There is hope that social media can breathe new life into the labour motion. (Shutterstock)
Union membership in Canada has been declining over the previous 4 a long time. In 2022, the share of workers who’re union members fell to 29 per cent from 38 per cent in 1981. This decline has been partly attributed to the stagnant or outdated picture of unions, which makes it tough for some employees to narrate to those organizations.
There is hope that social media can breathe new life into the labour motion. Social media platforms provide unions the chance to speak with their members, advocate for his or her causes, tackle grievances and rally public assist swiftly and effectively.
However, social media just isn’t a panacea for the challenges dealing with unions. Our current analysis reveals that fairly than revitalize the general public picture of unions, social media can typically have the alternative impact, underscoring a severe concern: the potential for unions to develop into invisible on-line.
Widening the divide
Our analysis has recognized 4 methods during which social media can distort the picture of unions. First, it might enhance the “us versus them” divide between unions and entities like corporations, employers or governments. This rising divide could be partly attributed to the normalization of vehement or abrasive disagreements on-line.
This impact is paying homage to the heightened political polarization we’re witnessing immediately with the widening chasm between left- and right-leaning teams. Social media has performed a task in exacerbating the sort of polarization.
According to the union communication managers we spoke to, there’s a increased tolerance for aggressive communication on-line. This phenomenon is fuelled by the fierce competitors amongst organizations vying for the fleeting consideration of social media customers.
An argumentative on-line tradition and the fleeting consideration of social media customers have led some unions to undertake briefer, much less nuanced and extra assertive communication kinds.
(Shutterstock)
The mixture of those two elements — an inherently argumentative on-line tradition and the pursuit of consideration — has led some unions to undertake briefer, much less nuanced and extra assertive communication kinds. The fervour generated by such polarizing content material can rally supporters and drive conversations that amplify the union’s message.
Importantly, not all unions expertise this impact to the identical diploma. Our findings point out that unions with an activist background usually tend to be polarized on-line.
Self-centeredness
The second means social media can distort the net picture of unions is by fostering self-centred behaviour. Social media has been proven to encourage narcissistic behaviour in its customers and our analysis suggests this additionally applies to organizations like unions.
Unions can unintentionally distort their on-line picture by portraying their members in an excessively constructive means. Our analysis discovered that content material praising union members tended to generate extra engagement, akin to likes, feedback or shares. As a outcome, some communication managers gravitated in the direction of the sort of content material to extend on-line engagement.
This tendency was most pronounced in unions with a homogeneous membership and robust skilled id, the place fostering a way {of professional} satisfaction is less complicated.
Becoming a caricature of themselves
The third means social media can distort the net picture of unions is thru caricaturing, a course of that exaggerates the traits of a union to the purpose of showing absurd or grotesque.
This sort of distortion doubtless stems from the strain to keep up an lively on-line presence by posting incessantly. All the unions in our examine posted between 5 to seven messages weekly on their Facebook pages.
However, not all of the unions had recent or participating content material to share frequently. As a outcome, their communications typically turned overly repetitive and targeted on routine actions, akin to union conferences, assemblies and the signing of collective agreements. This led to an exaggerated, caricatured on-line illustration of the unions.
Unions most vulnerable to self-caricaturing on-line have been these with a extra bureaucratic mindset, as they have been much less prone to have new and attention-grabbing content material to share constantly.
Disappearing behind the information
The closing means social media can distort the net picture of unions is thru what we name the “fading impact.” This happens when communication managers over share information articles from exterior media retailers, fairly than sharing information straight associated to the union itself.
This can lead to a decline in a corporation’s visibility and relevance on-line — to the purpose the place the id of the union virtually disappears. This impact turns into extra pronounced when there isn’t a accompanying textual content or references connecting the shared information articles to the union or its members.
Unions most vulnerable to the fading impact are these with social media managers who lack experience or people who have a servicing mannequin of unionism versus the organizing mannequin.
Unions that solely share information articles, as a substitute of reports about themselves and their members, danger fading into the background an excessive amount of.
(Shutterstock)
Invisibility on social media
Social media generally is a double-edged sword for labour unions. While sure distortion results could yield constructive outcomes, others have damaging results. Polarizing and self-centredness, for instance, could be useful as a result of they enhance on-line engagement, however caricaturing and fading results can lower on-line engagement.
An absence of participating on-line content material poses a major danger to unions, probably rendering them algorithmically invisible. Studies have proven that caricaturing and fading results are prevalent amongst unions, growing the chance of the labour motion being marginalized within the digital public sphere.
Since communication performs a key position in bolstering the ability of unions, there’s a legit concern that social media may weaken their capacity to defend employees’ rights, as a substitute of strengthening it.
Our analysis underscores the necessity for unions to consider how they’ll rework their photographs on-line with more practical social media communication. As the labour motion adapts to the digital age, the steadiness between engagement and algorithmic visibility is important for the way forward for employees’ advocacy.
Christian Lévesque receives funding from Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et tradition.
Marc-Antonin Hennebert and Vincent Pasquier don’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or organisation that might profit from this text, and have disclosed no related affiliations past their tutorial appointment.
