Abstract
Mancur Olson’s famous work The Logic of Collective Action argues that large groups cannot successfully organize in order to achieve collective action. However, in 2020, upwards of 20 million people participated in the Black Lives Matter movement, seemingly overtaking the whole of social media for weeks. The Logic of Collective Action failed to predict the invention of social media. I seek to understand why we see large groups of people cooperating towards a collective interest on social media such as the Black Lives Matter movement, despite Olson’s theory of collective action. I hypothesize that social media users are in fact influenced to support social movements because of selective incentives. I evaluate this claim by conducting a survey, asking respondents to self-report on whether they have used selective incentives to garner support for social movements on social media or have been influenced by them to support social movements themselves. I find little support for this claim, and I suggest further research be conducted on the motivating factors behind social media activism and large scale, loosely organized movements.
How to Cite
Dicus, S., (2022) “The Logic of Collective Action in the Social Media Age”, Capstone, The UNC Asheville Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship 35(1).
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