CYBERPSYCHOLOGY, BEHAVIOR, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING
Volume 23, Number 9, 2020 PERSPECTIVE
ª Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
DOI: 10.1089/cyber.2020.0461
Social Media and Social Organizing:
From Pandemic to Protests
Brenda K. Wiederhold, PhD, MBA, BCB, BCN
I n these challenging times, it has become increasingly
difficult not to lose oneself in the swirl of information
emanating from social media sites. We can lose hours, or
longer, to combing through posts for what we need to know,
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what we want to know, and what we probably could do
without knowing. And yet, it is hard to turn away from the
wealth of information, and from the potential benefit that
information can provide.
Demonstrating to call attention to political issues is not a
novel phenomenon. Political protests have been occurring
since governments formed. However, the relatively recent
addition of social media has brought protest to the people in
new ways. Social media has made creating and growing a
movement faster, more organized, and eminently more
quantifiable than ever before. It is a catalyst for communi-
cation on a large scale, facilitating community organization
and creation of political movements.
A 2018 PEW survey found that a majority of Americans
believe that social networking sites are very or somewhat
important for accomplishing a range of political goals, such
as getting politicians to pay attention to issues and creating
sustained movements for social change.1 In fact, approxi-
mately half of Americans had engaged in some form of po-
litical or socially minded activity on social media in 2017.1
One reason social media has played such a strong role in
recent demonstrations is that usership of these sites has
dramatically spiked due to the coronavirus pandemic, ex-
tending social media’s reach worldwide. Both Twitter and
Facebook saw their activity grow exponentially as the virus
(and shelter at home orders) spread, mostly due to people
trying to remain connected to friends and loved ones during
social distancing.2 Studies on past political movements
have shown that access to digital technology reduces ‘‘in-
formation asymmetry’’a and also improves collective action
among protestors.3 Because social media usage has been up
recently, more people watched and gathered information
firsthand as the movement gained momentum.
In addition, these social media users, as a whole, have
more media fluency—the ability to navigate the sites and
interpret the load of information—and experience utilizing it
than those who participated in previous movements. Many
current social media users know how to do things such as
leverage hashtags and use Google Docs to edit and share
data with ease.4 This digital literacy has enabled people to
Interactive Media Institute, Virtual Reality Medical Center, La Jolla, California, USA.
579
capitalize on the aspects of social media sites that lend
themselves to mass communication and organization.
The efficiency of social media is also key to organizing
movements. Information spreads quickly on these sites, if
slightly unpredictably. This viral behavior means that
communication among a large and geographically distant
population can happen more quickly and more efficiently
than ever before. Social media has played a critical role in
galvanizing protesters around the quickly shared video
clips.2 It has allowed people to witness incidents that might
not have otherwise garnered attention.
Of course, this rapid information spread can be as much a
liability as a benefit. Part of what makes something go viral
is that it is available to the public. So, although a piece
of information going viral can facilitate organization of a
demonstration, it also informs those on the other side.
Moreover, rapid spread of information can lead to misin-
formation, which can, in turn, amplify tensions in already
tense situations. Although social media companies have
begun to put into place stop gaps to prevent this from hap-
pening, these measures are hardly perfected.
In light of this, it is tempting to turn away from this
overwhelming amount of data, but it is important not to lose
sight of the good that can also come from this wealth of
information. We are just now beginning to understand how
social media affects political participation such as voting
and demonstrating.5 Study of social media sites is increasing,
and metadata on current and past movements will allow re-
searchers to access and critically assess the vast amount of
information contained therein.5
Note
a. Information asymmetry occurs when one person has
more—or better—information than the other party,
leading to an imbalance of power.
References
1. Anderson M, Toor S, Rainie L, Smith A. Activism in the
social media age. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/
2018/07/11/activism-in-the-social-media-age/ (accessed
June 10, 2020).
2. Needleman SE, Herrera S. Social media becomes battle-
ground over days of street protests. https://www.wsj.com/
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articles/social-media-becomes-battleground-over-days-of-
street-protests-11591018647 (accessed June 10, 2020).
3. Seebaluck A. How social media affects the dynamics of
protest. Master’s Thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, Mon-
terey, CA. https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a620897
.pdf (accessed June 10, 2020).
4. Basu T. How Google Docs became the social media of
the resistance. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/
06/1002546/google-docs-social-media-resistance/ (accessed
June 10, 2020).
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PERSPECTIVE
5. Jost JT, Barberá P, Bonneau R, et al. How social media
facilitates political protest: information, motivation, and
social networks: social media and political protest. https://
www.researchgate.net/publication/323146225_How_Social_
Media_Facilitates_Political_Protest_Information_Motivation_
and_Social_Networks_Social_Media_and_Political_Protest
(accessed June 10, 2020).
Brenda K. Wiederhold
Editor-in-Chief