Between Self-Representation and Collective Voice: Workers' Unionization Discourse on Facebook

• In Event: Research Escalator - Part 1

Abstract

This study conceptualizes the bottom-up discourse of workers' unionization – much of it occurring on social media outside institutionalized communication channels – as inseparable from the organizational discourse. It is part of a larger project, examining how social media technologies are implicated in labor struggles in the neoliberal political economy. The discourse on Facebook pages related to unionization efforts in three mobile telephony companies in Israel is studied. Preliminary analysis reveals that the union was initiated through a discourse embedded in the individualized, competitive, spirit of neoliberalism. Hence, the workers' collective voice may be interpreted as an instance of shared self-representation. Three discursive practices were identified: Deliberating about the right to speak in the name of the collective; intensively discussing competing narratives; and, adopting a toolkit of personalized conversational formats. It is suggested that integrating such social media discursive practices into the institutionalized organizational communication may potentially further construct the organizational discourse.

Author

• Tamar Lazar, U of Haifa