Discursive Hierarchies and Network Centralization: Comparing Technological and Linguistic Affordances in Three Issue Sectors Online

• In Event: So Far, So Good, Part 1: Organizational Communication Research Escalator

Abstract

This paper presents a multi-methods approach to the study of online communication networks. My analysis revolves around a central orienting question: How is participation in collective action to contest the meaning of homelessness in the public sphere impacted by formal organizationally sponsored digital resources and emergent network dynamics? Drawing on affordance theory (Gibson, 1977; Norman, 1998), I suggest that communication-oriented collective action in the public sphere is structured by organizational, technological and linguistic affordances. I argue that political organizing is often focused around issues, and participants in collective action experience opportunities and constraints within the issue spaces where they intercede. Three aspects of communication-oriented collective action are explored by employing network analysis methods in measuring hyperlinking patterns, discursive prosody, and semantic similarity profiles within each campaign’s issue space. Implications for research on emergent organizations, technology as organization and discourse in organizational contexts are discussed.

Author

• Amoshaun Toft, U of Washington Bothell