Thesis
Thesis
Thesis
by
© Chenfang Wang
Master of Arts
May, 2019
Social media plays a vital role in mobilizing social movement actors to produce and
respond to a variety of issues. The development of the Internet and social media has transformed
traditional social movements and provided a new means for people in modern societies to
mobilize. While social media presents contemporary social movements with new opportunities,
they also bring challenges. This study examines the “Save The Arctic” campaign launched by
campaign-related content on Twitter is used to analyze who plays a role in mobilizing the
campaign, what discourses social movement actors produce, and how activists use Twitter to
promote campaign-related messages. The findings of this study provide insights into the
individuals, how protest strategies shift through social media activism, how visual
communication is used as part of social movement framing in digital forms of mobilization, and
how the media environment for social movements shifts in the social media era.
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Acknowledgement
I would like to thank both of my supervisors Dr. Mark Stoddart and Dr. Steve Crocker for their
expert advice and extraordinary support in this thesis process. Thank you for always encouraging
me to learn independently and think critically for my research project. Thank you for always
sparing your time for me to discuss any issues I had for my thesis. Thank you for offering me
emotional support and positive thoughts when I had a difficult time continuing my research.
I would also like to thank the Department of Sociology at Memorial University of Newfoundland
for providing financial support for my research software. It definitely helped alleviate my
Finally, I must express my profound gratitude to my family and friends for providing me with
unfailing support throughout my years of study and continuous encouragement during the
research process of my MA thesis. This accomplishment would not have been possible without
them.
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Table of Contents
Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii
6. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………. 31
5. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 43
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Campaign Targets .................................................................................................. 53
Summary ................................................................................................................ 68
2. Critical Event Two: the “Free the Arctic 30” Campaign ................................................. 69
3. Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 93
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Chapter One: Introduction
The development of the Internet and social media has provided a new means for people
to participate in controversial social discussions. In recent years, social media has played a
significant role in mobilizing and organizing political and social protests worldwide, such as the
Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street (Browning, 2013; Castells, 2015; Vatikiotis, 2016). The
adoption of new information and communication technologies by social movement actors has
been predicted to transform traditional forms of political participation (Donk, 2004). It is argued
that social movement organizations are losing their importance in mobilization (Castelles, 2015).
Social media platforms, as a new set of communication tools, allow widely-dispersed individuals
to connect and work together in a coordinated fashion, while also broadcasting their views and
activities at home and abroad (Browning, 2013). The abilities of the Internet and social media in
increasing the capacity of social movements to raise substantive issues and mobilize supporters
has been documented (Stoddart & MacDonald, 2011; Earl & Kimport, 2011). In other words,
social media plays a vital role in mobilizing social movement actors to produce and respond to a
variety of issues. As with many social movements, environmental movements have also become
intertwined with social media. Environmentalists increasingly employ online networks and social
media to mobilize activists to communicate and take action on issues, such as climate change
movements, I examine the “Save the Arctic” campaign on Twitter as a case study in my research
project. The “Save the Arctic” campaign was launched by Greenpeace in 2012 principally to
protect the Arctic from oil drilling, and it received a large amount of attention worldwide.
Greenpeace was established in Vancouver in 1971 and has now become the largest and best-
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know environmental organization in the world (Doyle, 2003). Greenpeace 1 is also a media-
driven organization and has a long-standing history of creating its actions for the media (Doyle,
2003). To gain insights into the relationship of social networking platforms and environmental
movements, I examine the “Boycott Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign and the “Free the Arctic
30” campaign as two critical events in the “Save the Arctic” campaign which were mobilized on
Twitter. In particular, I provide insights into how Twitter was used by particularly interested and
engaged members of the public to respond to, generate and engage in the mobilization of the
“Boycott Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign and the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign. I use
this research is to gain a better understanding of how social media is used by social movement
Research Problem
My research answers the following question: What is the role of Twitter in social
movements mobilization in the “Save the Arctic” campaign? Specifically, I ask: What unique
qualities does social media, such as Twitter, bring to social movements? Does social media
present new opportunities for social movements to disseminate and circulate messages? Are
there limitations or concerns about the use of social networking platforms recognized by the
research?
1. Who played a role in mobilizing the “Save the Arctic” campaign on Twitter?
1
Readers who have interest in looking at Greenpeace’s media-oriented political strategy can consult: Doyle, A.
(2003). Arresting images: Crime and policing in front of the television camera. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press.
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2. What kind of discourses were used to mobilize around oil conflicts on Twitter during the “Save
the Arctic” campaign, and how did the Twitter content shape the campaign? In other words, I
examine how written and visual content was circulated by activists on Twitter in order to
“identify injustices, attribute blame, propose solutions, and motivate collective action”
3. How was Twitter used by activists to extend and promote campaign-related messages in the
This research project enriches the existing academic research in how social media is used
by social movements to address environmental issues. Specifically, the study provides insights
into how social media shifts protest culture, including what social media strategies activists use
to protest, and what new opportunities and limitations social media presents for social
movements.
The Arctic plays a significant role in influencing the world’s climate, ecosystems and
human activities (Wright, 2014). The Arctic also contains a number of animals, plants, and
human communities, including Inuit communities who have lived in the Arctic for thousands of
years (Wright, 2014). Ecological changes in the Arctic do not only threaten local nature and
human communities, but they also have global impacts on climate change, weather patterns, sea
levels, fisheries, shipping and tourism, and so on (Dodds, 2010; Cunsolo Willox, 2012; Wright,
2014).
In the recent decades, the melting ice in the Arctic has become a growing concern
because what occurs as Arctic and Antarctic ice melts shapes the broader climate of the Earth
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(Dodds, 2010; Wright, 2014). Polar ice in both the northern and southern hemispheres plays a
vital role in stabilizing Earth’s average temperature and maintaining a comfortable environment
to sustain life (Wright, 2014). The reduction of polar ice is accelerating global warming (Wright,
2014). The primary culprit of the melting of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets is increasing global
temperatures (Dodds, 2010; Wright, 2014). Rising global temperatures are caused by the release
of invisible greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and water vapour
(Wright, 2014). These gases are a major driver of global climate change (Dodds, 2010; Wright,
2014). The burning of fossil fuels (coals, oil, and natural gas) is a critical factor that results in the
increase of the concentration of these greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, as suggested by the
Climate change has not only caused many negative impacts on weather patterns, wildlife,
vegetation, water and food quality, and access and availability of land, but it has also brought
many risks to human health and well-being (Cunsolo Willox et al., 2012). Indigenous people,
frequently neglected in global discourses, have been experiencing these consequences (Cunsolo
Willox, 2012). This reality eventually results in alterations to their cultures, livelihoods, and
While oil production and consumption are a primary source of environmental pollution
and climate change (Sinclair, 2011), oil exploration has become one of the main constituents in
the economic structure of coastal regions, bringing economic benefits to many countries (Carter,
2007; Wright, 2014). The energy potential of the Arctic zone is sufficiently significant to be of
interest to the five Arctic coastal states (Canada, Denmark/Greenland, Norway, Russia and the
United States), Nationalized Oil Companies (NOC), such as ROSNEFT, and Independent Oil
Companies (IOC), such as Shell and BP (Dodds, 2010). For instance, Greenland authorities
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awarded 13 exploration licenses to oil and gas companies, including Shell, Nunaoil, Conoco
Phillips and Cairn Energy, and the government expected that there would be 20 wells drilled off
the coast over the next decade (Shadian, 2014). The great interest of these northern communities
and oil corporations in oil drilling comes from revenue streams and employment opportunities
that are created by oil and gas (Dodds, 2010). Due to approximately 20% of the world’s
remaining undiscovered oil and gas resources being located in the Arctic and the increased
accessibility of fossil fuel reserves caused by shrinking Arctic ice, government officials and oil
industries are exploring the opportunity to exploit oil and gas as well as other resources in the
destruction has been considered to be a threat to “soft power” security (Shadian, 2014). Soft
power relies on the capacity of preferences of others (Lovric, 2016). Unlike hard power, such as
military or economic forces, soft power is the ability of one country to attract other countries to
admire its values or expect to seek its level of prosperity (Lovric, 2016). In other words, a
country’s attitude to conservation has become an important factor that influences whether or not
the country can receive respect from others. In response to the climate change crisis,
makers and organizations from World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to European Union (EU) have
started demanding better Arctic governance to save the region from environmental devastation
(Shadian, 2014). The Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC), a transnational organization, was
founded to develop a comprehensive environmental policy for protecting the Arctic environment
(Shadian, 2014). ICC assembled international efforts by launching a petition in 2005 to combat
climate change and the violations of the Inuit’s human rights caused by global warming.
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As can be seen from this analysis, oil conflicts have become one of the main
environmental concerns in contemporary societies, and the Arctic has drawn particularly
development. The “Save the Arctic” campaign was organized to arouse people’s awareness of
severe environmental changes in the Arctic and to motivate people to protect the Arctic.
Thesis Outline
This thesis consists of five chapters. Following this first introductory chapter, in Chapter
Two, I provide a contextual overview of the history of digital activism, as well as literature that
directs the theoretical approach employed in this research. This chapter mainly focuses on ideas
related to the changing relationship between social movement organizations and networked
individuals in the social media age, the employment of framing theories in transnational activist
networks through social media technologies, and the shifting media landscape of the social
media era. This chapter provides the theoretical context for my study of the dynamics of social
media activism through the case of the “Save the Arctic” campaign.
problems. This chapter provides detailed information about my sampling strategies and the
qualitative textual analysis of the Twitter content relevant to the “Boycott Lego-Shell
Partnership” campaign and the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign as two critical events within the
examine both critical events from three dimensions: social actors, campaign targets, and the
social use of Twitter. In terms of social actors, I look at who played a role in mobilizing both
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campaigns and how social movement actors were intertwined with Twitter. Regarding campaign
targets, I examine those who were framed as the targets of claim-making and mobilization in
both campaigns on Twitter. Then, I use framing theories to examine how the targeted issues were
interpreted and mobilized on Twitter. Finally, I discuss the social use of Twitter. I analyze how
activists used the tactic of link sharing on Twitter to interact with other platforms in order to
In the final chapter, I synthesize the findings of the two critical events by teasing out their
similarities and differences. This chapter contributes insights into the role of social media in
mobilization around environmental issues by offering a critical discussion of the uses of Twitter
around the issue of Arctic oil drilling in the “Save the Arctic” campaign. I also outline the
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Chapter Two: Literature Review
In this chapter, I provide an overview of the literature that examines the way social media
changes the dynamics of social movements through the evolution of digital activism. I begin
with a section on the historical context explaining key events that happened in different stages of
digital activism. This helps explain how the Internet and social media technologies play a key
role in mobilizing contemporary social movements. Then, I discuss the contemporary media
movements, and how this media environment changes relationships between social movement
organizations and digitally networked individuals. Finally, I illustrate what strategies are
employed to shape social movements and to mobilize movement audiences and targets. I also
explore how effective the role of social media is in mobilizing social movements.
Since the early 21st century, social networking sites have greatly transformed traditional
social movements and become increasingly prominent within contemporary social movements.
Social movement actors traditionally mobilize social issues through mass media, such as print
and broadcast media, but they increasingly give more importance to new information and
communications technologies, such as social media platforms (Earl & Kimport, 2011).
Going beyond a one-way process of information sharing provided by mass media (e.g.
newspaper, radio, television), social media emphasizes a collaborative and participative two-way
dialogue between a variety of content creators and audiences (Stoddart & MacDonald, 2011).
The traditional ways of communication between mass media and the general public indicates the
relationship of mass media and the public is asymmetric because media audiences rarely have the
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opportunity to offer feedback to media producers (Lasswell, 1971; Stoddart & MacDonald, 2011;
Mattoni, 2012). It means mass media as information senders have more control over the
communication flow than media audiences as information receivers (Mattoni, 2012). However,
the contemporary communication flow is generated through the interaction of diverse individuals
(Mattoni, 2012). This communication mode based on the Internet and social media technologies
highlights a mutual communication that is accomplished between senders and receivers. In other
words, the general public potentially now have more influence over the communication flow
than before.
has a long history (Vatikiotis, 2016). In 1994, the Zapatista movement launched by Indigenous
people in Mexico against the Mexican government played a vital role in demanding an expansion
of Indigenous rights and recognition from the local government and the world (Godelmann,
2014). The Zapatista uprising in Mexico is widely recognized as the prototype of transnational
activism where internet technologies play an important role in diffusing the messages of
Indigenous people to global audiences (Schulz, 2014; Vatikiotis, 2016). In 1999, another
transnational protest, the Anti-WTO Demonstration, unfolded in Seattle. Protestors criticized the
WTO’s policies and transmitted the information to the world with the use of cell phones, irc-
chats, online forum and other Internet technologies (Karatzogianni, 2015). After the disastrous
terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001 and leading up to the
2003 invasion of Iraq, a series of anti-war activities against the Iraq war began to emerge across
the world. Internet technologies helped mobilize a coalition of ten million people to engage in
the peace movement and quickly form a globally connected movement against the war
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(Karatzogianni, 2015). E-mail lists, group text messages, chat rooms, the blogging and other
In the next few years, more protests were coordinated to fight for global justice and
democratic political systems (Karatzogianni, 2015; Vatikiotis, 2016). In 2004, the Ukrainian
Orange Revolution was launched by a large number of people to protest against fraud in the
presidential election with the employment of mobile phones and the Internet (Vatikiotis, 2016).
In 2008, a variety of protests against the financial crisis emerged in Iceland (Vatikiotis, 2016).
The Internet helped disseminate the information to the world and accelerate the mobilization of
global audiences in response to the Icelandic government performance (Vatikiotis, 2016). In the
meantime, Barack Obama recognized the value of social networking technologies and won the
US presidential election with the aid of social media activism (Karatzogianni, 2015). In 2011, the
Arab Spring uprisings spread out and the protestors used social media to stay networked and
organized (Castells, 2015; Vatikiotis, 2016). During the Arab Spring revolutions, Twitter played
a central role in disseminating the protesting information to individuals across Arabic regions
and unifying them to boycott the old authoritarian regimes and demand new democratic political
changes (Castells, 2015; Vatikiotis, 2016). At the same time, the outcry against social and
economic inequality was widely spread on Twitter and people in the U.S. launched Occupy Wall
Street movement in response to their outrage. The hashtag #occupywallstreet was then
distributed and circulated by the networked activists on the Internet. Twitter played an essential
(Castells, 2015). According to Karatzogianni (2015), other digital activism related to feminist,
LGBT and environmental movements also started coming to public attention after 2011.
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In the last decades, protest culture has shifted from traditional social movements that rely
benefit from participatory networks of individuals and the construction of collective identities
Repertoires of Communication
social networking platforms, has transformed the mainstream-dominant mass media system to a
multifaceted media environment for social movements (Mattoni, 2012). A variety of media
technologies are available for social movement actors to mobilize contemporary social
Before the Internet and social media technologies become prevalent, mainstream mass
media play a central role as gatekeeper between citizens and political actors in mobilizing around
social issues (Mattoni, 2012). For instance, Greenpeace always stresses the significance of media
coverage in its political strategy, and the group makes strategic use of mass media in movements
(Carroll & Ratner, 1999). Despite the commitment to drawing mass media attention to
mobilization, a few difficulties hinder activists to devise tactics that operate within the norms of
mass media ( Carroll & Ratner, 1999; Mattoni, 2012). First, the opinions of mainstream mass
media on social movements are usually negative (Mattoni, 2012). On one hand, mainstream mass
institutional political actors who can benefit from denying their association with contentious
issues mobilized by activists (Mattoni, 2012; Castells, 2015). For instance, mainstream media in
Italy has strong roots in literature and politics in which many journalists stress more on
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expressing their opinions than reporting facts (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). On the other hand, the
issues (Mattoni, 2012; Staggenborg & Ramos, 2016). In other words, the limited amount of time
or space in mainstream media outlets and the eager of journalists to attract audiences with big
stories cause a lack of real understanding of protest events and overshadow some aspects of
protests that activists consider to be much more important (Mattoni, 2012). As such, the
asymmetrical dependency (Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993; Carroll & Ratner, 1999). In other words,
social movements usually need media coverage for exposure more than mass media need to
cover movements for news reportage (Staggenborg & Ramos, 2016). The media lies at the center
of a mass communications network, and this brings media a wide range of options for news
reportage (Carroll & Ratner, 1999; Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993). However, social movements
had few communication channels but mass media for spreading their messages to audiences
before the prospering of social media (Carroll & Ratner, 1999; Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993). As
a result, proliferating social movement organizations and social issues were competing for
Despite the difficulties of gaining mass media attention for movements, activists continue
to consider mainstream media as important and seek media coverage (Corrigall‐Brown, 2016;
Staggenborg & Ramos, 2016). This is perhaps because media attention can help legitimize a
movement’s cause and enhance exposure for contentious issues of concern to the general public
(Stoddart & MacDonald, 2011; Seguin, 2016; Corrigall‐Brown, 2016; Staggenborg & Ramos,
2016). This helps activists reach a much larger and diverse audience, which is beyond movement
organizations’ own outreach ability, and also helps engage counter-movement actors and
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governments in public debate (Stoddart & MacDonald, 2011; Seguin, 2016; Corrigall‐Brown,
Due to the difficulties of drawing mass media attention to social movements, social
movement actors turn to social media and organizational websites to mobilize. Social media
challenges the dominant influence of mass media. Readers do not only receive mainstream media
messages, but they also have the access to other viewers’ comments as recommendations which
potentially enhance their support for mass media’s views or disqualify the persuasive effects of
mass media content (Neubaum & Krämer, 2017; Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955). In other words, the
Internet and social media offer audiences greater independence to process and evaluate the
Social networking sites and organizational websites offer potential for social movements
to speak directly to the general public across the globe (Donk, 2004; Earl & Kimport, 2011). The
Internet and social media provide individuals with communication power to become their own
publishers and broadcasters (Rainie & Wellman, 2012; Mattoni, 2012). Web 2.0 technologies
(i.e. unmediated interactive social media) empower individuals with autonomous capacity to
discourses and mobilize activities around social issues, which weakens the dominant influence of
mainstream mass media and promotes self-representations in social movements (Earl & Kimport,
2011; Uldam & Askani, 2013; Castells, 2015; Ceron & Memoli, 2016). On one hand, the Internet
and social media provide the general public with opportunities to frame their own demands
(Staggenborg & Ramos, 2016). For instance, activists initiated the Idle No More movement
through a Facebook thread and organized flash mobs by using Twitter handles in the movement
(Staggenborg & Ramos, 2016). In other words, social media offers tools for activists to present
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their own movement messages and promote individual engagement in mobilization. Also,
issues and offer more detailed discussion of their issues than mass media (Stoddart &
In addition, the Internet and social media offer individuals access to a greater variety of
information and more extended audiences with less cost in time and money (Earl & Kimport,
2011; Rainie & Wellman, 2012). On one hand, information now becomes extensively accessible
and abundant on social media and it is always within reach (Serres, 2014). The Internet and
social media technologies foster a continuous circulation of information updates within the
media network (Rodgers & Scobie, 2015). These technologies also help activists diffuse their
messages more quickly, which makes it more difficult for the government to block (Earl &
Kimport, 2011). In other words, activists can use social media to keep audiences constantly
informed of the progress of their mobilization and comments from audiences, which enables
activists to mobilize social movements more effectively. For example, electronic mail, mailing
lists, websites, electronic forums and other online applications provide powerful tools for
coordinating activities among geographically dispersed individuals (Donk, 2004). These tools
allow activists to access and participate in quick and easy online collective action with low risk
and low cost, such as signing online petitions and email campaigns, which can help social
movements recruit potential participants (Earl & Kimport, 2011). As such, the Internet and social
media enable people to afford to absorb the costs of participation, so that they are more likely to
On the other hand, the interactive Web 2.0 environment provides numerous opportunities
for individuals to explore and develop new relationships, even among the most remote strangers
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(Rainie &Wellman, 2012). The Internet and social media break the limitation of geographic
distance and link social movement actors to each other across great distances (Rodgers & Scobie,
2015). Social media allows individuals to maintain contacts with weaker ties, such as neighbours
and coworkers who are actually considered to be critical sources of information and support
(Rainie & Wellman, 2012). When information is broadcast outside of personal relationship
circuits, it can also draw public attention to salient social issues within their communities
(Rodgers & Scobie, 2015). In other words, social media enables interactive and self-configurable
communication among widely-dispersed individuals (Castells, 2015), and allows them to connect
and work together in a coordinated fashion (Browning, 2013). As a result, the Internet and social
media enable people to potentially function better in a complex environment (Earl & Kimport,
Despite the benefits of being cheap, accessible, interactive and delocalized, the Internet
and social media are more likely to reach like-minded audiences who already have sympathy
towards the conflict rather than the public who mainly receive messages about social movements
from mass media (Wilheim, 2000; Bennett & Iyengar, 2008; Corrigall‐Brown, 2016). Therefore,
the Internet and social media have the advantage of activating existing support, rather than
As discussed in this section, social movements operate within a more complex and
repertoire of communication is defined as the set of relational media practices which stress the
interaction of social movement actors and a series of communicative resources, such as media
technologies, media outlets and media professionals (Mattoni, 2013). For example, content
created by authors on websites, such as online news articles, and user-generated content, such as
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comments made by readers on news articles, are both being seen on social media platforms
(Walther & Jang, 2012; Neubaum & Krämer, 2017). The concept of repertoires of
communication implies that the use of social media has not replaced the use of mass media in
contemporary social movements. Instead, social media helps create a more complex and
multifaced media landscape for movements to navigate and make use of. In other words, a
convergence of mainstream media coverage and interactive communication has been widely
Unlike most traditional social movements, modern social movements, such as the Arab
Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements, do not “recognize any leadership and reject all
formal organizations”, and they also no longer need organizations to organize collective action
(Castells, 2015, p. 4; see also Earl & Schussman, 2003; Benkler, 2006; Shirky, 2008). The
“vertical authority” (Castells, 2015, p. 181). This is because that the Internet and social media
have greatly reduced the cost of creating, organizing and participating in protests, which breaks
the barriers to collective action and makes it possible for individuals to mobilize (Shirky, 2008;
Earl & Kimport, 2011). In other words, the mobilization and coordination of contemporary social
movements can rely on the capacity of a networked society facilitated by the Internet and social
media technologies (Castells, 2015). This digitally networked society witnesses a process in
which “the revolutionary change from small groups to broader personal networks has been
powerfully advanced by the widespread use of the Internet and mobile phones” (Rainie &
Wellman, 2012, p. 8). The new social networking system is called networked individualism in
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which “people function more as connected individuals and less as embedded group members”
(Rainie & Wellman, 2012, p. 12). Networked individuals are empowered by the Internet and
social media because these technologies allow them to access and collect a variety of
information, explore and build new connections with individuals who share common interest or
face similar experiences, assess different advice and options in the decision-making process, and
voice their own opinions (Rainie & Wellman, 2012). In other words, social media usage is
considered to be able to decentralize the leadership of social movement organizations and endow
individuals with more autonomy and equality to mobilize social movements (Castells, 2015).
Social media has spurred a demand for new forms of participatory planning and self-organizing
governments (Cho, Martens, Kim, & Rodrigue, 2011; Greenberg, Knight, & Westersund, 2011;
Wear, 2014). This activity is defined by researchers as “astroturfing” in which third parties
disguise their involvement as spontaneous and natural grassroots to either support or disagree
with certain beliefs or perspectives in order to manipulate political discourses and deceive
audiences (Cho et al., 2011; Greenberg et al., 2011; Wear, 2014). Cho et al. (2011) noted an
example of astroturfing activities in their research that an alleged large-scale campaign creating
and funding “think tanks” to disseminate false information about global warming and climate
change science was actually sponsored by ExxonMobile Corporation. Not only governments and
corporations but also social movement organizations increasingly use public relation tactics and
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grassroots organizations, especially in the age of the Internet and social media (Wear, 2014). The
use of a wide range of software makes it possible for a few people to produce the illusion of a
large number of people participating in digital activism (Wear, 2014). The emergence of
astroturfing activities has definitely challenged the idea of spontaneous and self-managed
mobilization and urged social movement researchers to rethink who are the leaderless coalitions
Contemporary social movements lay stress on the power of network individualism, but
absolute autonomy and leaderless participation do not seem realistic (Gramsci, Hoare & Smith,
1971). In fact, so-called spontaneous and leaderless social movements are highly organized
communication technologies, and this is developing types of “soft, indirect, and invisible or
‘choreographic’ forms of leadership” (Gerbaudo, 2012, p. 163). The leaders or organizers in the
movement are essentially those participants who devote lots of effort to the movement
(Gerbaudo, 2012). Gerbaudo (2012) suggested that social actors should not neglect “inequalities
and asymmetries” embedded in mobilization where “there are people who lead and people who
Despite claims about leaderless social movements, many researchers still argue that
social movement organizations remain important to social movements (Gerhards & Rucht 1992;
Earl & Kimport, 2011; Mercea, 2012). Social movements can succeed and endure partly because
they encompass various organizational structures and capacity for devising strategies and tactics
(Staggenborg & Ramos, 2016). For example, more centralized and formalized organizations
commonly use institutionalized tactics, such as legislative lobbying, while decentralized and
informal structures tend to conduct direct action (Gerlach & Hine, 1970; Freeman, 1975;
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Staggenborg & Ramos, 2016). Social movement organizations do not only encourage audiences
to take action by providing them with incentives, such as offering free rewards in exchange of a
donation, but also play a critical role in creating favourable opportunities in which individuals
can collectively protest and participate in decision-making processes (Klandermans, 2004; Earl
& Kimport, 2011; Staggenborg & Ramos, 2016). Especially in terms of high-risk action, social
movement organizations can bring a degree of commitment and trust to movement participants
agencies in a movement (Snow & Benford, 1988; Holzer, 2010; Earl & Kimport, 2011). In other
words, social movement organizations can transform individual decisions into public statements,
which allows personal choices to influence and alter the behaviour of governments and
Social movement organizations can work to mobilize and activate each other (Earl &
Kimport, 2011), and this process is also known as the process of mesomobilization (Morris,
1984; Gerhards & Rucht 1992). Social media does not change the nature of how people decide to
participate in social movements (Horton, 2004; Bennett, 2003a, 2003b, 2004a, 2004b). Rather,
social media helps activists become more informed and connected while promoting the
engagement of protest actors in the movements (Horton, 2004; Bennett, 2003a, 2003b, 2004a,
2004b). In other words, social media can help social movement organizations work better and
achieve further goals in mobilization (Earl & Kimport, 2011). Social media enables social
movement organizations to connect with each other more easily, and these umbrella
organizations help scope and plan the enlargement of their protests through their connections
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The use of social media to mobilize may give the impression that social movement
organizations are no longer needed. However, this is not the case. Social movement
organizations are irreplaceable because they play an important role in mobilizing social
movements (Earl & Kimport, 2011; Castells, 2015; Staggenborg & Ramos, 2016). Networked
individuals and social movement organizations are not mutually exclusive in mobilization.
Instead, they are interconnected and can accomplish a better result as a whole in social
movements.
The way social movement actors frame issues in public discourses plays a central role in
mobilizing social movements. Framing strategies do not only have an impact on the amount of
exposure social movement issues are able to receive from mainstream mass media, but also
events for an audience through the control of agenda and vocabulary” (Rohlinger, 2002, p. 480;
see also Goffman, 1974; Benford & Snow, 2000). When conducting this process, organizers
simplify and condense aspects of life space in ways that can inspire and legitimate action of
social movement organizations in order to perform interpretation of what is at issue (Snow &
Benford, 1988; Benford & Snow, 2000; Rohlinger, 2002). In other words, by communicating
action-oriented beliefs and meanings that guide action, frames are used “to mobilize potential
adherents and constituents, to garner bystander support, and to demobilize antagnists” (Snow &
Benford, 1988, p. 198; see also Benford & Snow, 2000). Movement organizers make use of
frames in the movement to present audiences with core issues, pressure relevant parties to take
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responsibility for problems, suggest possible solutions for problems, and motivate individuals to
organizations need to frame issues based on “frame alignment”, which is the connection between
the ways individuals and social movement organizations interpret things (Snow, Rochford,
Worden, & Benford, 1986). Snow and his colleagues (1986) suggested four types of frame
alignment: frame bridging, frame amplification, frame extension, and frame transformation.
They believed any of these processes is significant to the mobilization of social issues, and these
four processes help achieve movement goals by interacting with each other.
Frame bridging is the process that is employed by social movement organizations to align
with individuals who share the same grievances and beliefs about certain issues but have a
deficiency of organized strategies to pursue their goals (Snow et al., 1986). In order to effectuate
networks, traditional technologies, such as the mass media, the telephone and the mail, and
frame that bears on a particular issue, problem, or sets of events” (Snow et al., 1986, p. 469).
This process is designed for organizations to promote values or beliefs that may not be salient or
evident to potential adherents or to change indifferent and uncertain attitudes towards an issue
(Snow et al., 1986). Frame amplification includes two varieties: value amplification and belief
amplification (Snow et al., 1986). Values refer to the goals that social movements consider to be
worthy of promotion and protection (Snow et al., 1986). One example of value amplification is
embodied in the peace movement. In this movement, basic values such as justice, perseverance
21
and the sanctity of human life were frequently focused, while idealized values of the movement
was associated with equality and liberty (Snow et al., 1986). In order to amplify these values,
activists firmly stated their democratic rights to participate in the debate about the nuclear arms
race, national security, and foreign policy (Snow et al., 1986). In terms of beliefs, they can be
understood as ideas that support or hinder action that movements mobilize to pursue desired
values (Snow et al., 1986). In order to accomplish movement goals, it is important to elevate and
reinvigorate discourses on beliefs about how severe an issue or grievance is, the focus of a
conflict, stereotypic beliefs about antagonists, beliefs about the efficacy of collective action, and
beliefs about the necessity of taking action on the issue (Snow et al., 1986). One example of the
amplification and transformation of stereotypic beliefs about antagonists can be found in the
movement in which activists opposed the relocation plan of the Salvation Army shelter for
homeless people (Snow et al., 1986). Activists transformed a stereotypically positive impression
of the Salvation Army to a negative impression by amplifying and underlining the historical
association of transients with the Salvation Army, thereby presenting them as a threat to
neighborhoods. In terms of promoting beliefs about the efficacy of collective action, movement
leaders in the peace movement frequently used the successes and achievement of past
movements to encourage audiences to become optimistic about the outcome of the action (Snow
et al., 1986).
Frame extension is the process in which social movement organizations extend existing
interpretive frames for the purpose of encompassing interests or views that may not be embedded
in extant social movement actors and enabling these values or beliefs to resonate with a broader
public (Snow et al., 1986). By doing so, movement leaders attempt to enlarge the movement’s
adherent base and attract potential supporters to mobilize (Snow et al., 1986). For instance,
22
movement leaders in the peace movement used rock-and-roll and punk bands in order to include
interests that were not apparently related to the movement and to attract uninterested individuals
movement organizations may not relate to – or may even violate – the public’s interests or
rituals. In this case, a transformation of frames is required. New values need to be exploited and
(Smith, 1990; Holzer, 2010). By offering a framework that explains to consumers what public
consequences are likely incurred by their individual consumption behaviors, activists can
persuade consumers to change their shopping decision as a method to express their concern
about social and environmental problems, which exerts moral pressure on corporations to alter
their behaviour as their responsibility for nature and people (Holzer, 2010).
In social movement studies, framing theory has been employed to focus on the analysis
of text instead of images, and visual analysis has been mostly neglected by social science
researchers (Daphi, Lê, & Ullrich, 2013). However, visual analysis provides social
movement researchers and readers with insights into “framing processes and the dynamic of
political diffusion inside and outside movements and in increasingly globalized yet
culturally diverse societies” (Doerr, Mattoni, & Teune, 2013, p. xxii). Visual analysis also
helps researchers understand how images offer social movement actors symbolic resources
to evoke audiences’ resonance with the related movement discourses (Doerr et al., 2013).
23
Images are considered to be influential tools of mobilization, and occasionally, the
power of images in subverting the sovereign control in a country and transforming political
practices plays a key role in mobilizing protests (Doerr et al., 2013). Images are the
products generated by the way protest actors perceive the issues mobilized in social
movements, and these images will further influence how audiences understands the
movements. Images also allow social movements to gain more visibility in the public. On
one hand, the employment of a variety of images draws attention from a broader public
today than in the past. On the other hand, offline activities mobilized by protestors are being
seen more and more by audiences with the aid of social media today than in the past (Doerr
et al., 2013). Online platforms, such as YouTube, offer activists relatively effortless ways to
document protests and diffuse protest information through images, and therefore play an
Other than diffusing movement information, images, as well as texts, also have the
capacity of recruiting potential adherents through mobilizing the individual’s emotion with
moral leverage. The concept of morality, known as “moral shocks”, tends to occur when “an
event or situation raises such a sense of outrage in people that they become inclined towards
political action” (Jasper & Poulsen, 1995, P. 498). The transformation of emotion to action
is the process in which a social movement bursts (Castells, 2015). In order to accomplish this
transition, individuals need to overcome their anxiety and concern for protest action by
expressing anger and outrage (Castells, 2015). As a result, this process will bring
individuals hope to pursue their goals in mobilization (Castells, 2015). In other words,
invoking protest actors’ outrage is critical to motivate social movements. As such, injustice
24
frames are employed by social movement organizations interpreting “what is happening”
when “an authority system is violating the shared moral principles of the participants” in
order to mobilize the outrage of social movement actors (Gamson, Fireman, & Rytina, 1982,
p. 123).
to recruit concerned people to social movements (Jasper & Poulsen, 1995; Olesen, 2013).
Images are able to act as “a public utterance” that arouses cultural and emotional resonance
with audiences when they are associated with sets of meanings in the real world (Olesen,
2013, p. 8). Moral shocks are commonly employed by social movement actors to resonate
Neville, 2011). For instance, Greenpeace frequently uses emotional language and images in
campaigns in order to convince people that some practices and choices are morally and
1998; Holzer, 2010; Staggenborg & Ramos, 2016). In order to bring local or domestic issues to
international attention, transnational advocacy networks employ the boomerang effect strategy to
shape issues in transnational activism. “The boomerang effect” is used by transnational advocacy
networks to help “amplify local demands by resituating them in different arenas with more
potential allies” (Keck & Sikkink, 1998, p. 144). This “boomerang pattern of influence
characteristic of transnational networks may occur” when communication channels between the
nation and its domestic citizens are blocked or disrupted by the country’s sovereign power (Keck
& Sikkink, 1998, p. 12). Activists in local movements in the Global South originally used this
25
strategy to attract the resources and political power from the Global North in order to exert
international pressure on their domestic governments in the Global South (Keck & Sikkink,
1998; Stoddart, Smith & Tindall, 2016). By doing do, transnational activists hoped to bring
changes to local issues, mostly in less developed countries (Holzer, 2010). However, Stoddart
and his colleagues argued that the boomerang effect no longer fits this model (Stoddart et al.,
2016). The boomerang effect is now also used by social movements in the Global North to single
out and pressure governments in the Global North (Stoddart et al., 2016). This new mode was
international arenas to generate pressure on the Canadian government for its poor performance
seek out the opportunity to cooperate with celebrities. Due to the limited access to resources and
the cost of advertising, social movement organizations tend to turn to “free media” as the
solution to their situation (Mccarthy & Zald, 1977). On one hand, celebrities are able to draw
media attention to environmental causes and reach out to a broader audience with their symbolic
authority as spokespeople (Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993; Meyer & Gamson, 1995; Brockington,
2009; Ellcessor, 2018). As such, celebrities can help mobilize environmental movements by
lending their fame to conservation objectives (Brockington, 2008). This encourages social
movement organizations to create their opportunities with celebrities in order to ask them to
advertise for movements (Rohlinger, 2002). However, how celebrities say about movements is a
more important factor that affects social movement organizations to decide who are liable to
cooperate with (Brockington, 2009). There are a few factors that can explain the prevalent
tendency of celebrity activism: the mobilization of the United Nations, the promotion of Non-
26
governmental organizations, the freedom given to celebrities to manage their own activities, and
global issues keeping celebrities popular (Brockington, 2008; Tsaliki, Frangonikolopoulos, &
Huliaras, 2011). Celebrities play an effective role in enhancing the public’s interests in global
issues and can solicit a good amount of support from audiences (Tsaliki, Frangonikolopoulos, &
Huliaras, 2011). On the other hand, some celebrities rely on their attitude or stance towards
environmental issues to build their prestige (Brockington, 2008). In digital activism, celebrities’
social media accounts are seen as influential hubs communicating information and values to
audiences (Ellcessor, 2018). However, celebrities are also confronted with challenges from social
media platforms in online activism because these platforms can easily expose their personalities
and make it possible for audiences to directly contact them (Ellcessor, 2012). Therefore, how
celebrities decide to get involved in social movements on social media is directly related to
Earl and Kimport (2011) categorized the web-related activism in the modern society into
three different types based on their levels of leveraging of the affordances of the Internet: e-
movements, e-mobilization and e-tactics. E-movements are movements that “emerge and thrive
online” and entirely unfold online (Earl & Kimport, 2011, p. 233). E-mobilizations are defined as
the activism in which activists employ online tools to organize offline protest action (Earl &
Kimport, 2011). E-tactics consist of a variety of protest action with different degrees of offline
and online components where at least part of activists’ participation occurs online, such as online
petitions, boycotts, and letter-writing campaigns (Earl & Kimport, 2011). As such, online
activism does not only rely on the Internet and social media, but it is also intertwined with offline
27
activities. It is the combination of offline and online collective action that successfully creates
Castells (2015) argued that it is necessary for social movements to exploit a public space
which is “not limited to the Internet but makes itself visible in the places of social life” (p. 10).
Offline occupied spaces create a community of togetherness that helps activists overcome fear
individuals “defy the bureaucratic norms of the use of space” and “trespass the boundaries set up
by the dominant elites” (Castells, 2015, p. 10). Occupying offline spaces symbolizes “the power
of invading sites of state power or financial institutions” in order to demand the rights of citizens
that have been taken away by the political institutions (Castells, 2015, p. 10). In addition, offline
activities can be crucial because they assist activists in the circulation and canvassing of
campaign messages to isolated places that are beyond the reach of digital technologies (Castells,
2015). Moreover, offline action helps social movements become successful because they can
create visceral connections (Davis, 2011). Offline activists can meet in real groups and share
their thoughts and ideas freely, which allows their passion to spread like a virus (Davis, 2011).
(Schumann & Klein, 2015). Online action may “foster subsequent—possibly more involving—
and action-oriented emotions” (Schumann & Klein, 2015, p. 310). In other words, individuals
can develop confidence in their abilities of mobilizing when participating in collective action,
which results in a growing sense of engagement and willingness to participate in future action
(Drury & Reicher, 2005; Drury, Cocking, Beale, Hanson, & Rapley, 2005). In addition, the
Internet and social media can be used as an instrument to increase transparency and
28
accountability in social movements (della Porta, 2013). For example, Distaso and Bortree (2012)
argued that social media is considered to be a platform for open dialogues with publics that
facilitate interaction and raise unexpected topics that help strengthen the relationship between
organizations and audiences. Some scholars also illustrated the potential of the Internet for
building trust and constructing collective identities online, which can be turned into mobilization
and participation offline (Nip, 2004; Hara, 2008; Wojcieszak, 2009). Furthermore, social
networks on the Internet provide activists with opportunities to communicate and amplify their
offline experience, and to create autonomous spaces to debate and plan out their offline protest
Both digital social networks and offline support communities are tools for self-reflection
and a statement of people’s power (Castells, 2015). “The internet and wireless communication
networks” and “the space of places of the occupied sites and of symbolic buildings targeted by
protest action” constitute “the space of autonomy” which lies at the center of social movements
(Castells, 2015, p. 250). Activists create this public space of autonomy to escape the authority of
the state and mobilize contentious issues through self-management and solidarity, and this novel
use of public space can attract mainstream mass media to report on issues and protest action
(Castells, 2015).
However, the mobilizing potential of the Internet and social media has also been called
into question. Previous research showed that quick and easy online collective action, such as
“liking” Facebook pages or signing online petitions, may foreclose meaningful engagement
(Kristofferson, White, & Peloza, 2014). Because movement participants possibly feel that their
online action already produce a positive influence on audiences, they are less willing to engage
in further offline action for the same cause (Kristofferson et al., 2014). In addition, low-cost and
29
low-risk digital practices, known as clicktivism or slacktivism, are also considered to be in
danger of being too fast, too thin and too many (Bromberg, 2013; Lim, 2013; Schumann &
Klein, 2015). While many clicks may be witnessed online, they are just “little sticks”, which
means that “there are very few causes that make for widespread activism in the vast online social
media environment” (Lim, 2013, p. 653-654). In other words, individuals who simply engage in
On the other hand, the proliferation of social media amplifies the challenges of
surveillance and containment (Uldam, 2016). Social media provides governments and
corporations with new possibilities to monitor social movements and censor dissent as a potential
risk that menaces national security under control of governments or reputations of corporations
(Bennett, 2003; Costanza-Chock, 2004; Curran, Fenton, & Freedman, 2012; Uldam, 2016). In
order to accomplish law enforcement or other political purposes, governments supervise and
acquire personal data through cooperating with private internet service providers and social
media providers (DeNardis, 2014). In terms of corporations, they employ big data collected from
social media to identify issues and events that can potentially harm their reputations, which helps
corporations regain control of exposing their own activities (Andrejevic, 2014; Uldam, 2016).
Corporations, such as Shell, often choose not to respond to critiques in order to potentially avoid
getting into more trouble (Uldam, 2016). In addition, the strategy of silencing critics, such as
taking down campaign websites in the name of maintaining brand reputation, is also adopted by
corporations (Uldam, 2016). The surveillance and control of disagreement from governments
and corporations largely hinders the potential of social media to mobilize counter-hegemonic
discourses, which causes “unequal power relations that privilege government and corporate
30
Conclusion
communication and on/off-line action, described important qualities of social media that are
changing ways activists participate in social movements. Specifically, the literature on social
movements and digital media examined how the proliferation of social media transforms the
This helps shape my research problem of who played a role as social movement actors to
produce and respond to issues in the “Save the Arctic” campaign. In addition, the literature on
framing theories and the concept of repertoires of communication helps guide my examination of
media content in order to explore what protest messages were disseminated and how these
messages were communicated to audiences through the use of social media in the movement.
The framing analysis of my data provides insights into how protest strategies, such as the use of
the boomerang effect and the tactics of on/off-line action, were shifting through social media
activism in the movement. Moreover, previous literature helps me contribute insights into how
different forms of communication were used to disseminate protest messages in the movement,
especially the use of visual communication as part of social movement framing in digital forms
of mobilization. Finally, previous literature helps me explain how social media intertwined with
31
Chapter Three: Research Methods
In this chapter, I provide an overview of the research methods for my study of how social
actors mobilized the “Save the Arctic” campaign with the aid of social networking sites. I discuss
qualitative web-based textual analysis as the approach that guided me to collect, generate and
analyze my data. Specifically, I describe my sampling strategy, and explain why I chose Twitter
as the platform for data collection and how I selected two critical events happening during the
“Save the Arctic” campaign as prototypes to illustrate the way this environmental movement was
organized and unfolded. I interpret Twitter content by using NVIVO to categorize the data into a
variety of themes and to conduct matrices to explore the interconnections among themes.
Research Design
In order to examine how social media is employed by social movement actors to mobilize
environmental movements, I conducted a qualitative case study by looking at how the “Save the
Arctic” campaign was mobilized on Twitter. I chose to look at two critical events: the event of
boycotting the Lego-Shell partnership and the event of “Free the Arctic 30”. These two critical
events were selected because they received a large amount of response from social movement
actors and involved a variety of movement tactics that are worth looking at. Some scholars
argued that a case study is considered to be insufficient for perceiving social life as a whole
(Hamel, Dufour & Fortin, 1993). This is because the scope of the study is only relevant to one
case, and one case only provides readers with limited perception of social issues (Hamel et al.,
1993). However, the case study is also considered to be an “in-depth investigation” because it
employs different methods to collect a variety of information and make observations based on a
great number of empirical materials. In addition, the scope of the case study includes “a review
32
of problems and considerations previously discussed regarding the representativeness of cases
investigated” (Hamel et al., 1993, p. 35). Moreover, the case study is considered to be a crucial
element in the process of expanding and generalizing theories (Hamel et al., 1993). Through
conducting studies of a series of selected cases, researchers are able to generate and optimize a
general explanation based on a set of results and apply it to enrich some theories (Hamel et al.,
1993).
Due to the limitations of time and resources, I was not able to explore every moment of
the “Save the Arctic” campaign. Therefore, I decided to use a purposive sampling strategy to
select textual data for my research. A purposive sampling strategy is commonly used when
researchers intend to gain in-depth insights into “a specific setting or phenomenon” (Sharp et al.,
2012, p. 38). Because of my research goals, using this method can guide me to find the best cases
My findings produced with the aid of the case study method and purposive sampling
method may not be all applicable to explaining other environmental movements (Hamel et al.,
1993; Sharp et al., 2012). However, they can raise questions, contribute new perspectives on
social movement theories, and create an opening for other researchers to continue further
research in other social issues including environmental issues mobilized in the social media age.
method of textual analysis to collect and analyze discourses related to Arctic oil drilling. I first
employed a qualitative method of textual analysis to collect data from Twitter. Then, I organized
my data by designing a coding scheme and coding the data into different themes in NVIVO.
When I analyzed the data, I used NVIVO matrix queries to examine the in-depth meaning of
each theme, and the correlation between different themes and emerging themes.
33
Data Collection Strategy
the “Save the Arctic” campaign including written text and visual materials generated by social
movement actors through keyword and hashtag searching. The content from Twitter can be
analyzed to provide readers with insights into how individuals and social groups used social
media in response to Arctic oil conflict, and how social media discourses and strategies in the
According to Fairclogh (2003), discourses consist of words and images through which
people represent aspects of the processes, relations and structures of the material world, the
mental world of thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and the social world. Since particular aspects of the
world may be represented differently, it is necessary for us to consider the relationship between
different discourses. Social media provides important platforms for people to spread their
messages and communicate their thoughts. Texts and images on social media are different forms
of discourses that people frequently use to present the world. Discourses can also be used for
individuals and organizations to relate and interact with each other. Therefore, I examine not
only different forms of discourses individually, but also their interaction and relationship.
Fairclogh (2003) also argued that discourses do not only represent the world as it is, but it is also
projective. This means that they are imagery, representing possible worlds which are different
from the actual world, and are tied in to projects to change the world in particular directions
(Fairclogh, 2003). Therefore, the role of social media in mobilizing the discussion on Arctic oil
34
Sampling Discourse
Among all the social media platforms, I decided to choose Twitter as the main source of
my data collection. Twitter is one of the most popular social media technologies in the world
(Marwick, 2013). As of the second quarter of 2018, monthly active users on Twitter averaged at
335 million people (Number of monthly active Twitter users worldwide, n.d.). Twitter empowers
social media users to disseminate their own messages and also to respond to the information
shared by other audiences to an extensive degree (Tupper, 2014). Twitter allows for “instant
postings of photos, on-the-ground reports, and quick replies to other users” due to the easy
access of tweet information (Marwick, 2013, p. 94). The constraint of 140-character tweets
requires users to create concise messages concisely and proficiently in order to adapt their
language use to the microblogging service (Coesemans & De Cock, 2017). In other words,
audiences need to make strategic use of Twitter in order to reach their targets effectively in a
concise and quick manner. As such, examining Twitter content permits me to identify the online
strategies that social movement actors used to mobilize Arctic oil conflict.
Also, Twitter hashtags can help users track trending events which shows the main interest
of the public or the issues which have been popularly discussed (Tupper, 2014). News agencies,
politicians, activists and celebrities are the groups who employ Twitter more frequently in order
to raise awareness of local and global issues, ideas and noteworthy news stories (Marwick, 2013;
Tupper, 2014). In this case, Twitter is a useful source to explore and find the critical and popular
events that receive response from a variety of sources in the “Save the Arctic” campaign.
Moreover, Twitter has two main features: retweet and @reply. Retweeting can be
The limit of characters for tweets was expanded on Nov. 7, 2017, but the data collection for my research had been
completed before then.
35
(Boyd, Golder & Lotan, 2010). Users who spread tweets do not only intend to get messages out
to new audiences, but also to validate and engage with others (Boyd et al., 2010). This implies
that Twitter users will not find it worthwhile to share the content unless the original message is
funny, clever and useful (Marwick, 2013). Coesemans and De Cock (2017) believed that the
more a tweet post is retweeted by Twitter users, the more this post will be exposed in the public.
This means these posts are more likely to be noticed and followed on Twitter (Coesemans & De
Cock, 2017). In terms of @reply, it is a feature designed for Twitter users to draw attention to
their messages from other users, such as people with plenty of followers. In the meantime, they
also expect people who are tagged in their Twitter posts will respond to their messages
(Marwick, 2013). By looking at these features of Twitter, I am able to exploit how social
networking technologies transform the traditional mobilization of social issues by promoting the
The “Save the Arctic” campaign rose in 2012 and the movement lasted for almost three
years. Although the movement has subsided, there are still feelings of resentment in the
community, and people are still expressing their concerns for the Arctic. There is a large amount
of data about the theme of “Save the Arctic” since the campaign started. Given limited time and
resources, however, the most feasible way to gather data for my study was to collect information
about critical periods of mobilization by protest actors, which can help us understand the overall
dynamics of the whole campaign. Thus, I decided to use a purposive sampling strategy to
other scholars’ previous research, and it also allows me to adjust or change my samples at any
time while I proceed with my research (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Suen, Huang & Lee, 2014).
36
Therefore, I first broadened the scope of potentially meaningful data by searching for various
keywords or hashtags. These keywords or hashtags are “#savethearctic”, “Arctic Shell oil”,
“Arctic oil drilling Greenpeace”, “#ShellNo”, “Arctic oilrigs”, “Arctic climate change”, “Arctic
fossil fuels”, “offshore oil Shell”, and “Greenpeace Statoil”. Also, the feature of “Twitter
Advanced Search” was used to limit the sampling frame. This was achieved by limiting the
search results to English content only and created in the period of 2012 to 2015.
Based on the search results, I then decided to specifically analyze two influential events
to which campaigners responded very actively: the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership”
campaign and the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign. Critical events are what social movement
actors frequently use to construct campaigns in order to draw public attention to targeted issues
(Ramos, 2008). These two events are representative of the whole “Save the Arctic” campaign
and worth being compared for several reasons. Both events unfolded internationally and received
a large amount of response from international audiences. They involved a variety of protest
tactics employed by social movement organizations and networked individuals. They shared
similarities in the ideology of environmental movements led by Greenpeace, but also had
difference showing how different strategies were highlighted under different circumstances. In
terms of the differences between the two events, they had different targets against which they
protested. The main targets of the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign were the Lego
and Shell corporations, but the main target of the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign was the Russian
government. Also, the “Boycott the Lego-Shell partnership” campaign involved the interests of a
broader public while the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign primarily targeted the political sphere of
a few countries.
37
In order to fully examine these two campaigns, I pursued more information about the
“Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign by using the keywords and hashtag “Lego
#savethearctic” to search for relevant tweets created from July 2014 to October 2014, and
obtained more information about the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign by using the hashtag
“#freethearctic30” to collect relevant data produced from September 2013 to November 2013.
The periods of time which I gathered data from are also the time when the events mainly
occurred. The corresponding Twitter content was captured and archived from Twitter in PDF
format, and all the PDF documents were downloaded and imported into NVIVO qualitative data
Due to the large amount of content on the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign on Twitter, I
decided to examine this event by sampling 10% of the total data that I collected. Specifically, I
sampled this event by looking at every tenth tweets on the PDF documents. As a result, I
analyzed 834 tweets for the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign and 3,241 tweets for
the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign. This sample was sufficient to reach data saturation. Data
saturation occurs when “no new data or relevant information emerges with respect to newly
constructed theory” (Saumure & Given, 2008, p. 196). By the end of coding this sample, the
addition of new data and coding did not substantially change my coding categories (Tracy,
2012).
In addition to looking at the texts and visual content on Twitter, I also examined the links
to mass media and social movement organization websites that were shared on Twitter. This
helped in exploring how mass media and social movement organization websites were
incorporated into social media platforms to help mobilize the campaign. The “Save the Arctic”
campaign gained lots of attention and coverage from mass media, such as newspapers and
38
radio/TV stations, and Arctic oil drilling conflict was also discussed on organizational websites,
In order to provide critical insights into the “Save the Arctic” campaign, Critical
Discourse Analysis (CDA) was used to explore the texts produced and posted on this topic. The
analysis method employs Fairclough’s three-dimensional model which involves analysis of the
text, discursive practice and socio-cultural practice (Fairclough, 1993). Janks (1997, p. 329)
provided more detailed explanation for these three dimensions. They include:
1. the object of analysis (including verbal, visual or verbal and visual texts);
to identify the themes in online discussion (Small & Harris, 2014). Ryan and Bernard (2003, p.
(1) discovering themes and subthemes, (2) winnowing themes to a manageable few (i.e.,
deciding which themes are important in any project), (3) building hierarchies of themes or code
Ryan and Bernard (2003) explained that themes do not come only from the data but also
from the investigator’s prior theoretical understanding of the phenomenon being studied.
Referring to the relevant research can provide readers with a clear understanding of the dynamic
of environmental movements, and it also offers me an opportunity to tell readers what I can
39
contribute to the existing research. By following Ryan and Bernard’s process for content
analysis, I first defined a preliminary coding scheme inspired by the literature review in order to
outline and direct my coding structure. For example, I created nodes of “content producers (i.e.
social movement organizations)” and “content targets” based on social movement theories. I
created nodes of “text content themes” and “visual communication” respectively by referring to
the research in visual analysis of social movements. I created nodes of “link sharing (of mass
media and organizational websites)” because of the discussion in social movements literature
about the relationship of mass media, organizational websites and social media. Then, I adopted
to vary my coding scheme with emerging themes from my observation of the data. In order to
best examine my research problems, I compared the coding themes with my research problems,
selected or consolidated the most important and valuable codes, and eliminated those which are
tangential to my research problems until no new significant themes emerged (Silverman &
Marvasti, 2008). My final coding scheme (see Appendix One) has six leading nodes, and they
encompass topics on content producers, movement targets, the themes of written and visual
In terms of data analysis, I used NVIVO software to conduct qualitative textual analysis.
An advantage of using the NVIVO program is this software enables the data to become more
dynamic. This means that NVIVO makes relationships between categories more visible by using
text formatting and hyperlinks to other documents and categories (Weaver & Atkinson, 1994). I
did manual coding for my data because this offered me the opportunity to interpret the data and
make the decision on what to code. With the assistance of NVIVO, I did not only conduct an in-
depth analysis of every single node under each category to examine how discourses were
40
articulated in each campaign, but also used discourse network analysis to examine ties that
connected the same node from one category to different nodes from other categories. A discourse
network generates coding matrices in NVIVO that quantify thematic coding and provides the
frequency of themes co-occurring in Web 2.0 content (Stoddart & Nezhadhossein, 2016). This
approach highlights the role of network analysis as a significant supplement for a qualitative
research design (Hesse-Biber, 2010). When I was conducting the visual discourse analysis 2 of
the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign and “Free the Arctic 30” campaign, I
particularly explored how diverse visual materials intertwine with “the mobilization, framing,
diffusion, and resonance” of the campaigns (Doerr, Mattoni, & Teune, 2013, p. xii).
Specifically, I addressed two aspects of research in the visual analysis of social movements: the
visual expressions of social movements, such as visual symbols and activists’ visual
appearances, and the visibility for social movements, such as the online diffusion of offline
Methodological Reflexivity
The qualitative textual analysis method is an unobtrusive method of observation for web
content. The pragmatic benefit of this method is that Internet-based data collection is cost-free.
Since Twitter content was available to the public and easy to access, I was able to acquire the
relevant research information without spending time and money in traveling and did not feel
research (Macnamara, 2005). Another benefit of textual analysis was that it allowed me to work
2
Reader who have interest in looking at the visual culture of social movements can consult: Mirzoeff, N.
(1998). The visual culture reader. London; New York: Routledge.
41
with data from a more extensive period than interactive-oriented methods. Hine (2005) argued
that Internet research has connotations of topicality. In other words, discourses on the Internet
provided me with updated information and kept me aware of the mobility of information. Thus, I
was able to see the evolution of discourses through time and to identify popular discourses,
which allowed me to gain a good understanding of a full-scale development of the “Save the
Arctic” campaign.
Textual data has the benefit of not being influenced by research context because it is not
(Cottle, 2003). This problem describes when analysts do not have data from either content
producers or audience members who could shed more insights into the social dynamics of
content production and reception, they have to make inferences about the intended meaning or
audience reception of textual content simply based on the text itself. In other words, my
interpretations of the data were considered in the analysis process. According to McKee (2003),
the ways in which members of different cultures make sense of a text may vary based on the way
in which they understand the world around them. This means that different people interpret texts
from different angles. Therefore, I might not have an accurate grasp of all the information
analysis techniques. However, I was well aware of the issue which might appear in the process of
interpretation, so I ensured caution in making assertions about the information related to the
“Save the Arctic” campaign. I also provided a context for the Twitter data I collected in order to
improve the validity of my interpretations, which was necessary and significant (McKee, 2003).
In terms of my case study of the “Save the Arctic” campaign, the content was understood and
42
Conclusion
In this chapter, I described the qualitative research method for my case study on how
Twitter was employed by social movement organizations and networked individuals to mobilize
the “Save the Arctic” campaign. I adopted a qualitative textual analysis of PDF files downloaded
from Twitter to generate data. I discussed purposive sampling as the strategy directing me to
select Twitter as my research location and to determine the events of “Boycott Lego-Shell
Partnership” campaign and the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign as my research objects. I
explained the coding steps as my data generation strategy. I also described the data analysis
technique of using NVIVO qualitative computer software to gain insights into my samples by
developing the matrices of discursive coding themes. Moreover, I justified the contribution of
qualitative textual analysis and purposive sampling to my research project, but I also analyzed
43
Chapter Four: Research Results
In this chapter, I explore how Twitter was used to mobilize both the “Boycott Lego-Shell
Partnership” campaign and the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign. My results contribute in-depth
insights into the new opportunities that social media, such as Twitter, offers activists to mobilize
and the challenges that social media brings to protest culture. I first elaborate how Twitter
influenced the relationship between social movement organizations and networked individuals in
the campaigns. Then, I engage the concepts of frame alignment processes with the analysis of
written and visual content on Twitter to explain what issues were targeted and how these targets
were shaped by activists in the campaigns. I especially discuss what protest strategies, such as
the boomerang effect, the celebrity effect and moral shocks, were employed by activists in the
campaigns, and how these strategies were shifting through the use of Twitter. Finally, I examine
activists used Twitter to promote their protest strategies and messages in the context of
globally in order to target Lego for prioritizing its commercial interests by cooperating with oil
giant Shell and neglecting its responsibility to the environment and the impact of its commercial
decision on children’s futures (Greenpeace Urges Lego, 2014). To address the potential threat to
the unique wildlife living in the Arctic and global climate caused by Shell’s Arctic oil drilling
plan, Greenpeace was dedicated to pressuring Lego, the biggest global toy company, to cease
producing toys with oil giant Shell’s branding (Greenpeace Urges Lego, 2014). In the next
44
section, I explain how the elements of campaign activities were mobilized with the aid of Twitter
in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign in order to contribute insights into how
In this section, I examine who played a role in mobilizing the “Boycott the Lego-Shell
Partnership” campaign.
As shown in my data, Twitter content was created by both individual and organizational
accounts. Individual accounts were registered by users with their individual identities, through
accounts were created by Greenpeace or other groups in order to convey information or opinions
which represented the interests of a group of people. Individual accounts generated 78.02% of
the total campaign-related content on Twitter, while organizational accounts produced 21.98% of
Despite the fact that individual participants created a larger amount of campaign-related
content, organizations still played an important role in mobilizing around the issue of the Lego-
Shell partnership. This finding was explored by looking at the number of retweets. Retweeting is
used by Twitter users to disseminate information and participate in a conversation (Boyd, Golder
& Lotan, 2010). Twitter users are more likely to diffuse and reinforce tweets produced by other
people when they find these tweets impressive and worth spreading (Marwick, 2013). Activists
repost campaign-related information in the hope of increasing the exposure of the information
and enabling the messages to reach out to a broader public (Coesemans & De Cock, 2017). As
such, the number of retweets is able to show what types of messages resonate with campaign
45
participants and other Twitter audiences. My data shows that tweets created by organizations had
substantially more retweets than content produced by individual participants in general, and
organizations were also at an advantage in terms of the average number of retweets that every
tweet received. As such, the data indicates that organizational messages resonated much more
frequently with Twitter audiences than individual messages. According to previous research,
commitment and trust in mobilization (Earl & Kimport, 2011; Mercea, 2012). Therefore, in the
“Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign, organizations had more mobilizing capacity
opportunities for movement participants and using institutionalized tactics, as also suggested in
previous research (Klandermans, 2004; Earl & Kimport, 2011; Staggenborg & Ramos, 2016).
This finding can be seen by examining the content of organizational tweets that were retweeted
in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign. The retweets present two themes that
were commonly seen in my data. On one hand, social movement organizations encouraged
supporters to pressure Lego to end its partnership with Shell. For example, Greenpeace Bristol
tweeted, “@Harbourfest Meet us at the Harbour Festival 19th-20th of July, Bristol Harbourside
and help stop Lego working with Shell #SaveTheArctic.” Another example was tweeted by
Greenpeace: “Love LEGO, hate Arctic drilling? Sign and RT >>> grnpc.org/Ig0I0 #BlockShell
#SaveTheArctic.” On the other hand, the images of Lego toys were used to protest against Shell.
For instance, Greenpeace USA tweeted, “The #LEGO gang delivered a clear message to
@Lego_Group today to #BlockShell & #SaveTheArctic.” In order to pressure Lego to end its
partnership with Shell, social movement organizations used the images of protesting Lego toys in
46
the name of “Lego protestors” or “Lego protest” to draw Lego’s attention to the conflict and also
created online petition websites for activists and encouraged them to sign the petition, and also
coordinated offline action, such as physical gatherings and meetings. In addition, organizations
devised a strategy to pressure Lego to stop its partnership with Shell by using the images of Lego
toys, such as when activists wore Lego toy costumes or created virtual protests made of Lego
toys on Twitter. As such, movement organizations did not only offer both online and offline
protest opportunities, but also used certain online protest strategies and provided audiences with
Despite the leading role of organizations, individual participants who were connected
through digital social networks made it possible for the campaign-related information to widely
proliferate and diversify. Twitter, as one of the commonly used social media platforms, informs
audiences of the issue of the Lego-Shell partnership and the progress of the campaign
internationally, and also helps coordinate widely-dispersed individuals from different locations
to engage in the campaign (Earl & Kimport, 2011; Rainie & Wellman, 2012; Browning, 2013).
such as English, Spanish, French, and offline protest activities were organized in different
to engage in the discussion of the issue of the Lego-Shell partnership and become their own
broadcasters (Castells, 2015). The autonomy of these voices enabled individual participants to
47
contribute different protest strategies and information to the mobilization. As can be seen in my
data, individual participants showed their own protest activities on Twitter. For instance,
individuals tweeted to show their participation in online petitions or tweeted photos of their own
written protest messages. However, this participation with individual features was not produced
Based on the findings that I have discussed above, an evolving relationship of social
movement organizations and networked individual participants in the era of social media can be
seen in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign. Different from previous research
focusing on leaderless participation and dependence on digitally networked individuals (Earl &
Schussman, 2003; Benkler, 2006; Shirky, 2008; Earl & Kimport, 2011; Castells, 2015), my
findings suggest that digitally networked individuals do not replace social movement
organizations. Social media has improved the mobilizing ability of individuals, but this does not
deny the importance of social movement organizations in social movements. Instead, social
media enables social movement organizations and digitally networked individuals to become
interconnected and coordinated in mobilization to enlarge the scope of movements and enrich
movement information.
showed the possibility of astroturfing activities involved in social movements in which artificial
movement discourses (Cho et al., 2011; Greenberg, Knight, & Westersund, 2011; Wear, 2014).
In my data, some individual protest activities were likely generated by astroturfing organizations
48
who constituted a third group in addition to social movement organizations and digitally
networked individuals. In other words, astroturfing activities possibly challenged the role of
difficult and beyond my abilities to assess or evaluate which users were or were not manipulated
by astroturfing organizations.
and digitally networked individuals, my data also shows an evolving relationship of the leading
social movement organization and other groups in a movement. In terms of the Twitter content
49
Greenpeace Organizations Other Groups
50
Greenpeace Southwest London Greenpeace Philippines Nature for Life Conservation Initiative
As shown in Table 1, the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign received a wide
range of responses from social movement organizations across the globe. Organizations in this
campaign produced tweets in three common topics: encouraging audiences to protest, asking
Lego to end their business with Shell, and informing the audience of ongoing online and offline
action. The campaign-related content that different groups produced on Twitter appeared
consistent. In other words, organizations seemed to have similar interest in circulating campaign-
contributed the majority of the Twitter content discussing the issues of Lego’s partnership with
Shell. However, other organizations also played a part in mobilizing protest activities and
provided support to the campaign. As such, Greenpeace organizations including the head office
and regional branches worked in solidary with other organizations. This finding implies that the
mobilization of issues related to Arctic oil drilling relied on the coordination of multiple groups
In addition, my data shows that regional Greenpeace groups, such as Greenpeace UK,
Greenpeace USA, and Greenpeace Aus Pac, were the main constituents of social movement
organizations in this campaign. Regional groups did not only organize activities in local
51
communities, but also used supportive slogans in local citizens’ native languages. Because the
impact of oil exploitation on climate change and human life had become a concern of global
citizens (Wright, 2014), the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign against Arctic oil
drilling was internationalized and localized. As such, the mobilization around issues related to
Arctic oil drilling relied on a coalition of many regional branches rather than any head office.
research, arguing that social movement organizations have the capacity to mobilize other
organizations and the goal is to achieve a greater scale of action (Gerhards & Rucht, 1992; Earl
& Kimport, 2011). Twitter provided opportunities for Greenpeace and other social movement
organizations, such as Team4Nature UK and Nature for Life Conservation Initiative, to easily
connect and scale up the campaign through their connections (Bennett, 2003a, 2003b, 2004a,
2004b; Earl & Kimport, 2011). The quantity of movement organizations is helpful to
mobilization. However, organizational abilities of resonating with activists with various cultural
backgrounds cannot be neglected as well. It is suggested that scientific and moral frames of
environmental issues resonate differently with audiences due to changing cultural and media
contexts (Dauvergne & Neville, 2011). In other words, the same campaign-related discourses
may be perceived differently by different audiences based on their cultural backgrounds. In order
to recruit citizens across the globe to participate in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership”
campaign, Greenpeace attempted to mobilize many regional groups to connect to local citizens
by communicating with local citizens in their native languages and organizing offline activities
in local communities for people to gain a better understanding of the campaign. Therefore, my
findings suggest that the “mesomobilization” of social movement organizations is not only about
52
the scope of coalition of different organizations, but also about the ability to respond to various
Campaign Targets
In this section, I discuss who were framed as the targets of the “Boycott the Lego-Shell
Partnership” mobilization on Twitter. Then, I use framing theories to examine how the issue was
interpreted on Twitter.
employ frames to help audiences understand issues they are experiencing (Goffman, 1974;
Luhtakallio, 2013). By doing so, social movement organizations are able to present audiences
with core issues, pressure relevant parties to take the responsibility to address the problems,
suggest possible solutions for the problems, and recruit people to participate in collective action
(Gamson, 1992; Benford & Snow, 2000). Therefore, it is necessary to conduct framing analysis
of the written and visual content circulated by social movement organizations on Twitter in order
to perceive what issue was targeted in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign and
how social movement organizations mobilized supporters to take action on the issue.
Specifically, I use the concept of frame alignment processes to explain how social movement
organizations associated their interpretation of the issue with activists through Twitter (Snow et
al., 1986).
Within all the Twitter content I gathered that can be identified with a target, 52.22% of
the content targeted Lego and 47.04% of the content targeted Shell. Lego and Shell were usually
targeted at the same time by activists in the campaign. In terms of the Twitter content targeting
Lego and Shell, directly calling for a termination of Lego and Shell’s cooperation was the most
53
commonly shared content on Twitter, which constituted 23.63% of the total content that I
analyzed. Asking movement participants to take online and offline action to pressure Lego to
stop its partnership with Shell was also a common theme, which accounted for 21.98% of the
total tweets. Another noticeable theme was the visual use of Lego mini figures for protest, which
represented 13.19% of the total tweets. Apart from these common themes, the following tweets
were also frequently seen in my data: showing protest activities of individual participants against
Lego’s partnership with Shell in offline settings, presenting a large number of people engaging in
online action, expressing grievances towards Lego’s partnership with Shell, highlighting that
Lego matters to children, accusing Shell and Lego of polluting kids’ imagination, boycotting oil
giants like Shell for their harmful pollution of the Arctic, complimenting and thanking Lego for
stopping their partnership with Shell, showing protest action against the Lego-Shell partnership
from celebrities, complimenting and thanking individual activists for taking action, and showing
In terms of the visual content on Twitter that I analyzed, the commonly circulated
pictures showed Lego mini figures protesting against Shell, Lego mini figures celebrating the
victory of the campaign, and posters of Lego toys and supportive words. Other widespread
posters in offline protests, activists wearing Lego costumes, polar bears walking on the broken
ice, intimate polar bears hugging each other, and scenes of oil spills. In addition, Lego:
Everything is Not Awesome and Lego, Help Children Save the Arctic were the mostly circulated
videos, which respectively constituted 42.31% of the total videos shared on Twitter by social
kids building a toy polar bear with giant Lego bricks in front of Shell’s office.
54
By analyzing the written and visual data, many tweets motivated audiences to engage in
online or offline action or both types of activities. For example, Greenpeace wrote on July 16,
2014, “SIGN if you love @LEGO_Group and want to #blockShell from Arctic drilling.
participants to sign the online petition that was created by Greenpeace in order to pressure Lego
to end its partnership with Shell. Another example of using online action to recruit potential
supporters was created by Greenpeace UK, stating: “We've hit 1 MILLION people asking
@LEGO_Group to dump Shell & #SaveTheArctic.” In this tweet, Greenpeace UK used numbers
to show the great progress that the online campaign had achieved as of September 22, 2014,
which could bring activists a sense of accomplishment. In terms of attracting potential supporters
to engage in offline activities, Greenpeace Bristol tweeted on July 11, 2014, “@Harbourfest
Meet us at the Harbour Festival 19th-20th of July, Bristol Harbourside and help stop Lego
working with Shell #SaveTheArctic.” In this tweet, Greenpeace Bristol attempted to use Twitter
to organize offline activities for activists. As shown in the data, Greenpeace and other groups
This strategy can be explained using the idea of frame bridging process, in which social
these individuals through traditional or new media technologies (Snow et al., 1986). In the
“Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign, movement organizations mobilized both online
and offline protest activities that were available and easily accessible on Twitter, and this
provided options for movement adherents to participate in the campaign. In addition, the analysis
of retweeting in the last section shows that movement participants frequently resonated with the
framing of online and offline action. These findings indicate that the use of Twitter in mobilizing
55
activists is a crucial form of frame bridging alignment (Snow et al., 1986), and it is an useful and
effective strategy for movement organizations to use to recruit potential participants. In other
words, Twitter served as an important platform to recruit potential movement supporters in the
These findings also show that activists rely on both online and offline action in order to
make social changes (Castells, 2015). In this campaign, online action consists of a stepping stone
to promote offline engagement (Schumann & Klein, 2015). This is perhaps attributed to the
space for protestors to plan out their offline protest strategies (Castells, 2015). Online action can
also create a sense of empowerment and accomplishment and help activists construct collective
identities (Nip, 2004; Drury et al., 2005; Hara, 2008; Wojcieszak, 2009; Schumann & Klein,
2015). These action-oriented emotions can foster subsequent offline action (Schumann & Klein,
2015).
In order to inspire and facilitate individuals to engage in the campaign, Greenpeace and
other organizations further explained and optimized their frames, which is known as frame
amplification alignment (Snow et al., 1986). Illustrating the focus of contention is one of the core
tasks in frame amplification process (Snow et al., 1986). In this campaign, the focus of the
expressed grievances in order to show the Lego-Shell partnership was seriously opposed and the
campaign was given great importance by activists (Snow et al., 1986). For example, Save The
Arctic @savethearctic posted on Aug. 27, 2014, “As a huge #LEGO fan, I'm outraged you're
helping #Shell clean up its image for dirty oil drilling #SaveLego #savethearctic.” Save the
56
Arctic group used the word “outraged” to show their grievances and objection to the Lego and
Shell’s partnership.
In order to explain why it was necessary to take action on the issue (Snow et al., 1986),
social movement organizations clarified that the Arctic environment was valuable and worthy of
protection. They emphasized the potential threats of Shell’s oil drilling plan to the Arctic’s
ecosystem and global climate, as well as negative impacts on the future of children caused by
consequences of oil exploitation, such as melting ice, a polar bear’s lonely walking on broken
and isolated ice, and a bird soaked in spilled oil, to indicate the potential threat of Shell’s oil
My data shows that the use of polar bear images was one of the main strategies for
Greenpeace to mobilize their campaign. This is because that polar bears are considered to be
2014). Polar bears have been seen as the representative of the icy and snowy Arctic and also
become an emotional symbol arousing individuals’ sympathy for the melting Arctic which
suffers from climate change (Slocum, 2004). Another reason elaborated by social movement
organizations for audiences to take action is that Lego’s support to Shell set a bad example in
protecting the environment for children who are their main consumers. For instance, Save the
Arctic @savethearctic wrote: “If LEGO cares about children's future, dump the oil company that
@Shell pollute our children's minds! #BlockShell and #SaveTheArctic.” In these tweets, Save
the Arctic indicated that Shell’s oil drilling plan can produce pollution, and this negative impact
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Moreover, social movement organizations attempted to gain visibility for the campaign
by extensively using images of protest scenes consisting of Lego toys. An example of an online
action was that activists widely circulated pictures showing protest activities using Lego mini
figures. In terms of offline action, Greenpeace USA posted “Just a life-size #LEGO dropping
some knowledge on how @Lego_Group could #SavetheArctic from #Shell” and attached a
photo of an offline protest scene. Previous research argued that activists often become
marginalized because images that protestors use to articulate their goals are not familiar,
expected or compatible with the general public’s experience (Doerr et al., 2013). In other words,
in order to become better engaged in the movement, activists should circulate images that convey
messages familiar and relevant to audiences’ experience. In the campaign, the images of Lego
toys can resonate with audiences through their nostalgic feelings towards Lego, and the goal of
protecting the Arctic from oil drilling communicated from the images was not strange to
audiences as well. Thus, organizations circulated the images of Lego toys in order to bring public
variety of visual materials. Previous research showed that visual materials play a significant role
in framing social issues and mobilizing (Doerr et al., 2013). They offer opportunities for social
movement actors to draw public attention to certain issues with striking pictures or sound-bites
(Doerr et al., 2013). However, activists can experience a difficult time presenting some
environmental issues in the media because they are “geographically distant or dispersed,
multinational or international, have a slow onset, are invisible, and are technically complex”
(Doyle, 2003, p. 128; see also Yearley, 1991; Beck, 1992; Medler & Medler, 1993; Hannigan,
1995). The process of the formation of environmental issues, such as climate change, that were
58
potentially impacted by Shell’s Arctic oil drilling plan involved complex causes and long-term
processes, which made it difficult for social movement organizations to visually present the
In the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign, archived images, such as polar
bears walking on broken ice and polar bears clinging to the edge of isolated ice, were used as
short-term elements to represent long-term processes of climate change. The pictures that simply
showed individual consequences of oil drilling were actually used as symbols or metaphors to
indicate and represent a bigger and more complex environmental issue (Goodnow, 2006). In
other words, the use of images helped activists circulate complex issues through simple forms of
expression. In addition, the mobilizing abilities of these images were powerful (Doerr et al.,
2013). The content of these images can produce moral shocks that enabled audiences to affiliate
themselves with other activists who had similar identities (Jasper & Poulsen, 1995; Doerr et al.,
2013). In other words, individual and short-term elements were able to draw public attention to a
long-term and complex issue because they had the ability to arouse moral shocks. Moral shocks
also played a critical role in invoking protestors’ outrage, and expressing anger and outrage was
the key to helping activists overcome anxiety and gain hope for mobilization (Castells, 2015). In
addition, governments or corporations as the villains in the conflict may only be able to be
depicted as faceless and abstract entities (Doyle, 2003). For example, in order to visualize Lego
and Shell corporations in protest messages on Twitter, social movement organizations widely
used images of Lego toys to represent Lego and the Shell logo to refer to Shell.
One noticeable framing strategy that social movement organizations used to mobilize
movement participants was to leverage the influence of children. The frame analysis shows that
the “Boycott the Lego-Shell partnership” campaign intended to rely on Lego’s consumers to put
59
pressure on Lego because consumers have the ability to influence corporate decision making
(Holzer, 2010). In the campaign, social movement organizations framed children as victims of
the Lego and Shell’s partnership. For example, Greenpeace Aus Pac @GreenpeaceAP wrote,
“@LEGO_Group don't let @Shell pollute our children's minds! #BlockShell and
LEGO cares about children's future, dump the oil company that destroys it #SaveLego
#SaveTheArctic grnpc.org/gotweet.” As can be seen from these tweets, children were seen as a
moral restraint to Lego, and Lego was faced with moral accusations in terms of their
responsibility for children. In other words, Lego was essentially blamed by social movement
organizations for acting untrustworthy and irresponsible to children who were their main
consumer group because their decision of cooperating with Shell was considered to have an
It seems that social movement organizations attempted to achieve two goals by framing
children on Twitter. On one hand, social movement organizations hoped to leverage close ties of
children to parents as a transformation of protest frames to better resonate with activists, if the
frame of protecting the Arctic’s environment turned out to be distant from the public’s interests
(Holzer, 2010). This idea was suggested by the concept of frame transformation alignment,
which requires organizations to explore new values when old values or beliefs cannot resonate
with movement participants (Snow et al., 1986). Children were the main target consumers of
Lego, but their parents were the actual ones who had power of consumption to purchase Lego
products and they were also the potential protestors that social movement organizations intended
to recruit to the campaign. Therefore, the frequent use of the word “our children” in the tweets
shows that social movement organizations attempted to reach out to parents and to translate their
60
purchasing acts into negative impacts on their children (Holzer, 2010). By doing so, movement
Lego (Holzer, 2010). In other words, movement organizations tried to assemble individual
powers of resistance by mobilizing protestors’ emotion and turning it into a collective purchasing
On the other hand, social movement organizations attempted to provoke Lego to feel
guilty by shaping the corporation as the campaign’s potential ally on Twitter. For example, Save
the Arctic group tweeted, “I loved #LEGO till I heard about its partnership with Arctic destroyer
@GreenpeaceNotts.” In these tweets, Shell was shaped as the centre of disastrous influence on
the Arctic and global climate, while Lego was perceived as a potential ally that social movement
organizations can cooperate with to protest against the oil giant Shell. Along with
disappointment and grievances, activists also expressed their support and love for Lego in order
to encourage Lego to forgo the partnership. Moral leverage was employed by social movement
organizations to criticize Lego for harming children’s innocence and violating the public’s moral
values. In order to persuade Lego to abandon its business cooperation with Shell, social
movement organizations intended to place Lego in a moral dilemma by framing its loyal
consumers as the victims of its partnership with Shell and presenting the ambivalence of
In addition to Lego and Shell, Greenpeace and their protest strategies were also targeted
by individuals during the campaign. These tweets presented criticism of the Greenpeace
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@LEGO_Group to drop @Shell branding too, but your campaigners are too pushy.
Internet and social media or in offline communities, some people did not fully support
Greenpeace’s protest action. Also, online tactics allowed by social networking technologies were
called in question for their effectiveness. For instance, John Sutton @HGJohn tweeted, “This
clicktavist victory to get Shell logos off Lego toys will have zero impact. It won't
#SaveTheArctic Stop driving instead, that might.” It did not seem that these low-cost and fast
online tactics were considered to be optimal and efficient by all audience members (Bromberg,
As shown in my data, the mobilizing capacity around the Lego-Shell partnership issue
was endorsed by a great number of people, but not every person was convinced by Greenpeace’s
campaign approaches and strategies. This finding suggests that the proliferation of social media
did not only promote opportunities for self-representation, but this tendency also amplified the
challenges to the role of online action (Uldam, 2016). While social media promoted autonomous
Another challenge in social media use was surveillance and containment. In this
campaign, YouTube was targeted for censoring and blocking Greenpeace’s video Lego:
Everything is not Awesome. This video was silenced perhaps because the Greenpeace’s video
conveyed dissent towards the oil industry that was seen as a potential risk to corporations’
reputations (Bennett, 2003; Costanza-Chock, 2004; Curran et al., 2012; Uldam, 2016). However,
the actual reason why this video was taken down could not be found based on my data. Based on
my key word search, my data simply shows one side of opinions from movement supporters but
62
lacks insights into standpoints of Shell and Lego as targeted corporations. This could be a
strategy that corporations used to protect their reputations, as suggested in previous research
(Uldam, 2016). By choosing not to respond to critiques on Twitter, Lego and Shell intended to
avoid potentially falling into more troubles (Uldam, 2016). As such, social movement actors
were also confronted with challenges from the surveillance of corporations and governments
In this section, I analyze how activists used Twitter to interact with other platforms in
order to enrich and promote campaign-related messages by looking at the tactic of link sharing
on Twitter.
Link sharing to third party websites on Twitter can be commonly seen during the
campaign, and it was widely used to increase the circulation of campaign-related information. In
terms of the Twitter content with links shared to online activities, online petition websites
accounted for 38.77% of the total tweets with links attached, and links to online donation
websites constituted 8.75% of the total tweets. These websites were frequently shared when
social movement actors directly asked Lego to stop their partnership with Shell, and online
Content that had links to other social media platforms accounted for 20.68% of the total
content with links attached. Specifically, links to YouTube accounted for 60.58% of the total
links to social media, links to Vimeo represented 14.42% of the total links, and links to
Facebook, Instagram and other tweets on Twitter constituted 4.81% of the total links
respectively. Other links to Flickr and Tumblr can be seen on Twitter as well.
63
As can be seen from my data, YouTube was the most commonly seen platform compared
to other social media platforms. Tweets directing users to YouTube usually focused on three
themes. The first one was compliment Greenpeace’s campaign or campaign video Lego:
Everything is Not Awesome. For instance, Tracy Van Slyke @tracyvs wrote on Aug 8, 2014,
“Great @Greenpeace #lego video ties together culture and campaigns. bit.ly/1ojjZYX
#SaveTheArctic.” This tweet was written in order to use the video to draw public attention on the
campaign. The second theme was expressing grievances about the Lego’s partnership with Shell.
For example, Bernie Thornton @bernieT36 posted on July 9, 2014, “WATCH this video to see
#savethearctic #BlockShell.” This user showed criticism to Lego and Shell and intended to use
the video Lego: Everything is Not Awesome to support his opinion. The third theme was asking
Lego to forgo its partnership with Shell. For example, Blanca Figuerola @BlancaFiguerola
wrote, “Join our movement to #savethearctic by telling @LEGO_Group to cut its ties with
#Shell! See video: xurl.es/ecuay”. It seems that the video Lego: Everything is Not Awesome was
shared to support and explain her proposal for protest action against the Lego and Shell’s
partnership.
The video Lego, everything is not awesome was the most well-known video and it
received 6 million views on the Internet during the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership”
campaign (Kirchoff, Van Couvering, & Fast, 2015). This video was completely animated with
Lego products criticizing the partnership of Lego and Shell as polluting children’s minds and
ruining the Arctic. In the video, the rising and spreading “black sea water” was gradually
drowning animals and humans in the Arctic, visualizing that global warming was increasing the
sea level and oil spills were destroying wildlife and the environment. This 1.46-minute video
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utilized elements of Lego and Shell to imply that the cooperation of the two companies in the
real world was going to bring disastrous consequences to the environment and human life.
The sharing of video resources from YouTube provided social movement actors with
more autonomy and diverse resources, such as audio, visual and written materials, to frame their
movement messages. In addition, the YouTube video was circulated on Twitter by activists in
order to supply extra information to draw public attention to the campaign, justify activists’
protest activities, and recruit potential supports to engage in the campaign. As argued in previous
research, YouTube has become a prevalent social media platform for people to diffuse, view and
archive videos documenting protests in recent years because it offers individuals free, simple and
relatively effortless approaches to record, share and spread their messages (Askanius, 2013).
YouTube plays a role in offering an afterlife for those protest moments that are left behind in
offline spaces because YouTube provides the opportunity for activists to use a variety of creative
ways to document and rearticulate the ephemeral visual expressions produced in protests which
may have been forgotten and neglected (Askanius, 2013). In my research, the analysis of the
video Lego: Everything is Not Awesome shows that YouTube can also be used by activists to
release early warnings of potential consequences of protested issues. By doing so, the campaign
hoped to recruit potential supporters to prevent the Lego-Shell partnership from causing
Twitter content connected to online news institutions accounted for 16.70% of the total
content with links attached. The Guardian news website was the most commonly shared by
activists, which accounted for 36.90% of the total link sharing to online news institutions.
Twitter content linked to The Huffington Post constituted 14.29% of all the link sharing to news
media. Link sharing to CBC website represented 5.88%. Other news media websites that are
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shared on Twitter included the websites of Business Insider, Forbes, Global News, Sky News,
As shown in my data, articles posted in The Guardian website were the most commonly
seen compared to other mass media websites during the campaign. Most articles from The
Guardian website were shared when Twitter users intended to inform audiences of the successful
ending of Lego’s partnership with Shell. For example, Greenpeace USA @greenpeaceusa on
@greenpeaceusa for your great Lego victory over Shell!” and attached an article named “Lego
ends Shell Partnership following Greenpeace Campaign” from The Guardian website. This
article provided audiences with details of how Lego made the decision to stop renewing its
contract with Shell under Greenpeace’s pressure. As such, activists intended to provide more
details to help audiences gain a better understanding of the progress and result of the campaign.
In addition to news articles reporting the severing of Lego and Shell’s partnership, other news
articles circulated on Twitter mainly focused on discussing details of the content of Greenpeace
video Lego, everything is not awesome, the progress of Greenpeace’s campaign or perspectives
against Shell.
As can be seen from my data, most news articles from mass media were used by activists
in Twitter posts when they informed audiences of the progress of the campaign with more
detailed information and justified protest activities for recruiting potential supporters to engage
in the campaign. This finding indicates that mass media3 is used as a representative of authority
1991; Cappella & Jamieson, 1997; Mattoni, 2012). This may be attributed to the capacity of
3
A detailed analysis of mass media content is not presented since it is outside the scope of my research project.
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media frames that “operate to select and highlight some features of reality and obscure others in
a way that tells a consistent story about problems, their causes, moral implications, and
remedies” (Entman, 2004, p. 77). By apply this structural logic, media frames functioned to
promote interpretation, evaluation and solutions in the campaign (Entman, 2004; Rivenburgh,
2013). Moreover, protestors tended to cite news articles that were sympathetic to movements in
order to justify the rationality of movements because these articles contributed positive media
the total link sharing. The majority of these links were directed to Greenpeace websites, which
constituted 85.33% of the total link sharing to organizational websites. Links to other
organizational websites, such as EcoWatch, can also be seen on Twitter. Specifically, the linked
articles from Greenpeace websites focused on showing more detailed information about plans for
the campaign, articulating reasons for taking action, and updating activists’ online and offline
activists. These articles were mostly used to support tweets that discussed Lego severing its
partnership with Shell and asked movement participants to pressure Lego to end its partnership
with Shell. Despite the important role of mass media attention, my findings show that
that can support the campaign and more favourable statements that can shape public opinions
My analysis of different types of link sharing shows that the “Boycott the Lego-Shell
Partnership” campaign made strategic use of a broad range of communication resources and
4
A detailed analysis of environmental website content is not presented since it is outside the scope of my research
project.
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operated within complex and multifaceted repertoires of communication (Mattoni, 2013).
Content created by authors on websites, such as online news articles and organizational articles,
and user-generated content on different social media platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook and
Instagram, were both seen on Twitter (Walther & Jang, 2012; Neubaum & Krämer, 2017).
Specifically, my findings suggest that social media platforms were tools to circulate information
with individual and self-configurable features that were not usually seen on mainstream mass
media or organizational websites. In addition, Twitter as a social media platform played a role in
converging information from mass media and organizations, rather than offering detailed and
comprehensive information that organizational websites and mass media websites were more
proficient in. As such, the use of social media has not replaced mass media in contemporary
coordinated in mobilization.
Summary
The analysis of the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign shows an evolving
achieved a larger scale of action through mesomobilization on Twitter. In order to mobilize the
campaign, activists framed campaign-related discourses through both written and visual
communication. Specifically, activists mobilized both online and offline action as opportunities
for people to engage in the campaign and used morality as emotional leverage to recruit potential
campaign supporters. In order to promote campaign-related content, activists made strategic use
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of a broader range of communication resources and operated within a more complex and
2013).
In the next section, I examine the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign and explore the
As part of the campaign against oil exploitation in the Arctic, 30 Greenpeace activists and
crew members from different countries sailed the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise into the Arctic
and attempted to land at Gazprom’s Prirazlomnaya drilling platform as an action to call for an
end to Arctic drilling in September 2013. When 30 people were climbing the platform, they were
prevented immediately and arrested by the Russian authorities for further investigation. As the
news spread, a large number of people started protesting against the Russian authorities by
mobilizing a variety of action with the hashtag “#freethearctic30” on Twitter to ask for the
release of the 30 Greenpeace activists. Compared to the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership”
campaign, the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign further exploited Twitter’s mobilizing abilities due
to the event’s complexity. I examine the hashtag activities on Twitter in order to provide insights
into the dynamics of the mobilization of the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign.
Like the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign, activists who played a part in
the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign can still be defined as individual participants and social
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Greenpeace Organizations Other Groups
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My data shows that organizations created 20.39% of the campaign-related information
that was collected on Twitter while individual participants produced 79.61% of the total content.
In terms of retweets in the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign, the majority of the retweets were
and Greenpeace UK. Previous research suggested that retweeting happens when Twitter users
find the content is impressive and worth spreading (Marwick, 2013). This means social
movement organizations as movement information sources were given more importance and
resonated with social movement actors more than the content produced by individual
participants. As with the finding explored in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign,
Greenpeace organizations as well as other groups still played a central role in mobilizing the
“Free the Arctic 30” campaign despite the fact that individual participants produced more
Commonly retweeted content focused on two themes. The first one was calling for help
for the arrested 30 Greenpeace activists. For example, Arctic Sunrise tweeted, “This Saturday in
tweeted, “Show your support for the Arctic 30, add the twibbon to your profile pics:
bit.ly/1ev06Zc #FreeTheArctic30.” These tweets show that Greenpeace employed the strategy of
calling on people to take action to help release 30 Greenpeace activists. Also, Greenpeace
created both opportunities for individual participants to protest both online and offline. The
second commonly retweeted theme was online and offline support for the campaign. For
instance, Greenpeace Aus Pac sent the following online support to the arrested activist:
“@alexharris1 our mate, fellow diver + all-round super cool work colleague - everyone stands
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with u #freethearctic30 ow.ly/i/3dltT.” Greenpeace Canada tweeted “Crowds still coming in to
photo of the offline protest scene attached to the Twitter post. Because online action can
mobilize action-oriented emotions, increase activists’ sense of empowerment, and help protestors
build collective identities, online action plays an important role in promoting activists’ offline
engagement (Nip, 2004; Drury et al., 2005; Hara, 2008; Wojcieszak, 2009; Schumann & Klein,
2015). In other words, tweets created by organizations serve as a source for individual
motivation (Klandermans, 2004; Earl & Kimport, 2011; Staggenborg & Ramos, 2016). This
means that social movement organizations play a vital role in offering momentum to movement
participants, creating protest opportunities and devising strategies (Klandermans, 2004; Earl &
organizations (Earl & Schussman, 2003; Shirky, 2008; Earl & Kimport, 2011; Castells, 2015)
and the increasing importance of digitally networked individualist forms of activism in social
movements (Castells, 2015; Kleinhans, Van Ham & Evans-Cowley, 2015), the “Free the Arctic
30” campaign shows that social movement organizations remains vital as key social actors. They
are diffusers of information and frames, and organizers of collective action. Social media may
allow individual participants to diffuse information to a broader audience, but social movement
organizations still play a vital role in initiating and structuring collective action within the social
media field. This is a consistent finding that also appeared in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell
Partnership” campaign.
However, as with the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign, potential activities
of astroturfing organizations also challenged the role of networked individuals in mobilizing the
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“Free the Arctic 30” campaign. While some individual protestors could be fake activists
Kim, & Rodrigue, 2011; Greenberg et al., 2011; Wear, 2014), it was beyond my abilities to
assess or evaluate which users were or were not manipulated by astroturfing organizations.
and digitally networked individuals from the centralized leadership of social movement
organizations over individual participants (Castells, 2015; Staggenborg & Ramos, 2016), my
data also shows an evolving relationship of the leading social movement organization and other
groups in a movement. In terms of all the social movement organizations that produced
content while other groups generated 3.16% of the total content. Greenpeace organizations still
played a major role in leading the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign with the use of Twitter, but
many other organizations, such as World Wildlife Fund (WWF), also engaged in action calling
for the release of 30 Greenpeace activists. Compared to the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership”
campaign, more regional Greenpeace groups participated in the mobilization of the “Free the
Arctic 30” campaign. Moreover, different organizations were inclined to diffuse campaign-
As with the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign, calling for action from
supporters to boycott targeted parties and showing protest action were strategies that Greenpeace
commonly used to mobilize support for the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign. Greenpeace is known
for their direct action and contentious identity (Corrigall‐Brown, 2016). Direct action, such as
calling for audiences to pressure the Russian government, enables Greenpeace to bring
credibility and draw media attention to the conflict because it is aligned with the general
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impression of who they were as a group (Corrigall‐Brown, 2016). In addition, audiences have the
expectation of social movements in which social movement organizations will criticize and
change the government decision, and meeting the expectation of the audiences can help groups
increase their media coverage (Corrigall‐Brown, 2016). As such, in order to achieve the protest
goals, Greenpeace attempted to impress audiences and draw media attention to the issue by
highlighting that they were dedicated to pressuring the government to release the Arctic 30 with
The analysis of my data shows that Greenpeace played a major role in mobilizing Russia
to release 30 Greenpeace activists. However, other organizations also played a part in mobilizing
support for the campaign. As such, Greenpeace organizations including the head office and
regional branches worked in solidary with other organizations. In other words, the mobilization
of releasing 30 Greenpeace activists relied on the coordination of multiple groups rather than a
single organization. Greenpeace’s ability of mobilizing other organizations to enlarge the scope
of protests was seen in both the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign and the “Free
the Arctic 30” campaign (Gerhards & Rucht, 1992; Earl & Kimport, 2011).
Twitter, Arctic Sunrise produced 28.38% of the total content, Greenpeace generated 9.59% of
the total content, Greenpeace UK created 8.27% of the total content, Greenpeace PressDesk
diffused 5.64% of the total content, Greenpeace New Zealand contributed 5.26% of the total
content, Greenpeace USA posted 3.76% of the total content, and Save the Arctic disseminated
3.57% of the total content. Similar to the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign, the
“Free the Arctic 30” campaign did not simply rely on the head office of Greenpeace. Rather, it
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was a coordination of the head office and many Greenpeace regional offices that facilitated the
campaign.
While circulating a common goal of asking the Russian government to release the Arctic
30, regional groups also mobilized differently by organizing offline activities in their local
the captured 30 activists came from different countries, regional Greenpeace organizations
the activists who were from their local communities. For example, two of Greenpeace UK’s
tweets stated: “Kieron’s family have shared a letter he sent from Russian prison:
thetim.es/1gbroWp (paywall link, apologies) #FreeTheArctic30” and “Kieron's friend Max wants
help release Kieron Bryan who was a journalist from the UK. In order to mobilize a broad
audience to take action against the Russian government, regional groups attempted to associate
their campaign-related information with local supporters’ cultural contexts. In other words,
regional groups played an important role in localizing the international issue of releasing 30
Greenpeace activists by enabling the issue to resonate with local citizens’ cultural backgrounds
(Dauvergne & Neville, 2011). As such, the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign relied on a coalition
social movement organizations, such as WWF and Nature for Life Conservation Initiative, has
not been replaced by social media. Instead, social media provides autonomous spaces for social
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reach out to more organizations (Bennett, 2003a, 2003b, 2004a, 2004b; Earl & Kimport, 2011).
strategy that social movement organizations employ to resonate with more potential supporters
Campaign Targets
In this section, I discuss who were framed as the targets of the “Free the Arctic 30”
campaign claim-making and mobilization on Twitter. Then, I use framing theories to examine
The main focus of campaign targets was the Russian authorities, which accounted for
53.00% of the total content identified with targets. All the Twitter content targeting Russian
authorities presented strongly negative attitudes of protestors towards Russian action regarding
the 30 activists. The majority of tweets targeting the Russian government called on the Russian
authorities to release 30 Arctic Sunrise activists or condemned the Russian government for using
unjustified punishment on the 30 activists. For example, Greenpeace NZ wrote, “Join over
#FreeTheArctic30. Peaceful protesters are being held illegally. The world is watching
greenpeace.org/freeouractivis …” These tweets show that the Russian government was at the
center of the conflict and it was considered to be the main culprit of the whole “Free the Arctic
30” campaign.
In order to pressure the Russian authorities to release the Arctic 30, social movement
organizations offered protest opportunities to movement adherents and mobilized them to engage
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in both online and offline activities. Twitter was employed by social movement organizations to
connect to potential supporters who shared the same grievances towards the Russian government
but lacked strategies to pursue their goals (Snow et al., 1986). This finding is similar to the
finding in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign that was supported by the concept
of frame bridging alignment (Snow et al., 1986). According to my data, a large number of tweets
appealed to supporters to participate in online and offline activities. This indicates that the
mobilizing feature of Twitter was considered to be significant and its mobilizing ability was
Despite the fact that online action was encouraged more frequently than offline action on
Twitter, social movement organizations attempted to coordinate both types of action for
supporters to participate in. The available online activities in this campaign mostly focused on
signing online petitions, emailing the Russian Embassy, and adding a Twitter profile picture by
gatherings, were also informed and advertised on Twitter in order to recruit potential supporters.
Sometimes, both online and offline activities were offered together in one tweet in order to
encourage social actors to engage in both types of action. Similar to the “Boycott the Lego-Shell
protestors to plan out their offline protest strategies (Castells, 2015). Online action can also
increase activists’ sense of empowerment and accomplishment and help construct collective
identities (Nip, 2004; Drury et al., 2005; Hara, 2008; Wojcieszak, 2009). These action-oriented
emotions can foster subsequent offline action (Schumann & Klein, 2015), and these offline
activities can optimize communication among activists (Davis, 2011). Because offline action
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symbolized the power of invading sites of state power, mobilizing protestors to engage in offline
activities was likely to create tangible pressure on the Russian government (Castells, 2015).
In order to better resonate with movement supporters during the campaign, social
frames by promoting the relevant discourses on supporters’ beliefs about how severe the issue or
grievance was, beliefs about how effective the movement would be, and beliefs about how
necessary it was to take action on the issue (Snow et al., 1986). One task related to frame
amplification was to clarify the severity of the issue of arresting 30 Arctic Sunrise activists
(Snow et al., 1986). In order to accomplish this goal, Greenpeace and other organizations
justified the Arctic 30’s protest action against oil drilling. Social movement organizations
expressed their disagreement with the Russian government’s definition of the 30 activists as
“pirates” or “hooligans”.
On one hand, social movement organizations directly expressed their grievances and
criticism to the Russian government. For example, Greenpeace widely circulated a video
documenting the Russian special forces confronting Greenpeace activists on the Gazprom Arctic
oil rig. This video described that Russian border guards stormed the Arctic Sunrise ship and
locked up 30 Greenpeace activists after they attempted to climb Gazprom’s Arctic oil platform
off the north-eastern coast of Russia. In the video, Russian coast guards wearing black masks
pointed knives and guns at Greenpeace activists, while the activists voluntarily raised their hands
in front of the coast guards. The video also showed scenes in which Greenpeace activists were
pushed over by Russian coast guards. The elements shown about Russian coast guard in the film,
such as their equipment, movement and appearance, were framed to represent toughness and
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violence. However, Greenpeace intended to frame their activists as powerless victims by
showing the peaceful side of their performance in response to the coast guards’ action.
This video archived the events that happened in offline spaces. In this context, images as
the signifier of veracity were used to encode the reality and provided an opportunity for
audiences to access the messages that perhaps had never been available to them (Askanius,
2013). By using strategies of sequence construction and linking, Greenpeace evoked individual
anger towards the Russian government by showing the most striking and dramatic moments of
the event. However, this does not mean that the video showed the full story of the incident.
Although social media provides individuals with the autonomy to adopt their own frames to
rearticulate protests in online contexts (Rainie & Wellman, 2012; Askanius, 2013; Castells,
2015), this also offers activists the opportunity to intentionally discard some fragments of
protests that are not beneficial to support protest activities. In other words, in addition to
allowing reality to be archived, reproduced and given new meanings (Askanius, 2013), social
media can also be used to distort reality. In addition, getting arrested on campaign may be an
incident that Greenpeace deliberately caused in order to manipulate media attention for
environmental issues (Doyle, 2003). Therefore, it is likely that the recorded and released content
in the video is planned beforehand. In this case, social media was not simply used by social
On the other hand, social movement organizations attempted to express grievances to the
the arrest of 30 activists by the Russian government. These parties included environmental
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experts, Nobel Peace Laureates and international politicians. For example, Arctic Sunrise
Peace Prize Laureates have voiced their support to #FreeTheArctic30. Join the call:
peaceful people but not hooligans. For example, Arctic Sunrise wrote, “The man behind the
photos that showed us the threat to the Arctic! Denis Sinyakov greenpeace.org/international/…
#FreeTheArctic30.” Greenpeace tweeted, “Some heroes are just normal people doing their best
to help save the planet: act.gp/17BxXfa #FreeTheArctic30.” In these tweets, social movement
activists who contributed to protecting the environment and the Russian government was the one
who was actually violent and unjust, which framed the 30 activists as victims that needed to be
protected.
enhance movement adherents’ beliefs in how effective the movement will become (Snow et al.,
1986). In order to achieve this goal, Greenpeace and other organizations frequently updated the
information about the progress of the campaign. For example, Greenpeace wrote, “Greenpeace
@Greenpeace · 21 Nov 2013 Court hearings over for today. 26 of 30 now granted bail and 5 of
those are out of jail. #FreeColin #FreeTheArctic30.” News about the Russian government
removing charges from 30 activists and releasing the activists on bail were shown as effective
progress for the campaign. In addition, social movement organizations widely disseminated
online and offline support from celebrities, international political forces, Nobel Peace Laureates,
the Arctic 30’s family members, environmental experts, legal experts, and the Russian president
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Putin. For example, Greenpeace EU tweeted, “100+ MEPs from 21 #EU countries (7 groups) say
social movement organizations framed the widespread support from a variety of parties as an
effective means to facilitate the campaign. By illustrating that the campaign managed to receive
plenty of support and recruit many supporters to protest against the Russian government, social
movement organizations attempted to help movement supporters gain faith in the campaign.
In order to articulate how necessary it was to take action on the issue (Snow et at., 1986),
social movement organizations targeted oil giant Gazprom and criticized activities of oil
exploitation for their disastrous impacts on the environment. In order to mobilize campaign
supporters to pressure Russia to release the 30 activists, social movement organizations intended
to convince the audiences that it was wrong for the Russian government to capture 30 activists
who protested against oil giant Gazprom. In order to help movement adherents better understand
why it was valuable to boycott Gazprom, social movement organizations articulated information
about environmental threat to the Arctic that was potentially caused by Gazprom. For example,
Greenpeace wrote, “10 reasons to take action to stop #Gazprom's Prirazlomnaya oil platform:
Greenpeace was: “More than 30 million barrels of oil are spilled on land each year by the
organizations framed oil giant Gazprom as an evil corporation and the 30 activists’ protest
As with what was shown in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign, polar
bear images were frequently diffused to symbolize the emergence of environmental issues that
were potentially caused by Arctic oil drilling. The use of polar bear images conveyed a message
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that polar bears were losing their home because of global warming. By circulating these polar
bear images, protestors tried to indicate that the Arctic was becoming vulnerable because of oil
drilling. Previous research argued that striking images depicting destruction attract public
attention and trigger a moral commitment to act (Anne DiFrancesco & Young, 2011). Thus, the
destruction of the polar bear’s living environment in the Arctic caused by global warming had
the capacity to evoke moral shocks among audiences. Moral shocks play a crucial role in
evoking activists’ outrage, and expressing anger and outrage is the key to help activists
overcome anxiety and gain hope for mobilization (Castells, 2015). In other words, polar bear
imagery was used as symbolic material to mobilize supporters to express their outrage towards
the Russian government and oil giant Gazprom and gain hope for the campaign. This is a
consistent finding that is also shown in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign.
Apart from polar bear imagery, other visual content was also applied to help frame the
Arctic 30 issue in the campaign. Photos showing offline protest activities were frequently
circulated on Twitter. Similar to the finding in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership”
campaign, images of Greenpeace’s micro-dramas were shown in order to protest against the
Russian government in the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign. Micro-dramas, often in the form of
bold direct action, is a central tactic created by Greenpeace (Doyle, 2003). These stunts are well-
planned and organized in order to overcome difficulties in gaining media attention for
environmental issues (Doyle, 2003). In addition to common stunts, such as holding banners with
brief messages and wearing costumes, Greenpeace also circulated more striking moments of the
campaign on Twitter. One image that was frequently shared on Twitter depicted a Greenpeace
activist scaling the Eiffel Tower with a banner reading “Free the Arctic 30”. Another commonly-
seen image showed activists sitting in a big model of a cage that referred to the prison where 30
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Arctic Sunrise activists were kept. Thirty activists getting arrested on camera by Russian coast
guards seemed to be another important media stunt that Greenpeace created to draw media
attention to the conflict. This is because the action of getting arrested is considered to be deviant,
or different from the norm, which is a key characteristic of newsworthiness (Ericson, Baranek &
Chan, 1987; Doyle, 2003; Lundahl, 2018). Many of these events were documented and diffused
through photography. Photographs can be carriers and amplifiers of injustice frames, which
explains how an authority system violates the shared moral beliefs of the general public (Olesen,
transnational audiences (Olesen, 2013). For example, polar bear images were used to vividly
depict disastrous impacts of oil drilling on the Arctic’s environment in order to show that the
government and oil industry violated the public’s moral beliefs. In addition to the use of protest
banners and the #freethearctic30 hashtag on protest posters, the restriction of the cage
represented in the photographs alluded to the injustice that the Russian government brought to
the 30 Greenpeace activists. In order to recruit potential supporters to participate in the campaign
from different regions and countries, campaign participants presented the injustice frame
communication and disseminated their disagreement with the Russian government to global
audiences.
international support. The symbol was also commonly seen in pictures and videos of online and
offline activities. The symbol of a dove soaring on a rainbow was originally used by Arctic
Sunrise activists on their ship in order to represent their protest action against oil exploitation.
Visual markers assist individuals in identifying the orientation of a group and whether or not
83
they belong to a protest as allies (Doerr et al., 2013). Thus, this symbol itself can help the
campaign gain visibility and remind audiences of 30 activists’ protest action, and the frequent
use of this symbol in online and offline activities indicates that movement participants sent
In addition to using the tactic of frame alignment to mobilize, the strategies of targeting
international politicians and celebrities were also employed in the “Free the Arctic 30”
campaign. In terms of international political forces, Brazilian, Indian, South African, Australian,
British and Canadian politicians were all targeted on Twitter. On one hand, they were mostly
targeted by protestors as potential campaign allies to pressure Russia to release the Arctic 30. For
example, Greenpeace Aus Pac tweeted, “We are renewing calls for Aus. Govt to step up efforts
other hand, governments, such as UK and Canada, were also criticized by activists for not
providing sufficient support to detained British and Canadian. For example, Greenpeace
Portsmouth tweeted, “@David_Cameron #gazprom deal with UK energy minister? That why so
As can be seen in my findings, protestors called for support from other countries’
politicians in order to assemble international political forces to address this issue. This finding
can be explained by applying the idea of the boomerang effect. This strategy may be used by
social movement actors to call for action from their international political allies in order to exert
pressure on their domestic governments and optimize their domestic political practices when
channels between the state and its domestic actors were blocked (Keck & Sikkink, 1998; Holzer,
2010). Transnational activists use this strategy to shape issues in transnational activism in order
to bring local or domestic issues to international attention. The notion of the boomerang effect
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was developed by Keck and Sikkink (1998) primarily in reference to movements in the Global
South that intend to draw on resources and political power of social movements in the Global
North in order to generate pressure on governments within the Global South (Stoddart et al.,
2016).
However, the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign shows the tactic of the boomerang effect has
evolved. In the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign, activists employed the boomerang effect strategy
to bring the issue of the arrest of 30 Greenpeace activists to the attention of international
politicians in the hope of mobilizing the Russian government to release the thirty activists. As
shown in this campaign, the boomerang effect was no longer about generating international
pressure in support of social movements primarily in the Global South. This is consistent with
the similar argument made about the international targeting of the Canadian government in the
previous research of Stoddart and his colleagues (Stoddart et al., 2016). My research findings
show that the boomerang effect was also used by transnational activists to draw international
politicians to the Russian government’s action on 30 Greenpeace activists within the Global
North. This indicates that Twitter, as one of the social media platforms, did not only provide
international audiences with access to a variety of information, but also allowed them to bypass
the control of the government and become their own broadcasters (Earl & Kimport, 2011; Rainie
& Wellman, 2012; Serres, 2014; Castells, 2015; Ceron & Memoli, 2016). In other words, social
media can break restrictions on communication channels between the state and its domestic
citizens, and serve as tools for activists to bypass their state and reach out to international allies
more easily and quickly. Thanks to social media, activists have more opportunities and resources
to express their concerns for environmental issues to domestic and international governments
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In addition to calling for help from international politicians, social movement
organizations also tried to draw celebrities’ attention to the event of the arrest of 30 Greenpeace
activists. This strategy was also employed in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign.
In the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign, celebrities were mostly asked to help release the 30
activists from Russia. For example, Greenpeace Cherbourg wrote, “@SamuelLJackson please
tweet your support now to #FreeTheArctic30, detained for peacefully defending the planet
producer was asked by Greenpeace Cherbourg to help release the Arctic 30. Previous research
argued that celebrities play a big role in networking with their followers on social media,
disseminating messages and speaking out for environmental issues as spokespeople with the help
of their fame (Gamson & Wolfsfeld, 1993; Meyer & Gamson, 1995; Brockington, 2008;
Brockington, 2009; Ellcessor, 2018). This indicates that the celebrity’s opinions are considered
to be significant leverage to influence public discourses, and their protest action helps influence
mobilizing abilities to recruit more potential supporters to participate in the campaign and to
exert pressure on the Russian government. In addition, it seems that protestors recruited
environmental movements could offer credit to celebrities (Brockington, 2008). Because social
media can easily expose celebrities’ personalities and make it possible for audiences to directly
access celebrities (Ellcessor, 2012), how celebrities decide to get involved in social movements
on social media directly impacts whether or not they can become famous and accepted by
audiences. As such, protestors chose to target celebrities because they were likely to receive
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support from those celebrities who intended to build their fame by improving their performance
Greenpeace can also be seen in my data. For example, Twitter user “Assad” wrote, “Those
Greenpeace idiots deserve to be jailed for 7 years for attacking Russia's oil platform. Not invited!
activists was strongly objected to by some audience members and the “Free the Arctic 30”
campaign was not supported. In the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign, social media enabled all
different kinds of voices to be heard. While it increased the exposure of perspectives supporting
the campaign, it also made counter-movement opinions become visible. In other words, social
media has brought the opportunities to social movements, but they have also resulted in more
Also, online action was called in question for its effectiveness. For instance, Twitter user
“Yrjö Kari-Koskinen” wrote, “Sad stuff happening at the @gp_sunrise. Feels like there's not
much we can do just by tweeting and mailing #FreeTheArctic30 #SaveTheArctic.” This tweet
shows that low-cost and fast online tactics are also considered to be ineffective by some people
(Bromberg, 2013; Lim, 2013; Schumann & Klein, 2015). Similar to what is suggested in the
“Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign, while providing more opportunities for
individuals to mobilize, online tactics allowed by social media platforms are not fully embraced
Another challenge from social media use was related to surveillance and containment,
which is also a challenge witnessed in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign. In the
“Free the Arctic 30” campaign, Russian news media was accused of censoring the relevant
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protest images. For example, Twitter user “Nathaniel @SavageNatPelle” wrote, “Russian media
blacks out photos in solidarity with photographer jailed with Greenpeace activists
#FreeTheArctic30.” This tweet described that the photos taken by the arrested journalist Denis
depicting the conflict between Russian coast guards and 30 Greenpeace activists were censored
by several Russian media outlets. These photos were censored because Gazprom and the Russian
government may see them as a potential risk to the government’s and the corporation’s
reputations (Costanza-Chock, 2004, p. 274; see also Bennett, 2003; Curran et al., 2012; Uldam,
2016). As such, social movement actors are also confronted with challenges from surveillance by
corporations and governments on social media. In addition, my data shows one side of opinions
from campaign supporters but lacks insights into standpoints of Gazprom and the Russian
government as targeted parties. This could be a strategy that corporations used to protect their
reputations (Uldam, 2016). By choosing not to respond to critiques on Twitter, Gazprom and the
Russian government potentially tried to avoid negative impacts on them (Uldam, 2016).
In the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign, link sharing was a main feature of Twitter that
activists used to reach out to other users and proliferate protest messages. Link sharing for
external websites was still a common online tactic employed by social movement actors. Among
all the tweets with links attached, over 40% of the content was linked to online campaigns, such
as online petition, online emailing, letter writing, and online donations. In this campaign, the use
of link sharing focused on online campaign strategies and these strategies seemed to be more
diverse than the other case. As shown in my data, these websites were frequently shared when
social movement actors urged the Russian government to release the Greenpeace activists. This
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finding indicates that Twitter was considered to be an important platform which can direct
Tweets attached to links to organization websites accounted for 23.56% of all the tweets
with links. The majority of these links are directed to Greenpeace websites, which constituted
93.68% of the total link sharing to organizational websites. Links to other organizational
websites, such as the websites of WWF, O Dia da Terra, 350, EcoWatch, and Nobel Women’s
Initiative, can also be seen on Twitter. As shown in my data, more organizational websites were
linked in tweets in the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign than the other case, but Greenpeace
websites were still the most widely shared compared to other organizational websites.
The commonly shared articles from organization websites focused on showing detailed
information about online and offline activities that protestors can participate in, articulating
reasons to support the campaign, and updating the progress that activists made in protest
activities. These articles were mainly shared in tweets that motivated campaign supporters to
pressure the Russian government to release the Arctic 30 and justify the Arctic 30’s protest
action against the Russian oil industry. For instance, Twitter user Mary Grace Kosta wrote,
an article from Greenpeace website providing the ideas of 30 online and offline activities that
movement participants can do to help the Arctic 30. Another example was: “The UN report
contains hundreds of pages of evidence to justify the action of the brave Arctic 30.
act.gp/164Dyda #FreeTheArctic30” produced by Twitter user “Sofia von Post”. In this tweet, the
protestor shared an article named Free the Arctic 30, and lock up fossil fuels from Greenpeace’s
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website articulating the UN report on the status of the world’s climate in order to argue that the
Content from organization websites was usually strongly supportive of the campaign and
its activists. Movement participants circulated the content from organization websites, on one
hand, to supplement more detailed information about the event for the general public (Stoddart &
MacDonald, 2011; Stoddart et al., 2015). On the other hand, they intended to promote the
solution of the issue with strong and inspiring arguments made by organizations (Stoddart &
MacDonald, 2011; Stoddart at al., 2015). This is a consistent finding that is also shown in the
Regarding the links to online news institutions, 17.60% of the examined tweets were
linked to news media. Specifically, The Guardian website was the most commonly shared by
activists, which accounted for 17.69% of the total link sharing to online news institutions.
Twitter content linked to BBC website constituted 11.92% of all the link sharing to news media.
Link sharing to The Huffington Post website represented 5%. Other news media websites that
were shared on Twitter include The New York Times, Reuters, The Independent, Sky News, ABC,
CBC, CNN, China Daily, Los Angeles Times, The Times and The Washington Post. As with the
“Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign, articles created by The Guardian website were
Most articles from mass media websites were shared when Twitter users intended to
pressure the Russian government to release the Arctic 30 and justify the action of 30 Greenpeace
activists against Gazprom. The mass media articles informed the audiences of the online and
offline support given by supporters and updated the progress of how the Russian government
was addressing the Arctic 30 case. For example, Twitter user “Mina*Bad Yoga KittyⓋ” posted
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the following: “#FreeTheArctic30 Sir Paul McCartney urges #Putin to leniency for #Greenpeace
article from the BBC website that showed a letter written by Paul McCartney (who was a
member of the rock band The Beatles) to Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. This letter called for
In addition to news articles reporting updated news about the Arctic 30 event, activists
also shared opinion articles that were published to comment on the arrest of 30 Greenpeace
activists. For instance, Twitter user “Ysbryd PPFOB” wrote, “Where's the support for the jailed
#FreeTheArctic30.” This tweet called for support for one of the Arctic 30, Colin Russell, and the
article from The Guardian appealed to the Australian government to help release this activist and
articulated the reason why the government should protect its citizens. Media articles shared on
Twitter by movement supporters were aligned with the content of tweets where the links were
shared. Mass media articles were commonly shared when the authors describe more detailed
information about the progress of the campaign or present similar opinions as movement support
in their tweets. It seems that mass media content was circulated by social movement actors to
support the veracity of Twitter messages or to enhance the perspectives of Twitter users against
protest targets.
As with the analysis of the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign, my findings
in the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign also indicate that mass media is used as a representative of
authority to authenticate movement information and influence public opinions (Mattoni, 2012;
Cappella & Jamieson, 1997; Iyengar, 1991). This may be attributed to the capacity of media
frames that can apply a structural logic to promote interpretation, evaluation and solutions
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(Entman, 2004; Rivenburgh, 2013). Moreover, protestors are inclined to cite mass media articles
sympathetic to movements in order to justify the rationality of movements because these articles
contribute positive media coverage or opinions that legitimate activists’ perspectives or criticize
the attitudes of governments or stakeholders (Papaioannou, 2015). In the “Free the Arctic 30”
campaign, social movement actors attempted to leverage mainstream mass media discourses to
influence how audiences perceived the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign.
With reference to linking to other social media, 15.71% of the examined Twitter content
had links to other social media platforms. Of these links, 28.02% were connected to YouTube,
16.38% were directed to Facebook, 9.48% were directed to Instagram, 8.62% were associated
with Tumblr, 7.33% were connected to Flickr, 4.74% were directed to other Twitter posts, and
My data shows that image and video-sharing websites were the most widely shared by
social movement actors. As with the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign, sharing
visual materials from other social media platforms provides social movement actors with more
autonomy and diverse resources, such as audio, visual and written materials, to frame their
messages (Staggenborg & Ramos, 2016). In addition, these platforms had a variety of pictures
and video clips that presented extra information about the campaign, and many of these pictures
and videos were not included on mass media websites and organizational websites. In other
words, these resources from other social media platforms were produced by activists to bypass
mass media and the control of governments and corporations (Earl & Kimport, 2011; Uldam &
Askani, 2013; Castells, 2015; Ceron & Memoli, 2016). As such, the sharing of information from
other social media platforms could provide audiences with unique insights that were different
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My analysis of different types of link sharing shows that the “Free the Arctic 30”
campaign made strategic use of a broader range of communication resources and operated within
a more complex and multifaceted media environment that was facilitated by repertoires of
communication (Mattoni, 2013). This is a consistent finding that is also suggested in the
“Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign. Content created by authors on the website, such
as online news articles and organizational articles, and user-generated content on different social
media platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, converged on Twitter (Walther &
Jang, 2012; Neubaum & Krämer, 2017). Specifically, my findings suggest that social media
platforms are considered to be tools to show information with individual and self-configurable
features that is not found on mainstream mass media or organizational websites. In addition,
Twitter as a social media platform plays a role in converging information from different mass
media and organizational sources, rather than offering the more detailed and comprehensive
information that organizational websites and mass media websites are more proficient in. As
such, the use of social media has not replaced mass media in contemporary social movements.
mobilization.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I examined the “Boycott Lego-Shell Partnership” and “Free the Arctic
30” critical events, which are part of the broader “Save the Arctic” campaign against Arctic oil
development. The main themes of the collected Twitter content in both critical events can be
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The “Boycott the Lego-Shell” Campaign The “Free the Arctic 30” Campaign
1 Directly calling for a termination of Lego Calling for help for the arrested 30
Greenpeace activists
and Shell’s cooperation
2 Asking movement participants to take online Online and offline support for the
and offline action to pressure Lego to stop campaign
its partnership with Shell
My findings show that while social media may allow individual participants to diffuse
information to a broader audience, social movement organizations still play a vital role in
initiating and structuring collective action within the social media field. Through my research,
My findings also suggest that a hybrid protest space consisting of digital social networks
and offline support communities is established to assemble and recruit campaign adherents to
take action (Castells, 2015). As another protest strategy, moral shocks are commonly used as
emotional leverage to help movement supporters express outrage and transform emotion into
action (Castells, 2015). The emotion of moral shocks is widely disseminated via visual
communication on Twitter. Images are used as symbols and metaphors to gain visibility for the
campaigns, shape public image of protest activities, and persuade the audiences to engage in the
campaigns (Lyer & Oldmeadow, 2006; Joffe, 2008; O’Neill & Nicholson-Cole, 2009; Anne
DiFrancesco & Young, 2011; Doerr et al., 2013). Furthermore, while the original model of the
boomerang effect suggested that social movements in the Global South sought international
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allies from the Global North to bring pressure on their domestic governments from outside, my
research argues that the boomerang effect is no longer used only to generate international
pressure in support of social movements primarily in the Global South (Keck & Sikkink, 1998;
Stoddart et al., 2016). As such, my study contributes to understanding of how protest tactics shift
Finally, my findings argue that social media does not wholly replace the importance of
mass media coverage for social movements, but they help create a more complex and
multifaceted media landscape for movements to navigate and make use of, which is consistent
with the notion that social movements rely on increasingly broad repertoires of communication
(Mattoni, 2012, 2013). My findings contribute insights into how the role of media environment
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Chapter Five: Discussion and Conclusion
Throughout my thesis, I applied the literature on social movement and digital media to
examine the changing relationship between social movement organizations and networked
individuals in the “Boycott Lego-Shell Partnership” and “Free the Arctic 30” critical events in
the “Save the Arctic” campaign. I used concepts like frame alignment processes, the boomerang
effect, e-tactics, and visual communication to investigate how protest strategies shift through
social media activism. I engaged the notion of repertories of communication with my analysis of
changing media environments for social movements. In this final chapter, I discuss my findings
in terms of the similarities and differences in the mobilization of two critical events and stress the
Discussion of Findings
Social media presents environmental movements with both opportunities and challenges.
Through examining the “Save the Arctic” campaign, I provide insights into the dynamics of
from the “Boycott Lego-Shell Partnership” and “Free the Arctic 30” events that I have discussed
1. Who played a role in mobilizing the “Save the Arctic” campaign on Twitter?
2. What kind of discourses were produced to respond to the oil conflict on Twitter during the “Save
the Arctic” campaign, and how did the Twitter content frame the campaign?
3. How was Twitter used by activists to extend and promote campaign-related messages in the
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My findings show that social movement information is widely proliferated by individuals
with the aid of social media, such as Twitter, but the messages generated by social movement
organizations resonate more with activists and receive more endorsement from them than content
produced by individuals. My finding indicates that social media offers individuals more
autonomy to express themselves publicly and enlarge the scope of engagement in contemporary
still play a key role in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign and the “Free the
Arctic 30” campaign (Earl & Kimport, 2011). Despite claims about the waning influence of
social movement organizations (Earl & Schussman, 2003; Shirky, 2008; Earl & Kimport, 2011;
Castells, 2015) and the increasing importance of networked individualist forms of activism
(Castells, 2015; Kleinhans, Van Ham & Evans-Cowley, 2015), my study shows that social
organizers of collective action in social movements. In other words, social media may allow
organizations still play a vital role in initiating and structuring collective action within the social
media field. Social movement organizations and networked individuals have become
interconnected and coordinated to mobilize with the aid of social media. Through my research,
show that the mobilization of issues related to Arctic oil drilling relied on a coordination of
multiple groups, rather than a single organization. In other words, the mesomobilization of
different social movement organizations plays a vital role in enlarging the movement scope and
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recruiting potential supporters (Gerhards & Rucht, 1992; Earl & Kimport, 2011). In both
campaigns, Twitter was used to facilitate the process of mesomobilization by enabling social
movement organizations to connect and communicate with each other more easily and reach a
broader public (Rainie & Wellman, 2012; Browning, 2013). This is perhaps because social
media allows movement organizations to collaborate with one another in order to achieve a
larger movement than any single group can generate through the process of mesomobilization
(Bennett, 2003a, 2003b, 2004a, 2004b; Earl & Kimport, 2011). As such, the coordination of
different movement organizations is indispensable for social movements in the social media era.
In addition, the two campaigns relied on a coalition of many regional branches rather than any
single office. Concerning the relationship of various branches within Greenpeace, regional
organizations localized the international issue of Arctic oil drilling in the campaign by
disseminating information in the native languages of local citizens and organizing protest
activities in local communities. This suggests that Greenpeace tries to promote the resonance of
their protest messages with international audiences in ways that address linguistic and cultural
differently by different audiences based on their cultural backgrounds (Dauvergne & Neville,
organizations. It is not only about the scope of coalition of different movement organizations, but
also about the ability to understand various cultural contexts in which individual activists are
embedded.
engage in the campaigns, social movement organizations employed frame alignment processes as
core tasks to depict problematic situations and propose relevant action on Twitter in both the
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“Boycott Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign and the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign (Snow et al.,
1986). Framing strategies that were used in these two campaigns appeared to be interconnected
but also independent. As the first step of framing, social movement organizations in the “Boycott
Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign identified on Twitter the problematic partnership of Lego and
Shell that was considered to be devastating to the Arctic and attributed the blame to Lego and
Shell (Benford & Snow, 2000). In the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign, the core issue determined
by social movement organizations on Twitter was that the Russian government arrested and
detained 30 Arctic Sunrise activists for protesting against the oil giant Gazprom. The Russian
authorities were identified as the target to blame in this campaign. Next, the solutions and plans
of action were proposed for the issues (Benford & Snow, 2000). As the solution for the Lego-
Shell partnership, social movement organizations pressured Lego to end their partnership with
Shell. In terms of the dilemma of the 30 Arctic Sunrise activists, social movement organizations
In order to promote solutions for these issues, a variety of e-tactics were employed
through Twitter as the process of frame bridging alignment to assemble and recruit campaign
adherents to take action (Snow et al., 1986; Earl & Kimport, 2011). On one hand, social
movement actors encouraged audience members to participate in online and/or offline action. On
the other hand, they showed support coming from online and offline protest activities on Twitter.
subsequent offline action (Schumann & Klein, 2015) because low-threshold online participation
creates an autonomous space for protestors to plan out their offline protest strategies (Castells,
2015), and showing activists’ support online could also boost a sense of empowerment and
engagement (Nip, 2004; Drury et al., 2005; Hara, 2008; Wojcieszak, 2009). Despite the critical
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voices questioning the effectiveness of online tactics (Bromberg, 2013; Lim, 2013), online
tactics are still widely used by activists as important methods to engage in the campaigns. The
analysis of two critical moments in the “Save the Arctic” campaign suggests that contemporary
movements do not simply rely on online action or activities in offline spaces. Rather, it is a
hybrid protest space consisting of digital social networks and offline support communities that
lies at the centre of environmental movements in the social media age (Castells, 2015).
Therefore, it could be helpful for activists to make strategic use of both online and offline
As one strategy to facilitate the solution of issues, celebrities were mobilized by activists
to support the campaigns. This finding suggests that celebrities are appointed a prominent role in
mobilization around environmental issues. The important role of celebrities is also demonstrated
Frangonikolopoulos & Huliaras, 2011). Calling on celebrities to help mobilize can increase the
exposure for environmental issues, raise public awareness, direct media attention on the issues,
and justify the rationality of the movements (Rohlinger, 2002; Brockington, 2009; Tsaliki,
Frangonikolopoulos & Huliaras, 2011). On the other hand, celebrities can also rely on
Tsaliki, Frangonikolopoulos & Huliaras, 2011). According to the written and visual content I
collected on Twitter, many celebrities participated in either online or offline activities. Because
social media can easily expose celebrities’ personalities and make it possible for audiences to
directly access celebrities (Ellcessor, 2012), how celebrities decide to get involved in social
movements on social media directly impacts their fame and popularity. Therefore, it is also likely
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for celebrities to seek cooperation with Greenpeace by offering to engage in the campaigns in
As another strategy to help address the issue, activists asked international political actors
to take action in the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign. Movement supporters mobilized political
forces from Brazil, India, South Africa, Australia, UK, Canada and other countries on Twitter to
compel Russian authorities to release the Arctic 30. This strategy is described as the “boomerang
effect” by Keck and Sikkink (1998). However, the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign showed an
evolution of the boomerang effect in the era of digital activism. In traditional social movements,
the boomerang effect was used by social movements in the Global South to seek international
allies from the Global North in order to exert pressure on domestic governments in the Global
South (Keck & Sikkink, 1998; Stoddart et al., 2016). However, the boomerang effect is no longer
used only to generate international pressure in support of social movements primarily in the
Global South (Stoddart et al., 2016). Social media, such as Twitter, helps the boomerang pattern
of influence characteristic of transnational networks evolve from this vertical pattern into a more
horizontal form. This strategy is now also used by transnational movements to seek international
allies from both northern and southern arenas to try to bring pressure on governments in the
Global North. Social media provides activists across the globe with access to politicians through
their official social media accounts, which makes it simpler and faster for domestic social
movement actors to bypass their state and search out international allies. Meanwhile, the threats
of climate change to the Arctic have been reconfigured as matters of global concern, prompting
into how the dynamics of the boomerang effect is shifting through social media activism.
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As the last step of shaping the discourses about the two campaigns on Twitter (Benford &
Snow, 2000), social movement organizations produced an appealing and convincing rationale to
justify their action. This motivational rationale was constructed in order to transform individuals’
emotion to action. In order to achieve this transformation, social movement actors are required to
incite anger and outrage because it is the key to overcoming anxiety and creating hope to pursue
their goals (Castells, 2015). In the “Boycott Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign, activists tried to
justify their protest action through political consumerism, which combines morality and the
market (Holzer, 2010). By framing the partnership of Lego and Shell as a negative impact on
children, activists expected to change shopping decisions of parents who were the main
consumers of Lego products and used them to protest Lego and Shell. In both campaigns,
activists sent direct condemnation from a variety of parties to the targets that were responsible
for the conflicts as ways to express their grievances and outrage. In addition, both campaigns
widely circulated discourses of environmental disruption caused by Arctic oil drilling, especially
the threat to polar bears. The cruel living condition of polar bears was frequently depicted in
striking pictures and these images enabled social movement organizations to draw public
attention and trigger their moral commitment to take action (Anne DiFrancesco & Young, 2011).
However, the reliance on polar bear politics as a framework for communicating about
climate change shifts attention away from human communities in the north. This is a critique that
was argued in previous research (Wright, 2014; Callison, 2014; Martinez, 2014). Indigenous
people are also affected by the consequences of climate change, such as more intense storms, the
loss of wildlife habitat, and the loss and excess of water (Callison, 2014; Martinez, 2014). While
polar bears are frequently highlighted as the victims of climate change in social movements, the
devastating impact of climate change on Inuit and Alaska Native cultures is neglected. The issue
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of climate change is not only about environmental challenges, but it is also about the
colonization of northern communities (e.g. land and resources) and cultures, and a matter of
sovereignty and human rights (Martinez, 2014; Wright, 2014; Shadian, 2014).
media platforms provides individuals with more autonomy and flexibility to share their feelings
with others and also enables their voices to reach a broader public through their networks on
social media. My findings reveal that the significant role of both outrage and hope as emotional
resources that initialize social movements has not changed. However, what has changed is that
the tools social movement actors use to mobilize outrage and hope have become extended and
enhanced.
My study provides insights into how visual communication is used as part of social
movement framing in digital forms of mobilization. Visual analysis of protest practices should be
participatory and interactive features of social media, pictures and videos can be uploaded online
in real time by activists to diffuse information about protests through visual narratives. These
visual materials documenting protest in offline spaces provide the opportunity for audiences to
access authentic protest messages online. Visual markers like symbols assist individuals in
identifying the orientation of a group and whether or not they belong to a protest as allies (Doerr
et al., 2013). These visual materials are virally disseminated by social media users to reach a
broad audience beyond the social movement scene, and thus they are able to shape public images
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of protests and help construct collective identities (Doerr et al., 2013). In other words, visual
communication is able to produce the power of persuasion and mobilization because images can
easily communicate metaphor and rearticulate reality (Lyer & Oldmeadow, 2006; Joffe, 2008;
By looking at link sharing, my study suggests that social media is not only seen as an
opportunity for protest actors to create their own frames to shape conflicts, but they are also
perceived as platforms for social movement actors to enhance the influence of their information.
In both events of the “Save the Arctic” campaign, activists commonly shared online campaign
websites, mass media websites, organizational websites and other social networking websites in
their Twitter posts. By doing so, protestors expected to gain more public visibility for the issues,
to provide more detailed information, and to engage a broader public in action through Twitter.
In other words, Twitter as a social media platform plays a role in converging information from
mass media and organizations, rather than offering detailed and comprehensive information that
organizational and mass media websites are more proficient in. In comparing mainstream mass
media and organizational websites, Twitter is more effective for sharing information with
individual and self-configurable features that are not usually seen on mainstream mass media or
organizational websites.
mainstream-dominated media system into a complex and multifaceted media environment that is
facilitated by repertoires of communication (Mattoni, 2012, 2013). In other words, the Internet
and social networking platforms have challenged the monopoly of traditional mass media over
the representation of social movements. The role of shaping public image of protests has shifted
from mainstream mass media to a more complex and multifaceted media platform consisting of
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mass media and social media. What I want to stress here is that mass media still functions as
crucial platforms for social movement actors to accomplish their mobilization goals and they
have not been replaced by social media. Rather, social media helps create a more complex and
multifaceted media landscape that is more diverse than before for movements to navigate and
make use of (Mattoni, 2012, 2013). My study contributes insights into the interconnection of
social media and traditional mainstream media. These repertories of communication require
social movement actors to learn to make strategic use of a broader range of communication tools.
Finally, while social media empowers individuals with more autonomy to mobilize
around environmental issues, they also allow the perspectives of counter-movement actors to
become more visible and easier to access. The analysis of the “Save the Arctic” campaign shows
that some people did not support Greenpeace’s campaign or held a questioning attitude towards
data, Greenpeace was also criticized for its extreme protest action. For some audience members,
low-risk online tactics, such as tweeting or emailing, were considered to be inefficient in terms
of bringing about measurable social changes. This finding suggests that the capacity of online
activism for producing substantial changes is still under discussion and needs additional
investigation and evaluation. These findings imply that campaign frames and strategies in the
“Save the Arctic” campaign were not fully embraced by audiences and may be critiqued by some
Twitter users. In other words, social media can easily expose counter-movement opinions and
Limitations
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One of the limitations of my research design is the size of the sample. This limitation
resides in three aspects. First, I only chose to examine the “Save the Arctic” campaign. The
adverse impact of oil exploitation and consumption on the climate and environment is a critical
issue that has been widely discussed in recent years. The “Save the Arctic” campaign was an
influential environmental movement mobilized in both offline and cyber spaces to protect the
Arctic from oil drilling, and it also received a large response from global audiences online and
offline. Therefore, the “Save the Arctic” campaign is a representative case to explore how
contemporary environmental movements unfold in the social media age. Despite its uniqueness,
it can only contribute limited insights into the dynamics of environmental movements in the era
of social media. For instance, my research project lacks insights into how environmental
movements mobilize around the negative impact of climate change on human communities in the
Arctic on social media platforms. In addition, I was not able to analyze how other conflicts
related to oil exploration and climate change were mobilized and how other types of
environmental issues were mobilized in digital activism. Therefore, my study might not present a
comprehensive and integrated picture of environmental activism against oil development in the
social media era, and it is likely that not all my research findings can be applied to explain
Second, my research only focuses on Twitter. During the process of data collection and
analysis, I found that Twitter presented a discussion of oil conflict in the Arctic from diverse
sources, such as individual activists, social movement organizations, politicians, and celebrities,
and relevant content was presented using a variety of tactics, such as textual communication,
visual communication and link sharing. I realized the complexity of the Twitter content enabled
me to explore the “Save the Arctic” campaign at a more comprehensive level. However, limited
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research time did not allow me to fully examine other social networking platforms, such as
Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, or Instagram. Social movement actors might have different
strategies to employ on different social media based on the advantages of their platform features.
Thus, I could miss characteristics of the “Save the Arctic” campaign on other social media
platforms.
Another limitation of my research design is the sampling strategy for the “Save the
Arctic” campaign. The “Save the Arctic” campaign rose in 2012 and subsided in 2015, and the
main stage of the campaign lasted 5 years. While I was searching the relevant data to this
campaign, I found there were tens of thousands of tweets on Twitter which were related to the
discussion. Due to time constraints, I needed to narrow the scope of my research data and tease
out the most valuable and relevant data to answer my research questions. Thus, I decided to
locate a few key words/hashtags which could construct a feasible sample size for examining the
“Save the Arctic” campaign. This sampling strategy eventually helped me locate two critical
moments in the “Save the Arctic” campaign which are the “Boycott Lego-Shell Partnership”
campaign and the “Free the Arctic 30” campaign. This sampling strategy only allowed me to
explore two critical events that were most typical of the “Save the Arctic” campaign, but there
were other smaller scale events or less typical moments during the campaign that were missing
from my case study. Therefore, the dynamics of the “Save the Arctic” campaign shown in my
analysis was perhaps less diverse than in actuality. Besides, I analyzed a 10% sample of the
“Free the Arctic 30” campaign when I was examining this event. I was aware that a 10% sample
was not an ideal sample size, but it made sense in terms of constructing a corpus of data that was
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Other methodological limitations include the barriers of textual analysis. The textual data
I gathered for my research was already generated on Twitter before I started my study, but the
interpretation I contributed to the data was directed by my knowledge in sociological fields and
my cultural backgrounds. In other words, my understandings of the data were not equal to the
actual viewpoints and explanations that social movement actors had for the “Save the Arctic”
campaign. This is also known as the problem of inference in textual analysis (Cottle, 2003). This
means textual analysis only allowed me to provide insights into the campaign based on my own
research standpoint, and I might not have an accurate grasp of all the data that I examined by
deeper insight into the interaction of social media and social movements. The first area that
would be worthwhile to examine is how social movement actors actually planned to use social
media to mobilize the “Save the Arctic” campaign versus how I interpreted this from my data.
One of the limitations of my study is that the meaning of textual content that I interpreted may
not be aligned with the intention of content producers. This concern can be addressed through
interviewing because it helps researchers explore complicated phenomena that may be hidden or
unseen and gain insights into the perspectives of social movement actors who were directly
involved in the “Save the Arctic” campaign (Tracy, 2012). As such, it would be useful to
conduct interviews with organizational leaders and individual protestors because content
producers would be able to offer more critical insights into the “Save the Arctic” campaign and
108
The second recommendation for future research is exploring how the targets of conflicts
responses to Arctic oil conflict from social movement organizations, individual participants,
celebrities and international politicians, and also examined how social media was employed by
movement supporters to mobilize around social issues. However, the viewpoints from the oil
industry and governments as mobilization targets were not obvious on Twitter based on my
sample and keyword search strategies. The role of social media in mobilizing the perspectives of
these stakeholders remained unknown. Thus, it would be useful for future research to look into
how the mobilization targets considered the role of social media in response to Arctic oil conflict
or other environmental issues and how environmental movement opponents used social media to
respond to challenges. Research in these questions could present a contrast between the social
media use of movement supporters and movement targets and also provide a more critical
Another recommendation is for a broader study of social movements and digital media.
Future research should consider how other factors potentially influence the role of social media
in mobilizing social movements. My research findings about the role of social media in
environmental activities mobilized with the aid of social media. However, there are other
elements I did not have an opportunity to examine that may also affect social media uses, such as
the impact of governmental policies on social media, the competences for social media that users
have, the activity funding of an organization, and the role of astroturfing activities in shaping
social media as a dispersed space of social movement mobilization. These elements would affect
how accessible social media is to audiences, how proficient activists are in social media uses,
109
and the authenticity of digitally networked individualism. Any of these elements is likely to
affect how social media plays a role in different social movements in different regions.
Therefore, exploring how other resources interconnect with social media in a movement would
help us better understand the opportunities and challenges of digital activism is facing in
contemporary societies.
Finally, I recommend that researchers continue to pay attention to social media activism
in the future and further explore what barriers, if any, currently hinder people from mobilizing
around social issues on social media platforms. For example, future research can investigate
what may impede Greenpeace to draw attention to the impact of climate change on northern
communities on Twitter in the “Boycott the Lego-Shell Partnership” campaign and “Free the
Arctic 30” campaign. I have discussed the deficiency of online protest action that is proposed by
some scholars (Lim, 2013; Bromberg, 2013; Schumann & Klein, 2015), but it is difficult to
evaluate this perspective without further investigation and research. This perspective can be
better evaluated through conducting further research by looking at more cases of digital activism
and optimizing the research methods, such as adding fieldwork and interviews as part of the
research methodologies. This could help social movement actors gain a better understanding of
the negative effects of social media, such as the surveillance and control of dissent, as well as
tendencies towards clicktivism, and improve their protest tactics in order to better face these
challenges.
110
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Appendix One
➢ Content Producers
• 350 Australia
• Action Aid
• Arctic Sunrise
• Climate Issues
• Climate Reality
• EcoWatch
• GP Activist Network
• GP Arctic Watch
• GP Rainbow Warrior
• GP Volunteering Lab
• Greenpeace
128
• Greenpeace Africa
• Greenpeace Andalucia
• Greenpeace Belgium
• Greenpeace Bristol
• Greenpeace Camden
• Greenpeace Canada
• Greenpeace Canterbury
• Greenpeace Cherbourg
• Greenpeace Czech
• Greenpeace Dusseldort
• Greenpeace Edinburgh
• Greenpeace EU
• Greenpeace Euskadi
• Greenpeace France
• Greenpeace Germany
• Greenpeace Hannover
129
• Greenpeace Huddersfield
• Greenpeace India
• Greenpeace Japan
• Greenpeace Korea
• Greenpeace Leeds
• Greenpeace Napoli
• Greenpeace Newcastle
• Greenpeace Niederrh
• Greenpeace NL
• Greenpeace Notts
• Greenpeace NZ
• Greenpeace Oxford
• Greenpeace Philippines
• Greenpeace Pictures
• Greenpeace Pix
• Greenpeace Portsmouth
130
• Greenpeace PressDesk
• Greenpeace Quebec
• Greenpeace Reunion
• Greenpeace Russia
• Greenpeace Shoreditch
• Greenpeace Slovensko
• Greenpeace Starsbourg
• Greenpeace Suomi
• Greenpeace Sverige
• Greenpeace Switzerland
• Greenpeace UK
• Greenpeace UK Oceans
• Greenpeace USA
• Greenpeace Vancouver
131
• Greenpeace Vaud
• Imperiled Oceans
• Local Auckland
• MintPress News
• Team4Nature UK
• Wilderness Committee
• WWF
132
• WWF Australia
• WWF EU
• WWF Scotland
• WWF UK
➢ Content Targets
• Celebrities
• Lego
• Media
o BBC News
o YouTube
o Others
o Gazprom
o Shell
o Others
• Online Action
• Organizations
133
o Arctic Sunrise
o Greenpeace
o Greenpeace UK
• Others
• The Authorities
o The UK Authorities
o The UN
134
➢ Text Content Themes
• climate change has increased the Arctic ocean's temperature and the ice's melting speed
135
• compliment activists' action
• compliment Lego
• dissatisfaction with no action from Canadian authorities for the arrested Canadian
activists
• dissatisfaction with no action from the UK authorities for the arrested British activists
136
• Italian oil company Eni called on Gazprom to free the Arctic 30
• other news
• Russian news media blocked the photos against the Arctic Sunrise activist
• Shell uses Lego to clean up its image for dirty oil drilling
137
• support from celebrities
• support to Lego
• thanks to individuals
• thanks to organizations
138
• thanks to other countries' politicians
• the Arctic 30 are captured and detained in Russia for peaceful protest
➢ Link Sharing
• Gazprom Website
• Governmental Websites
139
• Letter Writing Website
• Music Website
• News Sites
o ABC
o BBC
o Business Insider
o CBC
o China Daily
o CNN
o Forbes
o Global News
o others
o Reuters
o Sky News
o The Guardian
o The Independent
140
o The Times
• Organization Websites
o 350
o EcoWatch
o Greenpeace
o O Dia da Terra
o WWF
• Personal Websites
o Facebook
o Flickr
o Instagram
o Others
141
o Tumblr
o Twitter
o Vimeo
o YouTube
➢ Visual Communication
• Images
o # tweetspill poster
o #BlockShell poster
o #FreetheArctic30 badge
o #FreetheArctic30 poster - the Arctic Sunrise ship and a cow holding “Free the
o #FreetheArctic30 posters
o #FreetheArctic30 posters - a hand holding free the Arctic Sunrise ship out of the
ocean
o #FreetheArctic30 posters- the Arctic 30's photos edited with encouraging words
142
o a screenshot of Russian Olympic Game official website
o a screenshot of the survey showing the majority thinks the Arctic 30 should be
freed
o Arctic Sunrise ship is sailing in the ocean (with rainbow and different countries'
flags)
o information poster - a notice of the hearing by International Tribunal for the Law
of the Sea
o Lego
143
▪ Lego mini figures (others)
▪ Lego mini figures - oil workers and polar bears get stuck in the oil spill
▪ supporting poster - seals are sadly lying on broken ice (Lego bricks)
144
o offline protest - protest poster against Gazprom at the football game
o offline protest - protestors, life size polar bear, life size Lego
o Polar bear
145
▪ a polar bear is clinging to the edge of a piece of ice
▪ Aurora
▪ the painting of a polar bear holding free the Arctic activists’ poster
146
o a mini Lego figure is crying
o a unicorn
o supporting poster - big fish (people) is chasing two small fish (Gazprom and
Shell)
o others
o supporting posters for Lego campaign - Lego toys edited with supporting words
o supporting tattoos
147
o the Arctic Sunrise ship and isolated ice with a heart made of different national
flags
▪ iceberg
▪ snowy owl
o the photo of the Arctic 30 reuniting with their family and friends
o the photo of the arctic 30 with arms raised when they were pointed with guns
o the photo of the Arctic Sunrise activists leaving with smiles or thumb up
• videos
o #freekieron
148
o ''30 days of injustice'' Global Day of Solidarity for the Arctic 30
o “Arctic 30” Face 7 Years in Prison for Targeting Russian Gas Drilling
#freethearctic30.
o Arctic 30 Detainee Kieron Bryan reacts to news he has been granted bail
o Arctic30 Solidarity Flash mob with Rickard Söderberg at the central station in
Malmö
149
o Free the Arctic 30 #Greenpeace
o inspiring action
o live concerts
rig
150
o Stand with the arctic 30
o Vicious Circle
➢ Retweet
151