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Why this issue?

Online collective action against Disability Benefit Cuts: the grassroots response to a green paper Hardest Hit symposium September 2012 Claire Preston claire.preston@student.anglia.ac.uk. Why this issue?.

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Why this issue?

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  1. Online collective action against Disability Benefit Cuts: the grassroots response to a green paper Hardest Hit symposium September 2012 Claire Preston claire.preston@student.anglia.ac.uk

  2. Why this issue? “ICTs now play an indispensible role in political organisation online around welfare issues” (Goggin and Newell, 2006, p309) Rethinking of collective action theory – themes, demographics Continuing welfare retrenchment – ‘austerity’ era

  3. July - Nov 2009 Consultation on Shaping Future of Care Together May 2010 Coalition government elected June - Oct 2010 Cuts announcements. Broken of Britain and Where’s the Benefit set up 6 Dec -18 Feb 2011 Consultation on DLA reform (Welfare Bill) Jan 14-16, 2011 Blogswarm, One Month Before Heartbreak 16 Feb 2011 Welfare Reform Bill first reading in House of Commons May 2011 Hardest Hit March Jan 2012 Responsible Reform published, #spartacusreport trends on Twitter 8 March 2012 Welfare Reform Act receives royal assent

  4. Research purpose • To characterise the nature of online activity and understand its drivers • Theory building. Modified version of theory of collective action from social psychology • Collective identity, group injustice, group efficacy. Plus dynamism and networks

  5. Methodology Data – campaign and comments Mixed methods Campaign – digital tracing. Snapshot of network Comments – qualitative analysis (approx 200 comments) informing quantitive analysis (approx 3000)

  6. Findings Vertical and horizontal mobilisation networks – Benefits and Work and other hubs. Grassroots response Forums, FaceBook and blogs important Publics were assembled, issue framed Networks with different basis for membership acting in concert

  7. Findings Two drivers in evidence in the comments - collective identity and injustice. Status categories crossed boundaries Whether or not collective identity expressed varied by declared status. Relatively likely to be expressed by those who declared themselves disabled Quantitative analysis identified top 8 comment types (80% of comments). Roughly five and a half times more comments of type: “We disabled people find the proposals unjust. They will adversely affect us”, than of type: “We carers find the proposals are unjust. They will adversely affect us”

  8. Implications Assessments of collective identity and injustice don’t make sense at level of a collective action event. Networks may be a more meaningful unit of analysis Identities don’t follow policy lines. Carer identity or over arching categories? Identification a process. Occurs during collective action. Austerity policy has potential to change a) networks and b) identification Networks infused with power. Determine who is participating. Threat of loss of internet access. “Too expensive” major reason for ex-use (OxIS, 2011) Consultations – deliberation or voting?

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