobal Media Journal México10.29105/gmjmx18.34-618:34Online publication date: 1-Jul-2021
https://doi.org/10.29105/gmjmx18.34-6
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