The R/evolution of civic engagement: an exploratory network analysis of the Facebook groups of occupy Chicago

ABSTRACT

This study explores the role of social media as mediating structures for civic engagement. A network analysis of 2829 Facebook groups joined by 600 randomly sampled occupy Chicago (OC) participants shows that OC is embedded in diverse interconnected voluntary groups mediated by social media. The observed patterns of interconnection reveal a loosely connected, fragmented, and clustered structure. Such a structure may enable publics, as self-organized social groups shaped in networked flows of communication, to shift in and out of more established institutional structures and formal civic organizations to form ‘flexible network-domains’ at developing moments of mobilization. The study explains the empirical patterns of civic affiliation in the context of the broad historical structural changes and the specific characteristics of contemporary forms of mediated sociality.

KEYWORDS:

• Civic engagement
• social media
• Facebook revolution
• occupy movement
• network analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Elaine Yuan is an associate professor in the Communication Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago [email: [email protected]].

Miao Feng is a PhD candidate in communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a research scientist for Health Media Collaboratory at NORC at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on the social and health campaign evaluation and people's engagement in a new media environment [email: [email protected]].

Xiyuan Liu is currently a PhD candidate at University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research interests involve the cultural approach to new media research, especially pertaining to inquiries of how ordinary individuals conceptualize and negotiate social issues and engage in identity and lifestyle politics in the online sphere. Mixing quantitative and qualitative methods, her dissertation uses a socio-cultural theoretical framework to investigate how ordinary individuals in China use social media to construct and communicate sexual and reproductive health and how their communicative acts connect to the larger communicative ecology and socio-cultural and geopolitical contexts of China [email: [email protected]].

Additional information

Funding

This project is partially funded by the Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement at UIC.