JOURNAL OF INFORMATION POLICY 2 (2012): 1-25.

ADVOCACY 2.0: AN ANALYSIS OF HOW ADVOCACY GROUPS IN THE UNITED STATES PERCEIVE AND USE SOCIAL MEDIA AS TOOLS FOR FACILITATING CIVIC ENGAGEMENT AND COLLECTIVE ACTION
BY JONATHAN A. OBAR,
*

PAUL ZUBE, AND CLIFFORD LAMPE

Can social media promote civic engagement and collective action? Advocacy organizations think so. Obar, Zube, and Lampe surveyed 169 individuals from 53 advocacy groups of diverse interests and sizes and identified a revealing trend. All groups admitted that they use social media technologies to communicate with citizens almost every day. Respondents also believe that social media enable them to accomplish their advocacy and organizational goals across a range of specified activities. The authors note that the relationship between this and real political and ideological change is still speculative, but suggest that future studies can build on their research.

INTRODUCTION
Recent events have heightened an already thriving interest in social medias ability to facilitate civic engagement and collective action. The political uprisings in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt in 2011 saw rebels posting on Facebook and Twitter. 1 In August 2011, officials in London called for Blackberrys instant messaging service to be shut down as rioters were allegedly using the service to coordinate strikes. 2 After the 2010 midterm elections in the United States, Facebook reported that 74% of
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media; Associate Director, Quello Center for Telecommunication Management and Law; Michigan State University. Visiting Assistant Professor, Humanities Department, Ferris State University. Assistant Professor, School of Information, University of Michigan.
*

Nathan Olivarez-Giles, Tunisia Protesters Use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to Help Organize and Report, Los Angeles Times, Jan. 14, 2011, accessed Oct. 15, 2011, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/01/tunisiastudents-using-facebook-and-twitter-to-organize.html; Mike Giglio, The Cyberactivists Who Helped Topple a Dictator, The Daily Beast, Jan. 15, 2011, accessed Oct. 15, 2011, http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/01/15/tunisia-protests-the-facebook-revolution.html; Mike Giglio, Inside Egypts Facebook Revolt, The Daily Beast, Jan. 27, 2011, accessed Oct. 15, 2011, http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/01/27/inside-egypt-s-facebook-revolt.html; Abigail Hauslohner, Dispatch From Free Libya: The Right to Laugh at Gaddafi, Time, Feb. 23, 2011, accessed Oct. 15, 2011, http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2053198,00.html. 2 Josh Halliday, London Riots: How Blackberry Messenger Played a Key Role, The Guardian, Aug. 8, 2011, accessed Feb. 16, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/08/london-riots-facebook-twitter-blackberry; Melissa Bell, In London Riots, Blackberry Messenger Gets Starring Role, Washington Post, Aug. 9, 2011, accessed Oct. 15, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/in-london-riots-blackberry-messenger-gets-starringrole/2011/08/09/gIQAwxmW4I_blog.html.
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House candidates and 81% of Senatorial candidates with more Facebook fans than their opponents won their races. 3 In February 2011, the Tea Party launched its very own Facebook-esque social media site called the FreedomConnector, which has already been used to mobilize more than one hundred thousand Americans during the current presidential race. 4 Proponents of social medias democratizing function laud its ability to empower and connect individuals as well as groups. 5 Shirky in particular emphasizes how these technologies contribute to the ease and speed with which a group can be mobilized, 6 and how we are living in the middle of a remarkable increase in our ability to share, to cooperate with one another, and to take collective action, all outside the framework of traditional institutions and organizations. 7 Critics on the other hand suggest that the excitement and anecdotal evidence may actually be masking the reality that social media do little to strengthen social movements and effect change. Worse yet, there are those who suggest a negative effect. Morozov posits that we (in the West particularly) have a net delusion that is defined by cyber-utopianism and Internet-centrism that blinds us to an evolving Internet landscape that may actually limit democratic possibilities. 8 In terms of social medias ability to strengthen social movements, critics (writing primarily in the popular press and on blogs) have suggested that these technologies may in fact be promoting a form of slacktivism or clicktivism instead of activism, 9 and do little more than promote weak ties, which can bring a million people to a Facebook page but fail to mobilize a thousand people in the street to actually effect change. 10 As the debate evolves and the tools made available online multiply, empirical studies must assess the extent to which social media are capable of facilitating various forms of political communication, especially those that have a democratizing function. This exploratory study takes a first step towards evaluating two political processes that could potentially benefit from the communication tools provided by social media: Civic Engagement: This process involves moving an individual away from disinterest, distraction, ignorance, and apathy and towards education, understanding, motivation, and action. For Ehrlich,
3 Snapshot: The Day After Election Day, Facebook, accessed Oct. 15, 2011, http://www.facebook.com/notes/uspolitics-on-facebook/snapshot-the-day-after-election-day/448930025881. 4 The Freedom Connector can be found at: http://connect.freedomworks.org/. 5 For example, see Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (New York: Penguin, 2008); Charles Leadbeater, We-think: The Power of Mass Creativity (London: Profile Books, 2008); David A. Karpf, Unexpected Transformations: The Internets Effect on Political Associations in American Politics, dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2009; Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith, The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, and Powerful Ways to Use Social Media to Drive Social Change (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010). 6 Shirky, 12. 7 Ibid., 20-21. 8 Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (Philadelphia: Perseus Books Group, 2011). 9 Emily Badger, Are Facebook, Twitter Fostering Civic Engagement? Miller-McCune, June 28, 2011, accessed Oct. 16, 2011, http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/are-facebook-twitter-fostering-civic-engagement-33060/; Evgeny Morozov, The Brave New World of Slacktivism, Foreign Policy, May 19, 2009, accessed Oct. 16, 2011, http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/19/the_brave_new_world_of_slacktivism; Evgeny Morozov, From Slacktivism to Activism, Foreign Policy, Sept. 5, 2009, accessed Oct. 16, 2011, http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/09/05/from_slacktivism_to_activism/. 10 Malcolm Gladwell, Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, New Yorker, Oct. 4, 2010, accessed Oct. 16, 2011, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=1.

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civic engagement means working to make a difference in the civic life of our communities and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values and motivation to make that difference. It means promoting the quality of life in a community, through both political and non-political processes. 11 Collective action: This refers to the pursuit of a single goal or multiple goals by more than one individual. Collective action can take many forms, brief or sustained, institutionalized or disruptive, humdrum or dramatic, 12 and includes a range of activities, from voting and interest group affiliation to bingo tournaments and football matches. But these are not the forms of action most characteristic of social movements. Movements characteristically mount contentious challenges through disruptive direct action against elites, authorities, other groups or cultural codes. 13 Central to the concept of collective action is political mobilization, a process that can involve a variety of strategies and tactics for bringing people together to effect political, social, and ideological change. The focus is often the development and maintenance of a form of social relationship between actors, individuals, and parties, with the goal of participating together in mobilization activities within the political realm, such as interest formation, community building, and forms of action. 14 It should be noted that a considerable debate has developed focusing on collective action problems that address how individual and collective interests, motivations, and goals can be resolved. 15 A first step towards assessing the extent to which social media can facilitate civic engagement and collective action requires a broader and deeper understanding of how social media are being used and perceived by groups who strive to accomplish these political and organizational goals. This study attempts to begin to answer this question by exploring and assessing the extent to which 53 advocacy groups in the United States perceive and actually use social media technologies for these purposes. While studies have addressed how advocacy groups are using the Internet in general, 16 there is a lack of empirical work addressing how advocacy groups are using social media. This study attempts to move beyond the excitement in an attempt to examine the extent to which social media
Thomas Ehrlich, ed. Civic Responsibility and Higher Education (Westport, CT: Oryx Press, 2000), vi. Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics, 2nd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 3. 13 Ibid., 5. 14 Birgitta Nedelmann, Individuals and Parties Changes in Processes of Political Mobilization, European Sociological Review 3, no. 3 (1987): 181-202. 15 For example, see Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965); Aseem Prakash and Mary Kay Gugerty, Advocacy Organizations and Collective Action: An Introduction, in Advocacy Organizations and Collective Action, ed. Aseem Prakash and Mary Kat Gugerty (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 1. 16 For example, see Andy Opel, Micro Radio and the FCC: Media Activism and the Struggle over Broadcast Policy (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004); Tom Watson, CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2008); Daniel E. Bergan, Does Grassroots Lobbying Work? A Field Experiment Measuring the Effects of An Email Lobbying Campaign on Legislative Behavior, American Politics Research 37 (2009): 327-352; Stuart W. Shulman, The Case Against Mass E-mails: Perverse Incentives and Low Quality Public Participation in U.S. Federal Rulemaking, Policy & Internet 1, no. 1 (2009): 23-53; Victoria Carty, Wired and Mobilizing: Social Movements, New Technology, and Electoral Politics (New York: Routledge, 2010); Jennifer Earl and Katrina Kimport, Digitally Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet Age (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011).
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are relevant to the work of advocacy groups in the United States. A more robust understanding of how advocacy organizations both perceive and use social media as tools to facilitate civic engagement and collective action will provide a more stable foundation upon which subsequent analyses can assess social medias actual ability to successfully engage and mobilize the public, as well as effect political and ideological change.

ADVOCACY GROUPS
The concept of advocacy goes well beyond the notion of advocating for, championing, or supporting a specific viewpoint or cause. Often applied in the political context, the term suggests a systematic effort by specific actors who aim to further or achieve specific policy goals. 17 An extensive social movement literature developed over many years has examined the challenges faced by groups that have attempted to mobilize individuals for the purpose of effecting change. 18 In that time, the advocacy group has come to be distinguished from the political party or conspiratorial group in the sense that advocacy groups seek to influence policy, but do not strive to exercise the formal powers of government. 19 Advocacy organizations are often referred to as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), lobby organizations, pressure groups, activist groups, or social movement organizations. The range of issues that advocacy groups can champion include the myriad of issues addressed by local, state, and federal governments, as well as issues that are not addressed by government, but are of interest to a specific community. This range can include (but is not limited to) issues addressing: labor, civil rights, democracy, education, healthcare, the environment, commerce, religion, the justice system, and so forth. There are advocacy groups that have been operating in the U.S. for many years like the National Rifle Association (NRA, founded 1871), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP, founded 1909), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU, founded 1920), and the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP, founded 1958); as well groups founded at the beginning of the 21st Century like Free Press, FreedomWorks, and the Hip Hop Caucus.

Advocacy Groups and the Internet

Advocacy groups are using the Internet to accomplish organizational goals, and have been doing so for more than ten years. It has been suggested that the Internet has had a positive impact on the

Prakash and Gugerty. For example, see Olson; Jack Walker, The Origins and Maintenance of Interest Groups in America, American Political Science Review 77, no. 2 (1983): 390-406. 19 Graeme C. Moodie and Gerald Studdert-Kennedy, Opinions, Publics and Pressure Groups (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1970); Jeremy J. Richardson, Introduction: Pressure Groups and Government, in Pressure Groups, ed. Jeremy J. Richardson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 1; Lisa Young and Joanna Everitt, Advocacy Groups (Vancouver, Canada: UBC Press, 2004).
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activities of social movement organizations 20 by increasing the speed, reach, and effectiveness of communication and mobilization efforts. 21 One of the first instances of an advocacy community using the Internet to further its cause occurred in February 1997. As Kobrin describes, 22 the Preamble Collaborative was one of more than 600 advocacy organizations in nearly 70 countries that had expressed opposition to the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), an agreement that dealt with trade among the 29 countries within the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The Collaboratives web site featuring fact sheets, congressional testimony, position papers, and issue briefs was part of a tidal wave of electronically amplified public opposition to the MAI. 23 The large amounts of up-todate information about a very specific topic available at the touch of a button contributed to the growth of an online network, whose strength would be demonstrated by what happened next. In February 1997, an early draft of the MAI was leaked to another advocacy group, Ralph Naders Public Citizen, leading to the draft being published online. With the network already developed, the leaked draft was shared quickly and widely. The coalition grew even larger after the leak, with organizations like the AFL-CIO and the Sierra Club joining the fight, shouting down the MAI for fear of the threat of structural imperialism. The result was first a halt on the negotiations, and then the closing of the negotiations. 24 This particular encounter is regarded as one of the first instances of successful Internet activism, and demonstrated the potential of the Internet as a tool for collective action. Since the MAI incident, there have been numerous initiatives in which advocacy organizations have successfully used the Internet to organize, mobilize, and effect change. The Battle of Seattle in 1999 in which advocacy organizations successfully halted the World Trade Organizations Ministerial Conference is often regarded as the first example of a successful intersection between online and offline mobilization. 25 A variety of online tools were used to organize, including e-mail, chat rooms, and bulletin boards. During the lead-up to the event, advocacy groups created the Independent Media Center (now referred to as Indymedia or the IMC), 26 which continues to be an Internet-based worldwide network of activist sites. The IMC was designed to allow anyone to post information, whether it was text or audio/visual material in real time, and set the model for a many-to-many use

Opel; Jeffery M. Ayres, From the Streets to the Internet: The Cyber-Diffusion of Contention, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 566 (1999): 132-143; Lance W. Bennett, Communicating Global Activism, Information, Communication & Society 6, no. 2 (2003): 143-168; Marc Eaton, Manufacturing Community in an Online Activity Organization: The Rhetoric of MoveOn.orgs E-mails, Information, Communication and Society 13, no. 2 (2010): 174-192; Jeroen Van Laer, Activists Online and Offline: The Internet as an Information Channel for Protest Demonstrations, Mobilization: An International Journal 15, no. 3 (2010): 347-366. 21 Van Laer. 22 Stephen J. Kobrin, The MAI and the Clash of Globalizations, Foreign Policy 112 (1998): 97-109. 23 Ibid., 97. 24 Eric Neumayer, Multilateral Agreement on Investment: Lessons for the WTO from the Failed OECD Negotiations, Wirtschaftspolitische Bltter 46, no. 6 (1999): 618-628. 25 Carty. 26 The Independent Media Center can be found at http://www.indymedia.org/en/index.shtml.
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of the media whereby activists can subvert the traditional one-to-many approach of mainstream and corporate media. 27 There have been numerous other examples of advocacy groups using the Internet to pursue collective action efforts in the years following the MAI protests. 28 In that time, various engagement and collective action techniques have been developed using the Internet; for example, advocacy groups have been known to use the Internet to facilitate massive e-mail-writing campaigns. 29 The Internet has also made it easier for advocacy groups to facilitate public comment submission to Notice of Proposed Rulemaking procedures, with some groups developing links to websites containing form letters (that can be modified) that when submitted automatically navigate the notoriously complicated online comment submission systems that various regulatory agencies use. 30 Researchers are beginning to examine the extent to which advocacy groups are using social media. Schwarz has addressed how activists should use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to supplement traditional social networks and information channels. 31 Bortree and Seltzer found that environmental advocacy groups are beginning to use social media sites like Facebook to facilitate dialogue. 32 Petray discusses social media use by Aboriginal activists in Australia, and suggests that Web 2.0 technologies can be used to supplement offline activism and promote virtual activism. 33 Edwards and Hoefer explored the use of social media (or lack of use) by social work advocacy groups. 34 Biddix has looked at how social media has been used to facilitate forms of activism on university campuses. 35 While a more extensive literature has developed addressing social media use by politicians 36 as well as how the public views social media use for political purposes, 37 additional
Carty, 2. For example, see Jerry W. Knudson, Rebellion in Chiapas: Insurrection by Internet and Public Relations, Media, Culture & Society 20 (1998): 507-518; Opel; Van Laer. 29 Robert W. McChesney, The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st Century (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004); Shulman. 30 Free Press and FreedomWorks have used the Internet in this way to facilitate public participation in FCC deliberations. See Jonathan A. Obar, Democracy or Technocracy? An Analysis of Public and Expert Participation in FCC Policymaking, dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, 2010. 31 Elizabeth A.G. Schwarz, The Impact of Social Network Websites on Social Movement Involvement, working paper, Aug. 1, 2011, accessed Oct. 20, 2011, http://cbsmpapers.web.unc.edu/files/2011/08/SchwarzSNSSocialMovements.pdf. 32 Denise S. Bortree and Trent Seltzer, Dialogic Strategies and Outcomes: An Analysis of Environmental Advocacy Groups Facebook Profiles, Public Relations Review 35, no. 3 (2009): 317-319. 33 Theresa L. Petray, Protest 2.0: Online Interactions and Aboriginal Activists, Media, Culture & Society 33, no. 6 (2011): 923-940. 34 Heather R. Edwards and Richard Hoefer, Are Social Work Advocacy Groups Using Web 2.0 Effectively? Journal of Policy Practice 9, no. 3-4 (2010): 220-239. 35 Patrick J. Biddix, Technology Uses in Campus Activism From 2000 to 2008: Implications for Civic Learning, Journal of College Student Development 51, no. 6 (2010): 679-693. 36 For example, see Joe Trippi, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything (New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2004); Girish Gulati and Christine Williams, Closing the Gap, Raising the Bar, Social Science Computer Review 25 (2007): 443465; Gary Hanson, Paul M. Haridakis, Audrey W. Cunningham, Rekha Sharma, and J.D. Ponder, The 2008 Presidential Campaign: Political Cynicism in the Age of Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, Mass Communication and Society 13 (2010); 584-607. 37 Rebecca Hayes, I Want to Feel Included: Views of Younger Voters on Traditional and New Media Communication Channels, paper presented at Politics: Web 2.0: An International Conference, London, 2008; Rebecca Hayes, Paul Zube, and Thomas Isaacson, Reaching Out on Their Own Turf: Social Networking Sites and Campaigning 2008,
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research needs to address how advocacy groups are using social media. Our current inquiry attempts to expand upon the current literature in the area by exploring how a variety of advocacy groups in the United States use and perceive social media as tools for facilitating civic engagement and collective action.

THE PROBLEM OF DEFINING SOCIAL MEDIA

Ask an individual on the street to explain the concept social media and you are likely to hear a description that includes references to popular sites like Facebook or Twitter, or perhaps a unique reference to a variety of less popular and unique sites like Delicious, Foursquare, or Diigo. Ask that same person to describe what a social media site does and you are likely to encounter a description that involves concepts like bringing people together, enabling people to communicate, opportunities to share information, or other descriptors that can be associated with new media technologies, and older ones as well. Indeed, there are two distinct problems associated with the conceptualization of social media: 1) the broad array of social media sites have been and continue to be developed, abandoned, ignored, and reconceptualized day-by-day in different countries and at different levels of public awareness; and 2) social media have enabled forms and benefits of communication processes that when described generally can be regarded as similar to capabilities enabled by more traditional media technologies. In terms of the latter, would the telephone be considered a social medium? The fax machine? What about e-mail? Each of these technologies can bring people together, enable people to share information of varying types, and facilitate both communication and collaboration. Consequently, the conceptualization of social media in the following section will be developed by referring to specific examples (limiting the conceptualizations ability to be exhaustive) as well as to a variety of specific communication functions that may also have some applicability to traditional technologies.

Conceptualizing Social Media

Kaplan and Haenlein define social media as a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content. 38 Web 2.0 refers to the software platform that gave birth to the technology that we currently understand as social media. The term was first used in 2004 to describe a new way in which software developers and end-users started to utilize the World Wide Web; that is, as a platform whereby content and applications are no longer created and published by

paper presented at Politics: Web 2.0: An International Conference, London, 2008; Jessica Vitak, Paul Zube, Andrew Smock, Caleb T. Carr, Nicole Ellison, and Cliff Lampe, Its Complicated: Facebook Users Political Participation in the 2008 Election, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 14 (2011): 107114. 38 Andreas M. Kaplan and Michael Haenlein, Users of the World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media, Business Horizons 53 (2009): 61.

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individuals, but instead are continuously modified by all users in a participatory and collaborative fashion. 39 Whereas the concept of Web 2.0 represents an ideological and technological foundation to social media, user-generated content can be viewed as the variegated methods and styles people use when accessing, consuming, and contributing to social media. 40 Said another way, user-generated content can be viewed as the various forms of media, whether it be text, images, audio, video, or a combination of some or all of these elements that are created, added and made available online by Internet users. A missing element in Kaplans definition is the social networking component. Social media site and social networking site are often used interchangeably. To help develop a conceptualization of the former, it helps to understand how scholars have defined the latter. Boyd and Ellison describe social networking sites as Web-based services that allow individuals to: 1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system; 2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection; and 3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. 41 Boyd and Ellison also note that on social networking sites, the nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site. 42 With variations and combinations of media components appearing or not appearing on sites, and with variations and combinations of networking functions also appearing or not appearing on sites, it is clear that drawing a ring around a clear-cut definition (and even the proper terminology) of this technology is a challenge. For our current purposes, the term social media site will be used when describing these technologies, as this appears to be among the more popular terms that people use in the United States. Taking this broad conceptualization into account, this study will explore the use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Linkedin, blogs, wikis, and mobile applications (e.g. SMS). Expanding upon the previous literature that has addressed the use of e-mail by advocacy groups, 43 this study will assess how advocacy groups use listservs and e-mail. The groups surveyed were also given the opportunity to note other social media sites and applications that they use.

Ibid., 60-61. Ibid. 41 danah m. boyd and Nicole B. Ellison, Social Network Sites: Definition, History and Scholarship, Journal of ComputerMediated Communication 13 (2008): 211. 42 Ibid. 43 For example, see Opel; Shulman; Eaton.
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METHOD
Participants
More than 1000 advocacy groups operating in the United States (of varying political and ideological orientations 44) were identified using the databases at OpenSecrets.org. One hundred and twenty-five agreed to receive the online survey (via Surveygizmo.com) and a total of 169 representatives from 53 groups took the actual survey (see Appendix A). There were two versions of the survey: a longer version that included questions about organization size, social media use, and general perceptions of social media; and a shorter version that only included the social media perception questions. It was determined that one social media/communication director at each advocacy group would take the longer survey in order to identify the organizational size and social media usage for each group. To assess general perceptions of social media, the directors would complete the long survey, and employing a snowball sampling method, forward the shorter version to their colleagues. Forty-eight of 53 groups had one social media/communication director take the longer survey, and all 53 groups had individuals take the shorter survey. Forty-eight participants took the longer survey; 121 participants took the shorter survey (n=169). Participants were predominantly female (n=120, 76%) and represented a wide range of ages (Mage= 34.5 years, age range: 23-71).

The Survey
The longer version of the survey began by assessing organization size, with specific attention paid to the number of employees and volunteers working in online outreach. Questions assessing social media use by each organization followed. These included questions addressing the type of social media technologies used to connect with citizens and the frequency of their usage. A list of social media technologies was provided (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, Linkedin, wikis, listservs, and mobile apps) and participants identified frequency of usage by selecting every day, a few times a week, a few times a month, or never. Participants were then asked to list any additional social media technologies being used and frequency of usage. Benefits and drawbacks of social media for facilitating civic engagement and collective action were first assessed through a variety of ranking questions. Directors were asked to rank five social media technologies (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, listservs, and blogs) based upon their perceived effectiveness for achieving specific advocacy-related tasks (top rank was one, bottom rank was five). Because education and involvement are central to civic engagement processes, 45 participants ranked which social media technologies were best for educating the public about the issues that matter to our organization, informing citizens about relevant dates, events, government deliberations, etc. and giving citizens a place to voice their opinion. Because collective action involves group efforts
The political and ideological orientation of the groups surveyed was not a central focus of this study. Previous research has suggested that groups of varying political and ideological orientations, engaged in similar civic engagement and collective action activities, are using the Internet to accomplish similar organizational goals. This suggests that organizational goals (as opposed to politics or ideology) are what fuel technology adoption; thus the reason for our focus on organizational goals and not political leanings. See Obar. 45 Ehrlich.
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to effect political change, 46 participants ranked which technologies were best for mobilizing citizens, collecting petition signatures, and submitting citizens comments to government. The long and short surveys both provided a variety of open-ended questions that allowed all 169 participants to describe their views on the benefits and drawbacks of social media use by their organization. 47 Responses to the open-ended questions were assessed through qualitative thematic analyses to determine patterns within the answers provided.

RESULTS
Organization Size
From the 53 advocacy groups surveyed, 9 were small employing 1-5 individuals, 11 were medium employing 5-20; and 28 were large employing more than 20. (See Appendix A for a list of all 53 organizations surveyed.) Five groups did not identify organization size.

Number of Online Outreach Workers

As noted in Table 1 below, the findings suggest that larger advocacy organizations employ more individuals in various online outreach positions than smaller groups. Smaller organizations are more likely to have volunteers working in these positions. Of the 28 large groups, five employ more than 10 individuals for website development and maintenance, with 16 of the remaining 23 large groups employing between two and nine individuals in these positions. Though three of the smaller groups have zero individuals employed in website development and maintenance, six (of nine) have one or more volunteers working in these positions. When asked how many individuals they have working in social media-oriented positions, the results were similar, with the larger groups employing more individuals and the smaller groups having more volunteers. All organizations, no matter the size, noted that they have at least one individual working in a social media position. While there were two small organizations with zero employees working in social media positions, both noted that they have volunteers doing social media work (American Atheists has four such volunteers and the National Coalition for the Homeless has one). Three large organizations employ more than ten social media workers (the American Library Association employs 35 and the Electronic Frontier Foundation 25), with the majority employing between one and three individuals in these positions.

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Tarrow. A variety of additional measures were included in the surveys such as scales measuring social media efficacy, barriers to use, and social media comfort level. Due to the overall response rate, the responses to these scales were not analyzed for our current purposes.

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Employees Volunteers Large Medium Small Large Medium Site Development and Maintenance Workers 10+ 5 0 0 1 0 4-9 6 1 0 0 0 2-3 10 4 2 0 1 1 6 6 4 2 2 0 0 0 3 24 8 Social Media Workers 10+ 3 0 0 1 0 4-9 3 1 0 0 0 2-3 10 1 1 0 0 1 11 9 6 3 4 0 0 0 2 23 7 Total Online Outreach Workers 10+ 9 0 0 1 1 4-9 9 1 0 0 0 2-3 6 5 3 0 1 1 3 5 4 5 4 0 0 0 2 21 5 (Note: Data missing for one large group (Habitat for Humanity). Small 1 1 1 3 3 2 1 1 3 2 3 1 1 2 2

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Use of Social Media Applications

When asked, Does your organization use social media to interact with citizens? 100% of the organizations surveyed answered yes. The following questions then asked about use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, Linkedin, wikis, listservs, and mobile apps to communicate with citizens. Almost all groups (47 of 48) use Facebook for this purpose (the exception was a small group the National Coalition for Social and Political Reform) and almost all groups use Twitter (46 of 48), with the two non-users being smaller groups. As noted in Figure 1 below, the advocacy community is using all of the social media technologies assessed in some capacity. Facebook and Twitter are clearly the most popular, followed by YouTube and blogs (both being used by 77% of all groups). Listservs are fairly popular, followed by Linkedin and then wikis, which are the least popular. While all groups are using social media in some capacity, a slightly higher percentage of the large and medium-sized groups are using the more popular technologies when compared with the smaller groups. The greatest disparity between large and small groups appeared in the percentage of groups using YouTube and Linkedin, with a considerably higher percentage of large groups using these social media sites. That being said, a higher percentage of small groups were found to be using listservs and mobile apps.

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Small Groups Medium Groups Large Groups Total

Figure 1: Percentage of Advocacy Groups Using Social Media to Communicate with Citizens.

When organizations use social media, they use them quite often. Of all groups, 67% (6 of 9 small, 5 of 11 medium, and 21 of 28 large) use Facebook to communicate with citizens every day. The same percentage of groups also use Twitter every day to communicate with citizens. Most of the remaining medium and large organizations use Twitter and Facebook more than once a week. Zero medium and zero large organizations reported that they never use Facebook or Twitter to interact with citizens. The remaining social media technologies are not being used as frequently as Facebook and Twitter. Eleven of 28 large organizations use blogs every day and nine use them a few times per week. Most of the small and medium-sized organizations that use blogs use them weekly or monthly, but not every day. Only four of 48 organizations (two large, one small, one unclear) use YouTube every day, with the majority (62%) using YouTube a few times a month. The advocacy organizations surveyed were asked about their use of other social media applications. Among the larger groups, other applications being used include: Flickr, Tumblr, Foursquare, Identi.ca, Picasa, and Vimeo. Medium-sized groups reported that they use Vimeo as well as Jumo, Diigo, and Constant Contact. Of the small groups, some use Flickr and also Joomla, JamSocial, MySpace, and Atheist Nexus, a social media site for the Atheist community. When asked about sending e-mails, social media directors at all 48 organizations noted that their organizations send e-mails to citizens. Larger organizations tend to send to larger groups of individuals. For example, AARP sends e-mails to 8,000,000 individuals a few times per week, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA, also a large group) sends 2,000,000 once a week. Nine of the remaining large organizations send e-mails to between 100,000 and 700,000

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individuals. Two of the medium-sized organizations send e-mails to 100,000-200,000 individuals, with the majority of the remaining medium organizations sending to 10,000-20,000 individuals. In terms of frequency of e-mails sent, most of the large organizations are sending e-mails once a week or more often and smaller and medium-sized groups are sending e-mails once a week or less often (though Americans for Indian Opportunity, a small group, was the only group to note that they send e-mails out more than once a day).

Ranking Social Media for Facilitating Civic Engagement and Collective Action
To assess how members of advocacy groups perceive social media as tools that can facilitate civic engagement and collective action, social media/communication directors were asked to rank five social media technologies (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, and listservs) in terms of their effectiveness in facilitating various advocacy-related tasks. Facebook received the strongest scores overall, with Twitter and listservs often being noted as other strong options. YouTube was overwhelmingly regarded as the worst or among the worst in most cases. Civic engagement: When asked to rank social media technologies in terms of their ability to help with educating the public about the issues that matter to our organization, Facebook generally received the highest scores, especially from the medium and large groups, with Twitter a close second. For informing citizens about relevant dates, events, government deliberations, etc. medium and large groups ranked Facebook first, Twitter second, and YouTube last. The smaller groups ranked listservs first with Twitter and YouTube last. For giving citizens a place to voice their opinion, Facebook ranked first across all organizations, receiving almost perfect scores from the medium and large groups. Twitter was ranked second by the medium groups and third (behind blogs) by the large groups. YouTube again ranked last. Collective action: When asked which technologies help with mobilizing citizens, Facebook, listservs, and Twitter received strong scores across all three groups, with YouTube last again. For collecting petition signatures, medium and large organizations both ranked Facebook first, listservs second, and YouTube last. The small groups ranked YouTube last as well. For submitting citizens comments to government, medium and large groups ranked Facebook and listservs as either first or second and YouTube last. The smaller groups all chose listservs as their first choice and almost all chose YouTube as their last.

QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS
The majority of advocacy groups surveyed noted in their open-ended responses that social media provide a variety of benefits that help facilitate civic engagement and collective action. These benefits are organized here into four sections: 1) Social media help connect individuals to advocacy groups and thus can strengthen outreach efforts; 2) social media help promote engagement as they enable engaging feedback loops; 3) social media strengthen collective action efforts through an increased speed of

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communication; and 4) social media are cost-effective tools that enable advocacy organizations to do more for less. Below, after each of the benefits is described we identify and discuss a variety of drawbacks.

Social Media Benefits that Help Advocacy Groups Facilitate Civic Engagement and Collective Action
Social media strengthen outreach efforts: When members of the 53 advocacy groups surveyed were asked about the benefits social media provide to their organizations, the answer repeated most often suggested that social media help to strengthen outreach efforts. Groups large and small referred to this benefit using different terminology. For example, participants often referred to social medias ability to create awareness of organizational goals, messages, and strategies. Representatives from large groups including Common Cause and PETA as well as smaller groups including the Arab-American Institute and the National Hispanic Media Coalition referred to the benefits of increased exposure. The NAACP and Greenpeace emphasized how social media contribute to a stronger online presence. The Evangelical-Lutheran Church of America, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), and others noted linkages to increased visibility. The Writers Guild of America noted how social media have enabled them to become part of a wider conversation, not exist in a bubble. The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) said, as the largest civil rights group for Latinos, we have an amazing opportunity to reach a new population, educate them, and turn them into engaged voters. Participants emphasized how social medias immense popularity and vast reach empowers advocacy groups, helping them to connect with a multitude of individuals ranging from members and supporters to those who have never heard of the organization before. One representative from PETA said, social media spreads the mission of PETA to those who are not are [sic] normal audience, while another said that social media create awareness and exposure outside of normal channels. A representative from the National Coalition for Social and Political Reform emphasized that some groups hope to reach beyond the domestic audience and noted that social media provides a way to connect with others globally. Another very common response emphasized how social media helps advocacy groups reach younger people, especially by demonstrating that the organization is keeping up with the latest technological trends (NASW). Indeed, a number of groups said that social media strengthen outreach efforts not only by connecting groups to a broader audience, but by presenting the organization in a way that will attract new members and communicate to existing members that the organization is worth sticking with. The National Coalition Against Censorship noted, Tweeting short, clever summaries of major censorship issues raises our online presence and profile. Other groups expanded upon this idea by noting that social media helps contribute to the branding process. Participants also said that social media contribute to outreach efforts by helping to facilitate organizational growth. For example, the NCLR said that social media provide avenues to grow the virtual community of advocates we need to build. Greenpeace noted that social media provide the ability to find and empower thousands of new people interested in working to save the environment. Also related to growth, The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence linked the

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increased visibility offered by social media with the ability to attract donors. The most common response emphasizing organizational growth however, referred to social medias ability to attract younger individuals to the organizations cause. Social media enable engaging feedback loops: The advocacy groups have linked another benefit of social media use to an enhanced ability to facilitate civic engagement and forms of collective action. That benefit is described here as the unifying feedback loop. Various groups suggested that the interactive, user-generated nature of social media enables advocacy groups to participate in two-way conversations with citizens. The NAACP referred to this process as two-way feedback. Groups emphasized how this conversation helps connect and engage individuals with the organization in a variety of ways. For example, a representative from the ACLU described how the feedback loop can involve individuals in an organizations message and strategy: social media provides an opportunity to engage with audiences in a way not available through traditional media. A press release cant tell you its bored with this story already or that it wants to know more about a particular aspect. The conversational nature of social media allows us to get feedback on the messages were putting out on our issues, adapt them and evolve to be more effective advocates for our cause. Social medias feedback loop was also identified as having a unifying, community-building component that could contribute to organizational growth. As a representative from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) said, Facebook, and now Twitter and YouTube to a much lesser extent, give us a real opportunity to engage with our members and to enable a conversation to take place within that community. That wasnt available just a few years ago. It has resulted in a lot of people feeling more connected to the national union, particularly during the recent attacks on workers in Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and Michigan. The ability to interact with individuals in real time was described as another major benefit of social media use that has helped bring individuals closer to the advocacy community. Building upon this idea, the speed of communication was another benefit identified by the advocacy groups. Social media strengthen collective action efforts through an increased speed of communication: A large number of groups also noted that social media increase the speed of communication. Participants emphasized how social media can engage individuals in issues and debates as theyre happening. AARP described social medias ability to update our followers in real time. This increases our ability to be prompt when an urgent issue or topic needs to be conveyed to our members. The Electronic Frontier Foundation added, Twitter, and to a lesser extent Facebook and Identi.ca, help promote our press releases, online actions, blog posts and white papers. They also help us keep our followers up-to-date on breaking news (sometimes we tweet within moments of an announcement). The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice also emphasized how speed can contribute to engagement, noting that social media allows for rapid communication about legislation (which) enhances sense [sic] of excitement about our issues. Groups often linked the speed of communication with an enhanced ability to facilitate collective action efforts. For example, the NCLR noted how social media contribute to their ability to

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mobilize groups quickly. AFSCME added that social media have enabled us to move much more quickly than we have in the past, especially when there is fast-moving activity in the states or on a federal level. The Alliance for Justice noted that social media provide a way to disseminate event or action-related information quickly. PETA said, its a great way to get the word out quickly, especially when it comes to action alerts. These observations suggest that social media are helping groups to mount collective action campaigns for issues that perhaps could not have been addressed in the past due to the time constraints imposed by older communication models. As the ACLU noted, were able to put out more action alerts and information on more issues than we ever could if we were only to use our e-mail list. Social media are cost-effective tools that enable advocacy organizations to do more for less: A variety of groups noted that social media are effective tools for advocacy because they are cost effective. The Parents Television Council said that social media are a great way to mobilize our members and its free! Similarly, a number of groups referred to social media as an efficient medium. For example, the Arab American Institute said simply more exposure, more time efficient, & less red tape. American Atheists also spoke about the financial component, but from another perspective by noting specifically that social media opens a lot of doors to advertising without actually having to advertise. PETA and the United Church of Christ also identified the advertising angle as a major benefit of social media; PETA used the term free advertising. Indeed, a variety of groups noted how social media allow them to do a lot more for a lot less. Additional benefits: Other benefits related to engagement included social medias ability to facilitate communication within the network already organized. For example, Americans for Indian Opportunity noted how social media allows constituents to connect directly to each other. American Atheists added that this enhanced ability to connect with one another allows members to network in their region which suggests that social media may allow groups of varying sizes to engage in discussion from different locations more easily as groups no longer have to come together in the same physical space. Other benefits that groups identified included the ease of use compared to traditional media, associated both with functionality and access to outlets. At the same time, the opportunity to supplement and amplify messages distributed via traditional media was also noted. The ability to meet public demand and work in spaces that users are already populating (for example, popular social media sites), coupled with reaching people on the go, were also benefits identified by the advocacy groups.

Advocacy Group Perceptions of the Drawbacks of Using Social Media

While the majority of qualitative responses favored social media use, representatives from the 53 advocacy groups surveyed did identify some drawbacks. Generational/digital literacy gaps: A number of the participants noted that while they believe that social media have the potential to help facilitate civic engagement and collective action, various generational and digital literacy gaps are inhibiting organizations from realizing these goals. A representative from the ACLU noted, a major problem at my organization is that none of the

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senior staff are users of social media. So when there is disagreement between two departments as there is now that involves social media and it gets to the top of the food chain, theyre pretty much shooting in the dark. A member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice added, we are pretty new to it, mostly because a younger wave of employees that have just recently started in the past year have pushed the importance of a social media presence. To address this issue, a number of organizations identified an interest in hiring younger, more digitally-literate employees. Various calls for staff training sessions were also noted. Speaking with a single voice: A few groups said that the ease of use and access that social media provide also presents the problem of too many individuals representing the organization online. Speaking with a unified, coherent voice can be a challenge when a variety of individuals, who note their organizational affiliations in their social media profiles, are expressing themselves through social media either in a professional or personal capacity. A member of a large group that chose to remain anonymous noted that their organization requires an extensive approval process for content distributed via social sites. The American Library Association, which has hundreds of people working in online outreach, noted that in large organizations use of social media can be diffuse, with not all users being qualified spokespeople, meaning that there may be a well-meaning person who says the wrong thing. Separation of personal and organizational use: Social medias immense popularity as a personal communication tool has introduced a number of challenges for individuals wishing to use the technology in the workplace. A member of AFSCME noted that concerns with the personal/professional divide are deterring his/her colleagues from using Facebook in particular as people do not want to use their personal profiles and networks for work purposes. A representative from Common Cause noted, It has become increasingly difficult to compartmentalize work social media and personal social media. Specifically, as the administrator of our facebook [sic] page, I have to proactively click that I want to post things as my organization, instead of myself. I am always afraid that I am going to forget to do that and my profile will be revealed to our thousands of members. Its [sic] all on private, but it may lead to being friended by people I dont want to connect to in that way [it is] awkward. A representative from Greenpeace noted, It sometimes bother[s] me to use my personal identity for the organizations benefit. At the same time it is not as effective if it is not personal. Effective mobilization requires a personal connection (weak ties): Gladwell has argued that social media promote weak ties and can bring a million people to a Facebook page but have yet to prove that they can mobilize individuals in such a way that would actually effect change. 48 As noted by the representative from Greenpeace above, the lack of a personal connection over social media can make organizing difficult. The representative also said, I am also finding that social media needs nurturing. You cant always just try to turn people out for an event, you kind of needs [sic] to make those people your online friends and have a form of relationship give and take. They need to
48

Gladwell.

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feel your [sic] are a real person, which can be a little weird. Similarly, a few organizations saw social media as a distraction from the more effective collective action work of the organization. The generational divide along with possible concerns about weak ties may have been the reason for this response.

DISCUSSION
The excitement generated by social medias potential impact in the political realm seems to grow more intense with each passing day. Can social media help to facilitate civic engagement and collective action? The diverse community of advocacy organizations in the United States, whose work often involves processes of political and organizational communication for the purpose of effecting political and ideological change, serves as a unique entry point for an empirical evaluation of this question. The quantitative and qualitative findings of this study revealed that almost all of the advocacy groups surveyed believe that social media are effective tools for facilitating civic engagement and collective action. As a result, most of the 53 advocacy groups assessed are using social media of various types almost every day. Many advocacy organizations (large groups in particular) are now working with and building large online outreach teams. Smaller organizations are also building online outreach teams, but more often with volunteer labor a finding that suggests that larger organizations have more financial resources to build teams of this type. The financial constraints of smaller organizations, an issue which certainly is not new, identifies a potential barrier to entry for those wishing to engage in policy battles dominated by larger groups. However, social medias cost-effectiveness a benefit noted repeatedly suggests that perhaps the barrier isnt so difficult to overcome. Coupled with the fact that at this stage, younger individuals (who are perhaps more likely to volunteer) may be just as (or more) technologically savvy in the realm of social media than experienced professionals, suggests that perhaps the financial component may not be as critical a barrier to participation in policy debates. In terms of actual social media use, all advocacy groups surveyed noted that they use social media to interact with citizens. Preferences were clear. Facebook is the most favored social media site of the various technologies considered by this study. Of the groups surveyed, 98% said they use Facebook to communicate with citizens, 67% said they use it every day, and almost all of the remaining groups said that they use Facebook more than once a week. When asked to rank social media technologies in terms of their ability to achieve advocacy-related tasks, Facebook was consistently ranked as the top choice for tasks that help facilitate forms of civic engagement (like educating citizens and informing them about policy debates), as well as forms of collective action (such as the collection of petition signatures, organizing citizen comments to be submitted to government, and political mobilization in general).

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Twitter was almost as popular as Facebook. Of the groups surveyed, 96% said they use Twitter to communicate with the general public, with frequency of use being about the same as Facebook. In terms of its use as a tool for facilitating civic engagement and collective action, Twitter was often ranked second or third (often alternating with listservs) among the five social media technologies considered. While 77% of groups said that they use YouTube, across the board YouTube was ranked the lowest by advocacy organizations in terms of its ability to complete advocacy-related tasks. This was surprising, especially with regards to education and dissemination of information about events and government deliberations. One would assume that the ability to prepare a carefully crafted and detailed audio/video presentation that could involve text-based elements would provide advocacy groups with a valuable opportunity to educate and inform the public. Perhaps YouTube scored so poorly because members of the advocacy community dont understand its social networking function; this is an unlikely explanation however, considering that participants in the survey were often social media/communication directors. A more plausible explanation, other than the suggestion that YouTube isnt a great tool, is that participants do in fact use YouTube but do so by linking their videos to Facebook and Twitter, which perhaps are regarded as stronger social networks. When comparing Facebook and Twitter to YouTube, this relationship between the sites might have misrepresented YouTubes value. This explanation, however, was not revealed in the Qualitative Analysis section above. The use of e-mail was also found to be quite prevalent, with organizations like AARP e-mailing 8,000,000 individuals a few times a week and PETA e-mailing 2,000,000 once a week. Many other organizations said they e-mail lists of many hundreds of thousands at least once a week. Also worth mentioning is the long list of other social media sites that various groups are using to communicate with the public. This list includes proprietary sites like Foursquare, Flickr, and Tumblr and even group-specific sites like Atheist Nexus. FreedomWorks (operated by the Tea Party) turned down our invitation to participate in the survey, but their well-known social media site at freedomconnector.org has been used recently to mobilize more than a hundred thousand individuals to participate in the current presidential race (and other political issues). Quantitative results also demonstrated that advocacy groups are using Linkedin, blogs, wikis, and mobile applications to communicate with citizens. Indeed, the variety and frequency of social media use by the groups assessed by this study suggests that members of the advocacy community believe that social media can help them to achieve their political and organizational goals. This notion was further demonstrated by the qualitative results. The Qualitative Analysis section above provided greater depth in terms of explaining why advocacy groups in the United States perceive social media services as tools that can help facilitate civic engagement and collective action. As tools for engaging individuals in advocacy, the groups noted that social media help strengthen outreach efforts and enable engaging feedback loops. In terms of the former, groups described how social media help extend their organizations reach into communities that are already engaged and beyond to those that are not. Social medias ability to reach domestic and global audiences was also noted. Closely connected to the benefit of reach was the benefit of organizational growth. Groups noted that outreach is strengthened not only because

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of the number of individuals that can be reached, but because social media enables groups to draw prospective (and current) members closer, which can create a sense of unity and help grow the organization. Participants noted that social media help to draw individuals closer to the advocacy community through a process referred to here as the engaging feedback loop. The interactive nature of social media, which enables groups to engage in two-way conversations with members and prospective members, was identified as being another major reason that social media can help advocacy groups accomplish organizational goals that involve engaging individuals in the issues that matter to the organization, creating and maintaining a sense of unity within the organization, and promoting organizational growth. As tools for facilitating forms of collective action, advocacy groups also noted quite consistently that social media strengthen these efforts through increased speed of communication. Social media appear to be enabling advocacy groups to connect with their networks in a constructive and strategic fashion as events are unfolding, facilitating forms of collective action (for example, petition signing, submission of online comments, attendance at events, etc.) in real time. Comments suggesting that the speed and strength of communication enables organizations to both harness the power of their networks, and involve their community in a greater number of debates, begins to articulate a counter-argument to some of the weak ties claims positing that social media are not effective tools for achieving political and ideological change. This idea requires further exploration. It is also worth noting that some of the groups highlighted how social media strengthen organizations by enabling them to do more for less. Indeed, the cost-effective nature of social media was also a major benefit noted by the advocacy groups. As a representative from the Parents Television Council remarked, social media are a great way to mobilize our members and its free! The qualitative results also demonstrated that advocacy groups do have some concerns about social media. Overall however, many of these concerns were associated with the process of integrating social media into well-established routines, as opposed to the suggestion that social media are ineffective for accomplishing advocacy-related tasks. The only claim of this type was made by a small group of individuals who implied that the weak ties that social media promote may not be as effective as the relationships developed with the traditional tools for advocacy. While there are those who suggest that social media promotes these weak ties, 49 a growing academic literature is beginning to demonstrate that weak ties developed online may in fact be able to affect relationships and contribute to change. 50 As future research continues to address the extent to which social media
Badger; Gladwell; Morozov, The Brave New World of Slacktivism; Morozov, From Slacktivism to Activism; Lisan Jutras, Facebook Mobilizes Masses But What For? Globe and Mail, Dec. 7, 2009, accessed Oct.16, 2011, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/personal-tech/facebook-mobilizes-masses---but-whatfor/article1390916/. 50 For example, see Andrea L. Kavanaugh, Debbie D. Reese, John M. Carroll, and Mary Beth Rosson, Weak Ties in Networked Communities, The Information Society 21, no. 2 (2005): 119-131; Nicole B. Ellison, Charles Steinfield, and Cliff Lampe, The Benefits of Facebook Friends: Social Capital and College Students Use of Online Social Network Sites, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 12 (2007): 1143-1168.
49

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enable groups to actually accomplish political and organizational goals, a more in-depth understanding of the relationships that develop and their corresponding impact on the achievement of these goals must be determined. Recent events have heightened an already thriving interest in social medias ability to facilitate civic engagement and collective action. The results of this study suggest that members of the advocacy community in the United States believe that this excitement is justified. This was evidenced not only through the stated perceptions, but in the admitted uses of social media. As the debate evolves and the tools made available online multiply, more empirical work is necessary to assess the extent to which social media are indeed capable of facilitating various forms of political communication, especially those that have a democratizing function. Hopefully this study has provided a strong first step, and has contributed to a more stable foundation upon which subsequent analyses can assess social medias actual ability to successfully engage and mobilize the public, as well as effect political and ideological change.

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Small Groups (1-5 employees) American Atheists Americans for Indian Opportunity Hip Hop Caucus Media Access Project National Coalition for Homeless Veterans National Coalition for Literacy National Coalition for Social & Political Reform National Coalition for the Homeless Ohio State Chiropractic Association Medium Groups (6-20 employees) Americans for Democratic Action Arab-American Institute Bill of Rights Defense Committee Jewish Women International National Coalition Against Censorship National Coalition Against Domestic Violence National Hispanic Media Coalition Parents Television Council Prometheus Radio Project Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice Large Groups (21 or more employees) AARP ACLU AFSCME American Enterprise Institute American Library Association American Medical Association Anonymous

Common Cause Electronic Frontier Foundation Energy Future Coalition Episcopal Public Policy Network Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Family Research Council Free Press Friends Committee on National Legislation Greenpeace Habitat for Humanity Leadership Institute NAACP National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems National Council of La Raza National Urban League PETA Planned Parenthood Federation of America United Church of Christ United Way Writers Guild of America Other Groups (Number of employees not given) Alliance for Justice American Islamic Congress Feminist Majority Foundation Human Rights Campaign Labor Council for Latin American Advancement National Association of Social Workers

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