The ambition of this essay is to examine if groups on Facebook are examples of “slacktivism” and discuss which qualifications these groups have in order to provide a democratic conversation. The results will be discussed relative to democratic participant, information overload, interactivity and previous research. By nethnographically observing three groups and analyzing selected posts and comments with the critical discourse analysis one can see that slacktivism spreads easily by people liking and sharing posts from the groups to their friends. The particular groups that has been analyzed in this essay are committed to save Swedish traditions that they believe is threatened. The outcome showed no proof that the groups contribute to social change and they did not give rise to a democratic conversation. Instead the groups spread and encouraged nationalism and racism by blaming immigrants and Muslims for threatening Swedish traditions.

Syftet med denna studie är att kartlägga vilka slags miljöfrågor som Sveriges största demokratiskt uppbyggda miljöorganisation, Naturskyddsföreningen, presenterar i inlägg av slacktivistisk karaktär på sin Facebooksida. Vidare syftar denna studie till att få en förståelse för hur Naturskyddsföreningen, i inlägg av slacktivistisk karaktär, uppmuntrar till och initierar slacktivism vid presentationen av vissa slags miljöfrågor. Studiens syfte har legat till grund för följande frågeställningar: 1) Vilka slags miljöfrågor presenteras i inlägg av slacktivistisk karaktär på Naturskyddsföreningens Facebooksida? och 2) Hur presenteras vissa slags miljöfrågor i inlägg av slacktivistisk karaktär? Den första frågeställningen besvaras med en kvantitativ innehållsanalys för att kartlägga förekomsten av olika typer av miljöfrågor i inlägg av slacktivistisk karaktär. Den andra frågeställningen besvaras med en kritisk diskursanalys som, genom att se till ordval och grammatik, synliggör inläggens underliggande premisser. Baserat på studiens huvudsakliga resultat kan vi konstatera att miljöfrågorna ‘Mat & livsmedel’ och ‘Skog- & naturvård’ förekommer mest frekvent i inlägg av slacktivistisk karaktär. Resultaten påvisade även att dessa inlägg hade en högre grad av spridning än inlägg av icke-slacktivistisk karaktär. I bakgrund mot studiens första teori, dagordningsteorins första nivå, kan vi dra slutsatsen att Naturskyddsföreningen erhåller potential att inom mindre nätverk kunna påverka dagordningen angående vilka miljöfrågor som anses vara viktiga inom dessa nätverk. Vidare visade resultaten att Naturskyddsföreningen, genom ordval och formuleringar, inkluderar andra diskurser inom slacktivistdiskursen och således spelar på rådande samhälleliga värderingar (att god hälsa är viktigt), normer (att engagera sig i och bry sig om miljöfrågor) och strukturer (etablerade lagar och regler) för att individualisera miljöfrågor såväl som lösningar i form av slacktivistiska uppmaningar. I bakgrund mot studiens andra teori, dagordningsteorins andra nivå (framing), är det möjligt att dra slutsatsen att Naturskyddsföreningen använder sig av en slags framing genom att inkludera andra diskurser. I likhet med frames kan dessa påverka vår uppfattning av miljöfrågan och främja den presenterade lösningen - en slacktivistisk uppmaning. / The purpose of this study is to map out what kind of environmental issues that the environmental organization, Naturskyddsföreningen, present through slacktivist posts on their Facebook page. Furthermore, the study aims to gain an understanding of how Naturskyddsföreningen, in their slacktivist posts, initiate and encourage slacktivism. Our two research questions are: 1) What kind of environmental issues are presented in slacktivist posts on Naturskyddsförening’s Facebook page? 2) How are some environmental issues presented in slacktivist posts? The first research method used in this study was a quantitative content analysis with the objective to map out what kind of environmental issues that were presented in slacktivist posts. The material for this method consisted of 169 Facebook posts published by Naturskyddsföreningen. A critical discourse analysis was used on 5 slacktivist posts to get somewhat of a clue about how Naturskyddsföreningen present some environmental issues in a slacktivist way. One of the main results shows that the kind of environmental issues that are most frequently presented through slacktivist posts concerns ‘Food & groceries’ and ‘Forest & nature conservation’. The results also show that slacktivist posts was spread by shares and likes to a higher degree than non-slacktivist posts. In light of the study’s first theory, the first level of agenda setting, we can conclude that Naturskyddsföreningen holds the potential to influence the agenda within smaller Facebook networks. By certain choices of words and formulations Naturskyddsföreningen include other discourses that are built upon current societal values, norms and structures within the slacktivist discourse. These discourses, much like the second level of agenda setting, help frame and individualize the issues and promote the presented solution - slacktivism.

This thesis examines how routine social media use shapes political participation in Britain. Since the turn of the century, many commentators have argued that political activism has been compromised by “slacktivism,” a pejorative term that refers to supposedly inauthentic, low-threshold forms of political engagement online, such as signing an e-petition or “liking” a Facebook page. In contrast, this thesis establishes a new theoretical approach—the continuum of participation model—which illuminates what happens before political action occurs. This is explored in three interrelated contexts, using three different research methods: an ethnography of the political movement, 38 Degrees; an analysis of a corpus of individually-completed self-reflective media engagement diaries; and a series of laboratory experiments that were designed to replicate environments in which slacktivism is said to occur. I argue that Facebook and Twitter create new opportunities for cognitive engagement, discursive participation, and political mobilisation. 38 Degrees uses social media to support engagement repertoires that blend online and offline tactics. This organisational management of digital micro-activism provides participatory shortcuts, enabling large numbers of grassroots members to shape campaign strategy. But, in contrast to both advocates and critics of online participation, I find no evidence of a widespread, one-size-fits-all, self-expressive logic. Instead, I argue that we ought to think in terms of a typology of citizen roles in social media environments. Civic instigators and contributors engage in digital micro-activism by way of refining their political identity. Listeners use social media to consume political information but refrain from public forms of expression and instead take to private spaces for political discussion. When listeners do act it is not effortless, but carefully considered. Experiments show that these roles derive from pre-established personal preferences, rather than the stylistic presentation of information or visible indicators of the popularity of an information source. Overall, this study argues that slacktivism is inadequate and flawed as means of capturing the essence of contemporary political action. Social networking sites offer an important space for democratic engagement in the milieu of everyday life.

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 wake of the Haiti earthquake response in 2010, crowdsourced humanitarian mapping has taken off, and today is considered an essential tool by many humanitarian agencies providing assistance in disaster-affected and under-resourced countries and contexts. But what happens when there is no information on a map to help agencies decide how to respond? If they cannot find roads to take to get there? If they do not know how many houses are in a village? What if the map is – missing?In response to this all-too-common problem, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), American Red Cross, British Red Cross and the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) created and launched Missing Maps in 2014. A crowdsourced ICT4D tool designed to create accurate maps using satellite images, the initiative relies on volunteers – ‘digital humanitarians’ – to participate.So why participate? Previous research has looked at motivations for participation in open street mapping and other voluntary contribution-based tools, such as Wikipedia. Other research has described how to attract people to Missing Maps – and retain them. But until now, there has been no research exploring why people are motivated to volunteer for humanitarian ICT4D initiatives, and no researcher has tackled this subject from a cross-cultural perspective. Here I attempt to answer the question: what are the motivations for people to map? And more specifically, are the motivations of someone in the Global North to voluntarily map different from the motivations of someone in the Global South? In this paper, I outline the results of empirical research in the form of one-on-one interviews conducted across four cities I travelled to: London and Prague, to represent the Global North, and Beirut and Kampala, representing the Global South. In interviews in which a total of 21 participants were asked six standard questions about their interests, likes, motivations and challenges in mapping, I uncover clear differences between the motivations of not only people in the north versus south, but also amongst the young, and even between men and women. The results show that, while people from all walks of life and socio-economic backgrounds are motivated by a multitude of reasons, young people, especially in the Global North, are more likely to map from slacktivism tendencies given their perceptions of the mapping software’s ease of use. People from the Global North – particularly young women – were also more likely to engage out of interest in humanitarian issues or organisations like MSF. Played right, organisers could groom these young people into the humanitarians of the future. Meanwhile, people in the Global South were more likely to participate for both community and personal – such as career and life – benefits. This partly reflects previous research that has shown local bias to be a strong motivating factor for participation across other platforms. Although people across all four cities expressed some of their motivations to be altruistic ones, those in the Global South were more likely to express this response. Taking these results, I explore themes of how an ICT4D tool like Missing Maps will not change the status quo of inequality in the world, while questioning whether that is important enough to undermine the initiative. I also investigate the likelihood of being able to turn today’s young digital humanitarians into the humanitarian leaders of tomorrow. I also explore the impact of mapping in the Global South, both for those doing the mapping and those being mapped. Finally, I look at what initiatives like Missing Maps mean in the world of communications for development.

With modern communication technology advancements, activist expression has become more common on social media platforms. Especially susceptible to these expressions is the millennial generation, whose lives are greatly permeated by media technology. This thesis aims to explore in what ways the social media platform Facebook inuences millennials’ motivation to engage in substantial prosocial behaviours that are intended to benet other people or society as a whole. Through mixed-method research design, participants’ attitudes towards Facebook as a platform for activism and its inuence on prosocial motivational aspects, was explored. Results indicated that previous habits of supportive engagement and the cost of the supportive action inuenced how the likeliness and motivation to engage in substantial supportive actions was aected by Facebook interaction. More precisely, higher levels of previous engagement, as well as engagement in costly, prosocial actions contributed to an increased motivation to engage further in such actions. Furthermore, social and contemporary aspects showed to play a large part for participants’ motivation to engage in costly and substantial prosocial actions.‌ / I samband med dagens kommunikationsteknologiska framsteg har aktivistiska uttryck blivit allt vanligare på plattformar för sociala medier. Särskilt mottagliga för sådana uttryck är millenniegenerationen, från engelskans ’milliennials’, vars liv till stor del genomsyras av medieteknik. Denna studie har för avsikt att utforska hur den sociala plattformen Facebook påverkar motivationen för individer tillhörande millenniegenerationen att engagera sig i konkreta prosociala beteenden som har som syfte att gynna andra människor eller samhället som helhet. Genom kombinerade kvalitativa och kvantitativa forskningsmetoder utforskades deltagarnas attityder gentemot Facebook som en plattform för aktivism, och dess inverkan på prosocialt motiverande aspekter. Resultaten visade att tidigare vana av engagemang samt kostnaden av den välgörande handlingen påverkades av Facebook-interaktion. Närmare bestämt, högre nivåer av tidigare engagemang samt engagemang i kostsamma, prosocial handlingar bidrog till en ökad motivation till fortsatt engagemang i sådana handlingar. Vidare påvisades sociala och samtida aspekter spela en viktig roll för deltagarnas motiatt engagera sig i kostsamma och konkreta prosociala handlingar.

Millennials are the world's digital natives and its largest generation. A general perception of this generation is that they lack engagement in social-political issues. This study explores how Millennials are engaging in social media activism and whether online activism is driving offline activism behaviors. A quantitative survey of 306 participants was conducted to learn more about the gratifications Millennials obtain through social media and whether associations exist between their online and offline activism behaviors. The results showed that Millennials engage in online activism behaviors to a greater extent than offline activism behaviors. Millennials primarily gratify intrinsic needs for interaction and belonging by engaging in social media activism behaviors. So-called “slacktivism” behaviors were most common among Millennials engaging in online activism. Similarly, online activism behaviors that require greater investment from Millennials were a good predictor of activism behaviors that occur offline. Results also demonstrate that, at an individual identification level, Millennials self-perceptions as activists predicted engagement in both online and offline activism.

Gen Z is a considerably politically active generation. However, Gen Z differs from previous generations in their methodology, campaigning for change through both in person and digital activism. While both forms of activism are effective in their own way, digital poses a unique challenge. When people can be activists from the comfort of their phone, they become “slacktivists”. People whose activism does not contribute to any significant action outside of the internet (Serup Christensen). Through interviews and focus groups, my documentary explores how Gen Z participates in activism, and what that means for the future of activism. After these discussions, I have concluded that Gen Z occupies a spectrum, with some people maintaining strong ties to traditional, community-based activism, some people being both activist and slacktivist, and those who remain as passive bystanders. While social media has the potential to support real, effective action, an over-reliance creates a too-comfortable, uninformed bystander population.

Previous research highlighted that Internet use, in particular online information<p>retrieval and discussions, can facilitate offline collective actions (Boulianne, 2009).<p>Recently, however, the Internet also has been criticized for encouraging low-cost and lowrisk<p>online collective actions—slacktivism—that may have detrimental consequences for<p>groups that aim to achieve a collective purpose (Gladwell, 2010). More precisely, it is<p>argued that actions such as “liking” Facebook pages or posting ingroup-endorsing<p>comments online make users instantly feel good, satisfy their need to act, and derail<p>participation in offline collective actions (Lee & Hsieh, 2013; Morozov, 2009).<p>In my thesis, I assessed this postulation as well as the underlying processes and<p>boundary conditions of the relationship between so-called slacktivist actions and offline<p>collective actions. After introducing a conceptualization of slacktivism as expressive lowthreshold<p>online collective actions, I investigated its influence on offline engagement<p>(Study 1, N = 634; Study 2, N = 76; Study 3, N = 63; Study 4, N = 48). Results indicated that<p>expressive low-threshold online collective actions reduce the willingness to join offline<p>collective actions. This effect was mediated by the satisfaction of group-enhancing<p>motives; members considered the online actions as a substantial contribution to the<p>group's success. The demobilizing impact of expressive low-threshold online collective<p>actions was qualified when members took the online actions in the co-presence of the<p>ingroup, all parties being mutually identifiable (Study 5a, N = 84; Study 5b, N = 99). In this<p>context, obligatory interdependencies between members were enhanced and fostered a<p>spill-over from online to offline collective actions (Study 6, N = 62). / Doctorat en Sciences Psychologiques et de l'éducation / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished