skip to main content
10.1145/2441776.2441831acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagescscwConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

Hollaback!:the role of storytelling online in a social movement organization

Published:23 February 2013Publication History

Abstract

CSCW systems are playing an increasing role in activism. How can new communications technologies support social movements? The possibilities are intriguing, but as yet not fully understood. One key technique traditionally leveraged by social movements is storytelling. In this paper, we examine the use of collective storytelling online in the context of a social movement organization called Hollaback, an organization working to stop street harassment. Can sharing a story of experienced harassment really make a difference to an individual or a community? Using Emancipatory Action Research and qualitative methods, we interviewed people who contributed stories of harassment online. We found that sharing stories shifted participants' cognitive and emotional orientation towards their experience. The theory of "framing" from social movement research explains the surprising power of this experience for Hollaback participants. We contribute a way of looking at activism online using social movement theory. Our work illustrates that technology can help crowd-sourced framing processes that have traditionally been done by social movement organizations.

References

[1]
Bar, F., Brough, M., Costanza-Chock, S., Gonzalez, C., Wallis, C., and Garces, A. Mobile Voices: A Mobile, Open Source, Popular Communication Platform for First-Generation Immigrants in Los Angeles. Unpublished paper presented at the Preconference workshop at the International Communication Association, (2009).
[2]
Bardzell, S. and Bardzell, J. Towards a Feminist HCI Methodology: social science, feminism, and HCI. CHI (2011).
[3]
Bardzell, S. Feminist HCI: Taking Stock and Outlining an Agenda for Design. CHI (2010).
[4]
Bell, L. A. Storytelling for social justice: Connecting narrative and the arts in antiracist teaching. Taylor & Francis, 2010.
[5]
Benford, R. and Snow, D. Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment. Annual Review of Sociology 26, (2000), 611--639.
[6]
Bidwell, N. J., Reitmaier, T., Marsden, G., and Han-sen, S. Designing with Mobile Digital Storytelling in rural Africa. CHI (2010).
[7]
Di Blas, N., Paolini, P., and Sabiescu, A. Collective Digital Storytelling at School as a Whole-Class Interaction. IDC (2010).
[8]
Cao, X., Lindley, S. E., Helmes, J., and Sellen, A. Telling the Whole Story: anticipation, inspiration and reputation in a field deployment of TellTable. CSCW (2010).
[9]
Christensen, H. S. Political activities on the Internet: Slacktivism or political participation by other means? First Monday 16, 2--7 (2011).
[10]
Coleman, G. Anonymous: From the Lulz to Collective Action. The New Everyday: A Media Commons Project 6, (2011).
[11]
Crabtree, A., Rodden, T., and Mariani, J. Collaborating around collections: informing the continued development of photoware. CSCW (2004).
[12]
Cutrell, E. Technology for emerging markets at MSR India. CSCW (2011).
[13]
Davis, J. E. Stories of change: Narrative and social movements. State Univ of New York Pr, 2002.
[14]
Diakopoulos, N. A. and Shamma, D. A. Characterizing debate performance via aggregated twitter sentiment. CHI (2010).
[15]
Dimond, J. Feminist HCI For Real: Designing Technology in Support of a Social Movement. Dissertation. Georgia Institute of Technology 2012.
[16]
Erickson, T. Design as storytelling. Interactions 3, 4 (1996), 30--35.
[17]
Foth, M., Choi, J. H., and Satchell, C. Urban informatics. CSCW (2011).
[18]
Frohlich, D. M., Rachovides, D., Riga, K., et al. StoryBank: mobile digital storytelling in a development context. CHI (2009).
[19]
Ganz, M. The power of story in social movements. unpublished paper for the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Anahem, California, August, (2001).
[20]
Gardner, C. B. Passing by: Gender and public harassment. Univ of California Pr on Demand, 1995.
[21]
Garrett, R. K. Protest in an information society: A review of literature on social movements and new ICTs. Information, Communication & Society 9, 2 (2006), 202--224.
[22]
Gelsomino, M. The Zapatista Effect: Information Communication Technology Activism and Marginalized Communities. Faculty of Information Quarterly 2, 2 (2010).
[23]
Gilbert, E. and Karahalios, K. Widespread worry and the stock market. ICWSM (2010).
[24]
Gladwell, M. Twitter, Facebook, and social activism. The New Yorker, 2010.
[25]
Grimes, A., Bednar, M., Bolter, J. D., and Grinter, R. E. EatWell: sharing nutrition-related memories in a low-income community. CSCW (2008).
[26]
Grimes, A., Tan, D., and Morris, D. Toward technologies that support family reflections on health. GROUP, ACM (2009).
[27]
Hardt, M. and Negri, A. The Fight for 'Real Democracy' at the Heart of Occupy Wall Street. Foreign Affairs {Online} 11, (2011).
[28]
Hayes, G. The Relationship of Action Research to HCI. Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 18, 3 (2011).
[29]
Herr, K. and Anderson, G. L. The action research dissertation: A guide for students and faculty. Sage Publications, Inc, 2005.
[30]
Jagori and UNIFEM. Safe City Free of Violence against Women and Girls Initiative. (2010).
[31]
Jordan, T. and Taylor, P. A. Hacktivism and cyberwars: rebels with a cause? Psychology Press, 2004.
[32]
Kearl, H. Stop street harassment: Making public places safe and welcoming for women. Praeger Publishers, 2010.
[33]
Kolko, B. E., Hope, A., Brunette, W., et al. Adapting collaborative radiological practice to low-resource environments. CSCW (2012)
[34]
Lambert, J. Digital storytelling: capturing lives creaing community. (2006).
[35]
Lu, F., Tian, F., Jiang, Y., et al. ShadowStory: creative and collaborative digital storytelling inspired by cultural heritage. CHI (2011)
[36]
Macmillan, R., Nierobisz, A., and Welsh, S. Experiencing the streets: Harassment and perceptions of safety among women. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 37, 3 (2000), 306--322.
[37]
Masters, J. The History of Action Research. Action Research Electronic Reader, (1995).
[38]
McAdam, D., Zald, M. N., and McCarthy, J. D. Comparative perspectives on social movements. Cambridge University Press Cambridge, 2004.
[39]
Meier, P. P. The Impact of the Information Revolution on Protest Frequency in Repressive Contexts. International Studies Association annual meeting, New York, NY, March, (2009), 1994--2003.
[40]
Miles, M. B. and Huberman, A. M. Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. SAGE publications, Inc, 1994.
[41]
Monroy-Hernández, A. and Yun, F. A monkey and a stick figure: stories of remixing and social creativity. CSCW (2012)
[42]
Morozov, E. The brave new world of slacktivism. Foreign Policy 19, (2009).
[43]
Newman, M. W., Lauterbach, D., Munson, S. A., Resnick, P., and Morris, M. E. It's not that I don't have problems, I'm just not putting them on Facebook: challenges and opportunities in using online social networks for health. CSCW (2011).
[44]
Pousman, Z., Rouzati, H., and Stasko, J. Imprint, a community visualization of printer data: designing for open-ended engagement on sustainability. CSCW (2008).
[45]
Reason, P. and Bradbury, H. The SAGE handbook of action research: participative inquiry: participative inquiry and practice. Sage, 2007.
[46]
Romero, D. M., Meeder, B., and Kleinberg, J. Differ-ences in the mechanics of information diffusion across topics: Idioms, political hashtags, and complex contagion on Twitter. Proceedings of the 20th international conference on World wide web, (2011), 695--704.
[47]
Rotman, D., Vieweg, S., Yardi, S., et al. From slacktivism to activism: participatory culture in the age of social media. Extended Abstract CHI (2011).
[48]
Shen, C., Lesh, N. B., Vernier, F., Forlines, C., and Frost, J. Sharing and building digital group histories. CSCW (2002).
[49]
Shklovski, I., Palen, L., and Sutton, J. Finding community through information and communication technology in disaster response. CSCW (2008).
[50]
Silberman, M. S., Ross, J., Irani, L., and Tomlinson, B. Sellers' problems in human computation markets. Proceedings of the ACM SIGKDD Workshop on Human Computation, (2010), 18--21.
[51]
Smyth, T. N., Etherton, J., and Best, M. L. MOSES: exploring new ground in media and post-conflict reconciliation. Proceedings of the 28th international conference on Human factors in computing systems, ACM (2010), 1059--1068.
[52]
Snow, D. A. and Soule, S. A. A primer on social movements. WW Norton, 2010.
[53]
Starbird, K. and Palen, L. "Voluntweeters": self-organizing by digital volunteers in times of crisis. CHI (2011).
[54]
Starbird, K. and Palen, L. (How) will the revolution be retweeted?: information diffusion and the 2011 Egyptian uprising. CSCW (2012).
[55]
Sterling, S. R., O'Brien, J., and Bennett, J. K. Ad-vancement through interactive radio. Information Systems Frontiers 11, 2 (2009), 145--154.
[56]
Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. Basics of Qualitative Re-search: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. Sage Publications, 1998.
[57]
Tarrow, S. Power in movement: Social movements and contentious politics. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
[58]
Tufekci, Z. and Wilson, C. Social Media and the Decision to Participate in Political Protest: Observations From Tahrir Square. Journal of Communication 62, 2 (2012), 363--379.
[59]
White, A. M. Talking Feminist, Talking Black: Micromobilization Processes in a Collective Protest against Rape. Gender & Society 13, 1 (1999), 77--100.
[60]
Wyche, S. P., Oreglia, E., Ames, M. G., et al. Learn-ing from marginalized users: reciprocity in HCI4D. CSCW (2012).

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Apprehension of reproducing racialized stigmas in storytelling on street harassment in France: ‘I feel I’d just be adding to the stereotype’The Sociological Review10.1177/00380261241261475Online publication date: 1-Aug-2024
  • (2024)Socio-Cognitive Framework for Personal Informatics: A Preliminary Framework for Socially-Enabled Health TechnologiesACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/367450431:3(1-41)Online publication date: 30-Jun-2024
  • (2024)Making Trouble: Techniques for Queering Data and AI SystemsCompanion Publication of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3656156.3658393(381-384)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
  • Show More Cited By

Index Terms

  1. Hollaback!: the role of storytelling online in a social movement organization

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    CSCW '13: Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported cooperative work
    February 2013
    1594 pages
    ISBN:9781450313315
    DOI:10.1145/2441776
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from[email protected]

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published:23 February 2013

    Permissions

    Request permissions for this article.

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. activism
    2. emancipatory action research
    3. feminist hci
    4. social justice
    5. social movements
    6. storytelling

    Qualifiers

    • Research-article

    Conference

    CSCW '13
    Sponsor:
    CSCW '13: Computer Supported Cooperative Work
    February 23 - 27, 2013
    Texas, San Antonio, USA

    Acceptance Rates

    Overall Acceptance Rate 2,235 of 8,521 submissions, 26%

    Upcoming Conference

    CSCW '24

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)283
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)45
    Reflects downloads up to 14 Sep 2024

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2024)Apprehension of reproducing racialized stigmas in storytelling on street harassment in France: ‘I feel I’d just be adding to the stereotype’The Sociological Review10.1177/00380261241261475Online publication date: 1-Aug-2024
    • (2024)Socio-Cognitive Framework for Personal Informatics: A Preliminary Framework for Socially-Enabled Health TechnologiesACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/367450431:3(1-41)Online publication date: 30-Jun-2024
    • (2024)Making Trouble: Techniques for Queering Data and AI SystemsCompanion Publication of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3656156.3658393(381-384)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
    • (2024)Dismantling Gender Blindness in Online Discussion of a Crime/Gender DichotomyProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36536868:CSCW1(1-31)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
    • (2024)Resistive Threads: Electronic Streetwear as Social Movement MaterialProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661537(69-85)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
    • (2024)Stories as Boundary Objects: Digital Storytelling with Migrant Communities for Heritage DiscoursesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36410168:CSCW1(1-32)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
    • (2024)Fighting for Their Voice: Understanding Indian Muslim Women's Responses to Networked HarassmentProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36410058:CSCW1(1-24)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
    • (2024)Designing for Agonism: 12 Workers' Perspectives on Contesting Technology FuturesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36410018:CSCW1(1-25)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
    • (2024)Wage Theft and Technology in the Home Care ContextProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36374288:CSCW1(1-30)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
    • (2024)Data Storytelling in Data Visualisation: Does it Enhance the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Information Retrieval and Insights Comprehension?Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3643022(1-21)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
    • Show More Cited By

    View Options

    Get Access

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online witheReader.

    eReader

    Media

    Figures

    Other

    Tables

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media