Digital activism to achieve meaningful institutional change: A bricolage of crowdsourcing, social media, and data analytics

Abstract

Highlights • Most institutions can typically withstand digital activists' efforts for change. • A bricolage of available ICT resources empowered opposition to multi-national policy. • Institutional change results from experimental work of low-power actors and allies. • Research supporting ICT-empowered activism can lead to institutional change. • Active oversight is needed to maintain legitimacy in crowd science projects. Abstract Researchers have examined the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on activism, finding that ICT improves connectivity, mobilization, and identity formation. However, such digital activism has been criticized for often failing to move beyond venting anger during the initial mobilization efforts. To better understand what makes digital activism more likely to generate meaningful institutional change, we examine the case of the Swedish Cabotagestudien, an example of effective and sustained digital activism that generated institutional field-level industry and policy changes. We examine the institutional work underlying a bricolage of crowdsourcing, social media, and data analytics through a longitudinal case study of Cabotagestudien, contributing to research on institutional change, innovation, and technology. Our case analysis reveals three mutually reinforcing forms of institutional work: infrastructure work, crowd work, and data work. As a result, we contribute a novel theoretical explanation of how these interrelated forms of institutional work can mobilize low-power actors into effective and sustained digital activism in the face of institutional resistance.