university of kwazulu-natal do web 2.0 social media impact transnational social advocacy?

343 Pages·2015·6.24 MB·English

UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL

DO WEB 2.0 SOCIAL MEDIA IMPACT
TRANSNATIONAL SOCIAL ADVOCACY? A STUDY OF
SOUTH AFRICAN CIVIL SOCIETY AND GREENPEACE

By
Kirubagaran Jagathesan Pillay
8320205

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
of
Doctor of Philosophy
In Information Systems & Technology

School of Management, Information Technology and Governance
College of Law and Management Studies

Supervisor: Professor Manoj S. Maharaj
2012

i
DECLARATION
I, Kiru Pillay, declare that:
i. The research reported in this thesis, except where otherwise indicated is my original
research.
ii. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or examination at any other
university.
iii. This thesis does not contain other persons’ data, pictures, graphs or other information,
unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other persons.
iv. This thesis does not contain other persons’ writing, unless specifically acknowledged as
being sourced from other researchers. Where other written sources have been quoted,
then:
a. their words have been re-written but the general information attributed to them
has been referenced;
b. where their exact words have been used, their writing has been placed inside
quotation marks, and referenced.
v. Where I have reproduced a publication of which I am author, co-author or editor, I have
indicated in detail which part of the publication was actually written by myself alone
and have fully referenced such publications.
vi. This thesis does not contain text, graphics or tables copied and pasted from the Internet,
unless specifically acknowledged, and the source being detailed in the thesis and in the
References sections.

Signed: ……………………………

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A huge thank you to my supervisor, mentor, colleague and friend Professor Manoj Maharaj, for
his tireless encouragement and supervision; to my daughter and the rest of my family for their
support and patience; to my fellow PhD candidates at UKZN for their support and advice; and a
very special thank you to Kim Jurgensen who was there from the beginning.

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GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS
AIT Advanced Information Technologies
AJAX Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
ANC African National Congress
ANOVA Analysis of Variants
APF Anti-Privatisation Forum
API Application Programming Interface
ARPA Advanced Research Projects Agency
AST Adaptive Structuration Theory
COP Conference of the Parties
COSATU Congress of South African Trade Unions
CSO Civil Society Organisation
DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
DNS Domain Name System
ENISA European Network and Information Security Agency
GIS Geographical Information Systems
GDP Gross Domestic Product
HTML Hyper Text Markup Language
HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol
IAB Internet Architecture Board
ICANN Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
ICT Information and Communication Technology
IETF The Internet Engineering Task Force
IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
IP Internet Protocol
IT Information Technology
ICT&S Information, Communication Technology and Society
IMC I ndependent Media Centre
IMF International Monetary Fund
ITU International Telecommunications Union

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LRA Lords Resistance Army
MtCO2e Metric Tons Carbon Dioxide Equivalent
MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MMS Multi-media Messaging Service
NGO Non-governmental Organisation
PC Personal Computer
PIPA Protect IP Act
RSS Real Simple Syndication / Rich Site Summary
RIA Rich Internet Applications
RUE Rich User Experience
SACP South African Communist Party
SANGOCO The South African National NGO Coalition
SMS Short-Messaging Service
SMT Senior Management Team
SOPA Stop Online Piracy Act
TED Technology, Entertainment, Design
TCP Transmission Control Protocol
UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
URL Universal Resource Locator
UUCP Unix-to-Unix Copy
WTO World Trade Organisation
WWW World Wide Web
XML Extensible Markup Language

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ABSTRACT
This study focuses on how civil society organisations deploy Web 2.0 technologies for
transnational social advocacy, the context of this technology use, and the effect of this adoption
in achieving organisational goals. It analyses the effectiveness of these technologies in an
attempt to understand the strategic intent in deploying these social media services. The
reciprocal impact of this technology adoption on civil society organisations’ roles, structure, and
orientation was also investigated. The technologies targeted for study are those commonly
described as Web 2.0 social media including social networking sites, blogs, podcasts and wikis
amongst others. While the literature points to many studies relating to the use of the Internet for
advocacy it also suggests that emerging technologies have not been studied in any detail. In
particular there are no recent studies that investigate Web 2.0 technologies. These studies have
the potential to provide new perspectives to current theoretical frameworks.
This study is designed as part case study and part exploratory. The research adopts an
interdisciplinary approach using both qualitative and quantitative methods. A survey of South
African civil society organisations painted a picture of the extent of adoption of Web 2.0 social
services across South African civil society, and detailed the reasons, and the benefits - both
perceived and actual - of such adoption. The global environmental justice organisation,
Greenpeace is used as a case study. The organisation’s major goal is to advocate for changes in
environmental policy and behaviour, has been at the forefront of environmental issues since its
inception, and has used the mass media as an effective campaigning tool.
The key findings that emerged in the South African context was that of a sector that has a low-
level of knowledge of social media services and an accompanying low level of adoption. This is
partly explained by factors at a national level including macro-economic policies, and a low
level of Internet penetration and ICT readiness. Using Greenpeace as a case study revealed that
while social media-led activism is increasingly being seen as strategic, there is a level of
organisational introspection that is required to precisely determine how traditional CSOs can
exploit social media while maintaining their core values and traditions. Social media is not a
panacea for the issues confronting activism in an increasingly connected world, but rather is
seen as complementing traditional advocacy with its ability to coordinate, synchronise and
document campaigns.
Key Concepts
Public sphere, Civil society, Advocacy, Web 2.0, Social media

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Declaration .................................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... iii
Glossary of Acronyms ................................................................................................................. iv
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ vi
Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ vii
List of Tables .............................................................................................................................. xv
List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... xvii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 1
1.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 1
1.2 THE RESEARCH STUDY ............................................................................................. 3
1.3 BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................. 4
1.4 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ............................................................................................ 5
1.5 METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH.............................................................................. 6
1.6 DATA COLLECTION .................................................................................................... 7
1.7 A PHILOSOPHICAL & THEORETICAL STANDPOINT ............................................ 8
1.7.1 Philosophical Standpoint .......................................................................................... 8
1.7.2 The Discipline of Information Systems .................................................................... 9
1.7.3 Theoretical Frameworks ......................................................................................... 10
1.7.4 The Internet and Civil Society as Research Artefacts ............................................ 11
1.8 LAYOUT OF THE THESIS ......................................................................................... 11
1.9 WRITING CONVENTIONS ......................................................................................... 12
1.11 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 13
CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................. 14
2.1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 14
2.2 THE PUBLIC SPHERE, CIVIL SOCIETY AND ADVOCACY ................................. 16
2.2.1 The Public Sphere ................................................................................................... 16
2.2.2 Civil Society ........................................................................................................... 17
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2.2.3 Civil Society Organisations and Advocacy ............................................................ 24
2.2.4 Summary: Bringing it All Together ........................................................................ 25
2.3 AN OVERVIEW OF THE INTERNET ........................................................................ 26
2.3.1 A Brief History of the Internet ................................................................................ 27
2.3.2 The Internet in South Africa ................................................................................... 30
2.4 THE EVOLUTION OF THE INTERNET: FROM WEB 1.0 TO WEB X.0 ................ 31
2.4.1 A Brief History of the Web .................................................................................... 31
2.4.2 A Definition of Web 2.0 ......................................................................................... 32
2.4.3 A Non-Technical View of Web 2.0 ........................................................................ 33
2.4.4 Some Technical Concepts of Web 2.0 .................................................................... 37
2.4.5 Web 2.0 Architectural Patterns ............................................................................... 38
2.4.6 The Evolution of the Web ....................................................................................... 40
2.4.7 A Summary of Web 2.0 .......................................................................................... 42
2.5 THE SERVICES AND TECHNOLOGIES OF WEB 2.0 ............................................. 42
2.5.1 Social Networking .................................................................................................. 43
2.5.2 Wiki’s ..................................................................................................................... 44
2.5.3 Blogs and Blogging ................................................................................................ 45
2.5.4 Microblogging and Twitter ..................................................................................... 46
2.5.5 Social Bookmarking, Folksonomies & the Taxonomy of Web 2.0 ........................ 46
2.5.6 Multimedia Sharing and Podcasting ....................................................................... 47
2.5.7 Geographical Information Systems and Mashups .................................................. 49
2.5.8 A Summary of Social Media Services .................................................................... 50
2.5.9 Mobile Telephony ................................................................................................... 51
2.5.10 The ‘Sociability’ of Web 2.0 and Social Media ..................................................... 53
2.6 THE NETWORKED SOCIETY ................................................................................... 55
2.6.1 A Knowledge-based Society and Economy ............................................................ 55
2.6.2 Technology-based Networks .................................................................................. 56
2.6.3 The Networked Public Sphere ................................................................................ 57
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2.6.4 Civil Society: Networked Adopters of Technology................................................ 58
2.6.5 Virtual Communities .............................................................................................. 58
2.7 CONTENTIOUS POLITICS ON THE NET ................................................................. 60
2.7.1 Technology-based Advocacy .................................................................................. 60
2.7.2 Internet-based Advocacy ........................................................................................ 62
2.7.3 Web 2.0-based Advocacy ....................................................................................... 64
2.7.4 Contentious Politics on the Net: Bringing It All Together ..................................... 70
2.7.5 Does Web 2.0 Carry an Implicit Social Message? ................................................. 72
2.7.6 A Brief Critique of Web 2.0 ................................................................................... 78
2.8 THE IMPLICATIONS OF WEB 2.0 FOR CIVIL SOCIETY ...................................... 80
2.8.1 Structural Re-configuration of Civil Society Organisations ................................... 80
2.8.2 Re-orientating Civil Society ................................................................................... 82
2.8.3 The Digital Divide .................................................................................................. 82
2.9 CONCLUSION: BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER .................................................... 84
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .............................................................. 86
3.1 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 86
3.1.1 Research Approach ................................................................................................. 87
3.2 CONTEXTUALISING THE RESEARCH PROBLEM............................................... 88
3.2.1 Problem Statement .................................................................................................. 90
3.2.2 The Research Questions ......................................................................................... 91
3.3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS ............................................................................... 91
3.3.1 Innovation, Diffusion and Adoption ....................................................................... 92
3.3.2 Diffusion of Innovations ......................................................................................... 93
3.3.3 Structuration Theory ............................................................................................... 98
3.3.4 Civil Society Frameworks .................................................................................... 102
3.3.5 Mapping Research Questions to the Theoretical Frameworks ............................. 105
3.4 METHODOLOGICAL PLURALISM: A MULTI-FACETED APPROACH ............ 106
3.4.1 Overview of Research Approach .......................................................................... 107
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3.4.2 Research Design ................................................................................................... 110
3.5 DATA COLLECTION: SURVEYS ............................................................................ 113
3.5.1 Questionnaire Design ............................................................................................ 113
3.5.2 Ensuring Reliability of the Survey........................................................................ 113
3.5.3 A Census of South African Civil Society Organisations ...................................... 115
3.5.4 A Survey of Greenpeace National and Regional Offices ..................................... 118
3.5.5 Response Rates ..................................................................................................... 119
3.6 DATA COLLECTION: INTERVIEWS ...................................................................... 120
3.6.1 Interviews with Greenpeace Senior Management Team (SMT) .......................... 121
3.6.2 Interviews with Greenpeace Campaign Directors ................................................ 122
3.6.3 Final notes on the Interview process ..................................................................... 123
3.6.4 A Summary of the Multi-Method Approach ........................................................ 125
3.7 DATA COLLECTION: DESKTOP RESEARCH ...................................................... 127
3.7.1 Social Media Campaigning ................................................................................... 127
3.7.2 Secondary Data ..................................................................................................... 127
3.8 DATA ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................... 127
3.8.1 Analysis of the Quantitative Data ......................................................................... 128
3.8.2 Analysis of the Qualitative Data ........................................................................... 128
3.8.3 Reliability and Validity ......................................................................................... 129
3.8.4 Ethical Considerations for Data Analysis ............................................................. 133
3.9 CONCLUSION............................................................................................................ 134
CHAPTER FOUR: WEB 2.0 ADOPTION IN SOUTH AFRICAN CIVIL SOCIETY
ORGANISATIONS .................................................................................................................. 135
4.1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 135
4.1.1 Writing conventions .............................................................................................. 137
4.1.2 Revisiting the Theoretical Frameworks ................................................................ 137
4.1.3 Statistical Analysis ................................................................................................ 138
4.2 A PROFILE OF THE ORGANISATIONS UNDER STUDY .................................... 140
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