Decentralization is the process by which the decision making, and planning activities of a community or movement are distributed away from a central authority and spread out more evenly among its members. Decentralized movements have started to regain prominence as digital networking became widely available around the world through the internet and mobile phones over the last two decades. However, there is still a gap in understanding whether digitally networked movements can be sustained over longer periods of time and under what conditions. This dissertation is a mixed-methods study consisting of content analysis and semi-structured in-depth interviews with users of online far-right communities. Specifically, it is a comparative analysis of a decentralized online far-right community (4chan/pol) and centralized online far-right and mainstream communities (Stormfront and Twitter, respectively). The central aim of this dissertation is to show how decentralization impacts essential elements of digitally networked mobilization. The research questions are threefold. First, what is the impact of decentralization on which logic of mobilization (connective or collective action) a movement adapts? Second, does connective action truly do away with the need for collective identity formation, as its proponents have claimed? Third, what is the role of decentralized movement communities during major on-the-ground mobilization events? In chapter two I identify how decentralization impacts the logic of mobilization used by proponents of the far-right political project to sustain decentralized protest for a generalized far-right position. In chapter three I use interview data to show how collective identity remains an integral component of decentralized communities by introducing the concept of Oppositional Identity. Finally, chapter four follows the use of online memes and discourse during the events of the January 6th Insurrection on the Capitol to reveal how decentralized communities capitalize on failed offline mobilization attempts of specific issue-based movements to further radicalize individuals who engage in right-wing activism. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis uncovers important differences between online based social movements on the far-right. This thesis compares two far-right communities: the decentralized 4chan/pol to the centralized Stormfront. The findings make three important contributions to the field of social movements and far-right studies. First, the findings reveal that members of 4chan/pol are able to successfully sustain mobilization that does not depend on organizational involvement and cultivation of solidarity among constituents. This allows members to bypass significant upfront costs of activism without eventually dissipating, similar to movements on the left. Second, the findings reveal that solidarity amongst ingroup members is achieved as a result of mobilization, and not the other way around. For 4chan/pol members, solidarity is sustained through the opposition to the mainstream media rather than through building bonds with members of the ingroup. Finally, the findings reveal how decentralized spaces like 4chan/pol capitalize on offline mobilization of other far-right movements to radicalize supporters during and immediately after the unsuccessful insurrection on the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

The thesis aims to examine Incels discourses concerning their collective identity on the online forum Incels.is. Further investigation discovered that Incels produce and reproduce their collective identity through discourses. Incels are men in “involuntary celibacy” who gather online to share their frustration and dissatisfaction against society, and especially women. The data was collected through netnography and encompasses fifteen threads from the forum Incels.is. The material was analyzed through critical discourse analysis and the theories of collective identity and connective action. The theories uncover Incels collective identity and discourses created via language. The study shows that Incels create a collective identity through sharing specific characteristics, sharing emotional experiences, positioning themselves against the rest of society, sharing life experiences, sharing ideological perceptions concerning societal constructs, giving and receiving advice, as well as using slang and memes. Discourses were further related to each of these findings. Such discourses include how Incels create a “we” against “them”. This study addresses a research gap concerning Incels and identity and has thus contributed to the research tradition of radical online groups and identity. Many countries have identified Incels as a concern due to their violent tendencies and permeating misogynistic views. Hence, research on Incels is of societal significance.

During the last five years mediated activism dedicated to LGBT+ issues in Belarus has flourished despite restrictive context: several new online initiatives, including a media project, have been launched. The current study investigates how one of the most politically underprivileged and marginalized groups – LGBT+ activists – make use of online social media to advocate for positive social and political modification in the Belarusian society. By collecting interviews with activists as a primary source of lived experiences, applying thematical analysis on the data from 13 interviews, and then contributing with netnography-informed content analysis as an instrument to analyse 34 posts written in February of 2018 on the personal Facebook pages of the same activists, the current research examines patterns of experiences surrounding participation in mediated LGBT+ activism. The power dynamics and the influence of the repressive context on the practices of mediated activism are analysed through feminist critical discourse analysis with specific focus on heteronormativity as a key-concept of imposing power on marginalized identities. Four global themes emerged in the result of the analysis: 1) heteronormativity and state control; 2) identity as “doing”; 3) the “other” activism, and 4) social change as individual transformation. Topics of heteronormativity, homophobia, hate-crime and violence turned out to be most present in the posts produced by the activists. It was found that in the restrictive spaces mediated activism and social media, instead of serving as tools for mass outreach and mobilization, endanger activists engaged in LGBT+ issues. Burnout, risk of poverty, emotional and physical assaults, and exposure to social sanctions are happening to activists because of their presence online, and there are extremely limited tools to combat these consequences of publicity. In Belarusian context, the shrinking space for civil society and limited political opportunities outweigh the potential of online social media, lower their impact and determine prospects of social change in such a way, when viral organizing or structural transformations become extremely limited.

As a result of the #MeToo movement in Sweden, #sistabriefen was created to represent the women, non-binaries and trans-persons working within the communications industry. This study analyzes the dynamics and identities of the #sistabriefen group members on their private social media platform. The analysis incorporates The Logic of Connective Action by Bennett and Segerberg (2012), and two complementary Social Identity Perspectives; Social Identity Theory and Self-Categorization Theory (Hogg & Terry, 2001; Hogg & Reid, 2006). The study consisted of 23 interview participants, and a qualitative content analysis over the course of five months. This research assesses how members are motivated to participate in the #sistabriefen group, how they identify themselves within the group, and how the group features affect members’ involvement. The findings of the research indicated that digital social movements have the potential to effectively mobilize social change.

This study aims to examine participation in the digital campaign #BlackoutTuesday to gain an understanding of the campaign's impact on university students’ awareness and participation in Black Lives Matter. Based on this, the study has two research questions: How have the students experienced that the #BlackoutTuesday campaign has affected their awareness of Black lives matter, and, for what reasons did the students feel that they participated in #BlackoutTuesday? With the help of slacktivism, networked publics, collective and connective action as the study's theoretical framework, we hope to gain a good interpretation of the results. To gather data, the study has used semi-structured interviews and to interpret the data, a thematic analysis has been used. The results that the study came to were that the students did not experience that their awareness was effected by #BlackoutTuesday. However, they still believed that they made a difference and that other people in their surrounding were affected in regard to awareness about Black Lives Matter. An unexpected discovery was also that many of the students connected Black Lives Matters, as an movement, solely to USA and not Sweden. The reasons for participation varied, but in this study, three main reasons were noted for the students participation. The reasons for participating were about the collective power, dissemination of information and taking a stand. With the results of the study we hope to create a better understanding of participation in similar campaign's and its effect on movements possibly society. However, more research is needed in this area to get a more thoroughly view of the field.

In the beginning of 2021, the stock of strained and heavily shorted company GameStop rose by almost 2,000 percent. The meteoric rise was caused after users of the subreddit r/wallstreetbets mobilized to buy up stock of the business, hoping that short- sellers would be forced to close their positions, leading to further upside. The purpose of this study is to describe the culture of the subreddit, using Stuart Hall’s (1997) theory of representation to explain how users create meaning. Furthermore, we attempt to explain how the digital nature of the movement affected its structure and organisation, for which Bennett and Segerbergs (2012) framework The logic of connective action is applied. The study used a netnographic approach for data-collection, which was later analyzed using qualitative text- analysis and semiotic-image- analysis. In total, 50 different posts were analyzed which included both texts and memes. Our results indicate that the movement is characterized by the lack of hierarchy and a substantial amount of user- generated content. Narratives and motives have been naturally constructed collectively through the interaction of users rather than enforced by a central authority. A unique feature of the movement is its exclusively digital presence, allowing for fluid participation and individualized framing. The premises and boundaries of activism change as activism becomes more dependent on the digital world. This study offers insight into how digital movements can be constructed and how the digital fundamentally changes the preconditions of activism and mobilization.

A controversial bill aimed to stimulate investment and boost the economy in Indonesia, called the Omnibus Law Bill, is followed by both protest and support expressed in social media prior to its signatories in October 2020. During that time, the Twittersphere is packed with both the Opposition and Support movement of the bill, who both benefit from the use of hashtags. To distinguish an organic grass-roots movement from a propaganda that fits the agenda of the government and elite, a comparison study is conducted with a framework of top-down and bottom-up- mechanism of information virality (Nahon & Hemsley, 2013). The top-down mechanism combined with participatory propaganda theory is designated to explain the Support movement. Vice versa the bottom-up mechanism is combined with connective action theory designed to explain the Opposition movement as its character in line with a contemporary and digital protest movement (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). As existing research only often studies both networks alone, this unique case provides an opportunity to compare both networks. A mixed-method of Social Network Analysis (SNA) and Topic Modelling used to differentiate the characteristics of both groups, based on both network structure and topics discussed. The finding in regards to the SNA is corresponding to the theoretical framework and previous studies. The loosely organized nature of connective action is reflected in several characteristics of the Opposition Network, in contrast to the element of coordination found in the Support Network. Findings from bi-term topic modeling, however, both contradict and support the hypothesis that suggests more variations in the topics within the Opposition Network as a result of the self-motivated participant and personalized messages (Leong et al., 2019).

The main aim of this Degree Project was to investigate the role of social media for women’s rights movements in Ethiopia, specifically for the #MeTooEthiopia movement, and whether utilising social media in their operations and mobilisations has enhanced the movements’ ability to raise awareness and challenge traditional gender norms. The research was investigated through the lens of digital activism and via the logic of connective action, by utilising in-depth semi-structured interviews with women’s rights activists in Ethiopia and overseas and undertaking a review of the #MeTooEthiopia movement social media platforms. Through the interviews, it was possible to identify numerous benefits and challenges relating to the country-specific cultural, social and economic context that women’s rights movements in Ethiopia have to operate in. For the #MeTooEthiopia movement specifically, operating an international movement within this context has been challenging, however due to its ability to diversify and adopt to both new and traditional communication technologies, the movement has been able to sustain its momentum and remain active in their attempt to raise awareness and challenge traditional gender norms. The findings also demonstrate that for contemporary women’s rights movements in Ethiopia, raising awareness and bringing along attitudinal change cannot be accomplished by only utilising new technologies. Rather, it is necessary to combine activism via social media with traditional forms of communication, including face-to-face meetings, to be able to have a reach across the wider society.

This thesis investigates the relationship between contemporary climate protest movements (Extinction Rebellion and Fridays For Future) and governmental bodies in European countries that declared a climate emergency in 2019. The primary contribution of this thesis is to demonstrate how emerging communication practices by these movements compare to the perceived influence of such practices among political decisionmakers in their governing bodies’ votes for a climate emergency declaration. Twitter content (tweets by movement accounts) surrounding protest actions of the climate movements was coded using concepts deduced from theoretical literature of participation, media and communication. Themes induced from this data were also used for coding. A thematic analysis of empirical interview text from semi-structured interviews of nine politicians in eight governmental bodies (six German city councils, that of Innsbruck, Austria and the Swiss cantonal parliament of Vaud) on this subject matter was done similarly. Relational thematic analyses of both datasets influenced the coding of one another. A frame analysis grounded in these data studied the use of social media imagery and text by the two movements. Another look at the interview data reflects the influence these movements had on climate emergency declarations via comparison of politicians’ stated impressions of the movements’ participation/influences with formations of tweeted movement frames. The data support the hypothesis that citizens engage via the connective power of personalized participatory culture on social media, enabling political participation. Today, we see a shift away from a political logic of social movements abiding to strong shared identity and meaning through frames of collective action. Instead, a social media logic, which aims to achieve the same functions, operates in loosely networked movements based on individualized frames of youth identity. This ‘connective identity’ bridges the participatory culture of social media with offline political participation in the streets and halls of power.

Background: “APES TOGETHER STRONG“ was one of the slogans, that participants of the influential GameStop movement (who ironically called themselves “apes“) utilized to show their unity (“together strong“) and relentlessness in their seemingly irrational actions. Erupting in January 2021, retail investors that had formed a community via Reddit, collectively achieved to multiply the stock price of American gaming retail chain GameStop, causing huge losses for hedge funds, resulting in political discussions and social outrage. This community was quickly labelled as a social movement. Research Problem: Despite the widespread understanding that social media had and has major impacts on social movements and their constitution, research on various aspects concerning movements in the context of social media remain underdeveloped. On a broader level, the formation of digital social movements within online communities presents a suitable area of research. On a finer level, newcomers and their socialization were identified as research gaps. Research Purpose: The purpose of this study is to close these research gaps by identifying key factors of socialization within digital movements. Additionally, it aims at showcasing the implications of these factors on the broader community and movement development. Research Question: How are newcomers socialized and integrated in digital movements? Research Method: This study is a qualitative, inductive research. It follows the relativistic ontology and the social constructionism epistemology. The methodology is an explorative, single case study and data is purposively collected through interviews and from Reddit. The data is analyzed utilizing the Gioia method. Conclusion: Our findings concentrate on four dualities concerning socialization and community development. Community growth, purpose, jargon and activity are found to be inherently divergent themes and mechanisms within the movement. From this we abstract a framework towards a spectrum of socialization approaches ranging from regulated to unregulated socialization. As such, we showcase the implications of both ofthese ends and how communities must be flexible in their socialization approach.