Creating Engaging Content: Content Repertoires and Engagement with Environmental and Racial Justice Organizations on Instagram, 2013-2023

• In Event: Open Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 8: Social Movements and Collective Action

Abstract

Social media is increasingly central to how social movement organizations (SMOs) spread their messages, form networks, and facilitate connections. Yet there has been little research on how effective these efforts have been at driving engagement, let alone research on image-based platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Attention is vital for every organization, but it is particularly important for SMOs’ efforts to create change. To assess the impact of social movement “content repertoires” on engagement, we compare Instagram posts from two adult-oriented organizations (350.org and Black Lives Matter- Chicago) and two youth-oriented organizations (Sunrise Movement and Black Youth Project) between 2013 and fall of 2023 (5,042 posts). We find that the environmental organizations were significantly more likely to post than the racial justice organizations. Organizations posted protests, calls to action, and inspirational posts most frequently, and memes, memorial posts, and non-traditional protest posts were the least common posts. We find that the posts that were most likely to drive likes and comments were memes and posts about news events when compared with protest posts, and other protest posts (e.g., calls to action), informational posts, and posts by racial justice organizations were less likely to drive engagement. Collectively, this suggests that, despite social movement’s focus on activism and politics, the posts that were most likely to drive engagement were the posts that emulated online influencer culture like memes, jokes, and inspirational style posts. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for understanding social media engagement and social movement behavior online more broadly.

Authors

• Thomas V. Maher, Clemson University

• Kylah Rainey, Clemson University

• Delaney Winn, Clemson University

• Callie Booden, Pennsylvania State University

• Kolin Hood, Clemson University