Resource Partitioning and Density Dependence on a Digital Mobilization Platform

• In Event: 579 - Section on Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 08. Algorithmic Culture

Abstract

Social movement organizations and individuals increasingly use online petitions in attempts to mobilize supporters. That said, despite the massive popularity of the medium, the vast majority of petitions fail to garner many signatures. This paper adapts theories from organizational ecology to provide an explanation of online petitions' success at mobilization. We apply latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) topic models to analyze the text of petitions and to group them into topics representing niches. Then, we operationalize theories of resource partitioning and density dependence from organizational ecology to predict petition signature counts. We find that petition focus has a substantial positive relationship to petition success measured by signature count. Although conceivable, we do not find evidence that more concentrated topics have more focused petitions. We also find a curvilinear, inverted U-shape relationship between topic density and petition success, indicating that petitions face environmental pressures of both legitimacy and competition.

Authors

• Nathan Tegrotenhuis

• Benjamin Mako Hill, University of Washington

• Aaron Shaw, Northwestern University