Repression and Mobilization in the Digital Age: a Triangular Set of Relations
Social Sciences
190H: the Substance of Democracy
This paper introduces a triangle-shaped model to conceptualize the relationship between the repression of social movements, social movement mobilization, and technological innovation (referred to in the paper as 'digitization'). In so doing, the triangular model expands on previous scholars' understandings of the relationships between the three arenas. This is because the model is able to diagram the diverse causes and effects that characterize relationships between social movement repression, social movement mobilization and technological innovation where other models are not. Though the triangular model captures a wider range of causal variables and outcomes than previous ones, literature review reveals incongruences in the relationships between repression, digitization, and mobilization. Particularly, repression and technological innovation tend to mutually support each other’s development. Repression may encourage or discourage mobilization depending on situational variables, whereas mobilization usually garners repression. Additionally, a tension exists between digitization and mobilization due to the private ownership of some newer technologies and the use of these communication methods as a means of organizing. As the paper shows, the triangular model’s design allows it to diagram the nuance of these relations. Finally, the research employs a case study of U.S. universities’ AI-based social media monitoring of students to demonstrate how the model can be applied to specific incidents. Due to the correlation between repression and digitization, the model and its applications underscore a concern for the ethics informing technological innovation and emerging technologies’ potential for repression.
