Data in movement: the social movement society in the age of datafication

ABSTRACT

Data has increased currency in contemporary activism and has become an integral part of the action repertoire of today’s social movements. But data and data infrastructure are not only tools to support a movement’s struggle: they are constitutive parts of the environment in which movements operate, and objects of contention in their own right. These developments challenge scholars of social movements and collective action. How are movements changing under the pressure of datafication? What ‘new’ mechanisms, actors and tactics meet the growing demand for citizen participation in an increasingly datafied society? Is social movement scholarship ‘fit’ to capture and interpret this evolution? This theoretical article puts social movement studies in dialogue with critical data studies with the aim of encouraging a much-needed cross-pollination. It advances the notion of ‘datafied movements’ to address the novel structural condition of contentious politics in the age of datafication and to explore the socio-technical, systemic effects of data and data infrastructure on movement dynamics. It reflects on how five key social movement dynamics, and the related elements in the conceptual toolbox of social movement studies – group formation, opportunity structures, action repertoires, meaning work, and collective identity – are altered by datafication and the advance of intelligent systems in society. In so doing, this article charts the building blocks of a future-proof research program in social movements.

KEYWORDS:

• Datafied society
• big data
• algorithms
• datafied movements
• social movements
• data activism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Furthermore, movements might actively avoid or seek to minimize the effects of datafication on their mobilization strategies, withdrawing from the ‘matrix’ of datafication. But because datafication cannot be ignored but resisted, this case, too, exposes the grasp of datafication on social actors. Movements, then, will adapt their practices to minimize its reach, continuously re-negotiating their existence in an increasingly datafied society.

Additional information

Funding

This research was made possible by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program [grant agreement No. 639379-DATACTIVE], awarded to Stefania Milan as Principal Investigator.

Notes on contributors

Stefania Milan

Stefania Milan (https://stefaniamilan.net) works at the intersection of participation, digital technology, and governance, with an emphasis on infrastructure and citizen agency. She is a Professor of Critical Data Studies at the University of Amsterdam, affiliated with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society (Harvard University) and the School of Transnational Governance (European University Institute). She was the Principal Investigator of the DATACTIVE project (2015-21), funded by a Starting Grant of the European Research Council, which financed the empirical research supporting this article.

Davide Beraldo

Davide Beraldo is an Assistant Professor in New Media, Data and Information at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation and the Department of Media studies in the University of Amsterdam. He holds a joint PhD in Sociology/Social Sciences from the University of Milan and the University of Amsterdam. Davide’s research focuses on the application of digital research methods to the study of social movements; on the analyzes of social media platforms’ algorithmic systems; on the socio-semiotic dimension of digital communication; and on the epistemological implications of datafication.