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»It Only Took a Minute« – The Migration Crisis, Volunteering and Social Media

Fri, May 25, 9:30 to 10:45, Hilton Prague, Floor: L, Brussels

Abstract

The migration crisis in 2015 has led to challenges in destination countries such as Germany, Sweden and Denmark. Volunteer-led initiatives providing urgent relief played a crucial role in meeting the needs of arriving migrants. The work of the volunteers in central stations and transition shelters was mainly organised with the help of Facebook, both in terms of inward and outward communication. This paper examines the role of social media for civic participation drawing on Swedish volunteer initiatives that emerged in the context of the migration crisis that reached a peak in 2015 as a case study. Theoretically the chapter draws on an analytical framework for civic participation in social media including power relations, technological affordances, practices, and discourses. In the analysis, this contribution focuses particularly on temporal affordances of social media in coordinating volunteer work and critically questions the monopoly position of Facebook in volunteer organising.

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