From Facebook to fundraisers : small and local social movement organizations on the internet and social media

In this paper I use a number of theoretical perspectives to examine the ways in which social movement organizations are using the internet and social media. The overall framework for the research uses Resource Mobilization Theory. Additionally, this project employs a number of theories from work by Jennifer Earl (2011, 2013) and Laura Stein (2009) on social movements online including supersize theory, which explain how an organization\u27s standard repertoires are simply expanded online and not fundamentally transformed. The unit of analysis for this study is the social movement organization. This project relies on case studies of 16 organizations in the Forge Mountain Region of New England, and includes 11 interviews and 16 content analyses of organizational websites. I argue that organizations supersize their standard repertoires online and that leadership\u27s perceptions, organizational missions, goals, and target audiences greatly impact the ways that the internet and social media are employed as part of standard repertoires