Paul Revere, the Tea Party and Digital Activism: How Political Ideology Shapes Online Collective Action

• In Event: 242 - Regular Session. Media and Social Movements

Abstract

How does political ideology shape levels of online activism and participation? The digital activism literature presents a puzzle. On the one hand, some literature suggests that we might expect left political and social movement organizations to have higher levels of digital engagement than right-wing groups. On the other hand, another set of scholars contends that ideology is not as relevant in the digital era and does not have an effect on digital engagement. Most studies on the topic examine emergent left social movements, rather than existing organizations, and little research compares groups from different political orientations. My research combines both online and offline data collection procedures in a field-level approach that analyzes the online activism of a variety of groups with different ideologies, ranging from Tea Parties to labor unions. Given the existing literature, we might expect that left-wing groups use the Internet more or that groups from different political ideologies use the Internet at similar levels. Instead, I show that right-wing groups used the Internet more than left-wing organizations because conservative ideological beliefs about liberty inspired members to make heavy use of the Internet to disseminate information that they believed would cause others to act, whereas left organizations were focused more on general participation in their movements than on digital information. Combining both the ideas, practices and organizational context of political and social movements, I show that this articulated organizing ideology is critical to understanding digital activism today.

Author

• Jen Schradie, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse