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Unintended consequences: the negative impact of e-mail use on participation and collective identity in two ‘horizontal’ social movement groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2015

Cristina Flesher Fominaya
Cristina Flesher Fominaya*
Affiliation:
Senior Lecturer, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK Senior Marie Curie Fellow, National University Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland
*
*E-mail: Cristina.FlesherFominaya@nuim.ie; c.flesher@abdn.ac.uk
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Abstract

The relation between face-to-face and online communication and its impact on collective identity processes is understudied. In this article I draw on two case studies conducted during a 3-year ethnographic study of the Global Justice Movement network in Madrid, Spain, from 2002 to 2005 to explore the unintended impact of e-mail on the sustainability, internal dynamics, and collective identity of two groups committed to participatory and deliberative practices as key features of their collective identity. I found that despite an explicit commitment to ‘horizontalism’ the use of e-mail in these two groups increased existing hierarchies, hindered consensus, decreased participation, and worked towards marginalization of group members. In addition, the negative and unintended consequences of e-mail use affected both groups, independently of activists’ evaluation of their experience in their face-to-face assemblies (one of which was overwhelmingly perceived as positive and one of which was perceived as negative). The article draws on e-mail research in organizations, online political deliberation research, and existing studies of e-mail use in social movement groups to analyse these findings.

Keywords

deliberative democracye-mailGlobal Justice Movementinformation and communication technologies (ICTs)organizational communicationsocial movements
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , February 2016 , pp. 95 - 122
Copyright
© European Consortium for Political Research 2015 

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Footnotes

†

The original version of this article was published with the incorrect author name. A notice detailing this has been published and the error rectified in the online and print PDF and HTML copies.

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