Social Media, Deliberative Democracy and Social Mobilisation

Over the past 20 years, researchers have studied how the Internet frames

deliberative processes. What is needed to create a framework for dialogue

& engagement, & how can the Internet be used to create & support social

communities? (Castells 2001, Dyson 1997, Rheingold 1993). However,

these approaches have all taken a normative & meta-theoretical approach

to the subject & are rarely grounded in empirical research. Much has been

written about using social media in a rationally, purpose-driven or strategic

way, relating it to corporations, political organisations, and the latest in

relation to the Obama presidential campaign in 2008, where deliberative

features were successfully used to mobilise and organise 2 millions activists through his social network, Mybo.com. However, very little literature

addresses the deliberative processes, nor does much past research build on

cases that have successfully used social media to mobilise people. An

examination of Kirkeasyl (Church Asylum), a Danish social movement

that mobilised people through social media, allows a better understanding

of how social media can be used but also of how social media impacts the

movements that use them. Kirkeasyl had no political affiliation, & activists

across the political and social spectrum engaged in the movement to help

reject, soon-to-be-deported, & deported Iraqi refugees. The movement was

largely driven by value-based politics, action, political protest focused on

the government, & actions directed towards the police that carried out

political decisions. By employing social media, volunteers were found &

mobilised for blockades and demonstrations when Iraqi refugees were

deported, a large amount of money was collected in a very short time, &

traditional mass media & politicians were engaged in the debate surrounding the Iraqi refugees. Based on the theories of Castells, Dyson, Rheingold,

Ganz, & Habermas, this paper analyses Kirkeasyl as a case where social

media was successfully used for dialogue, engagement, mobilisation, &

as a springboard to spread the movement’s message & affect the political

debate.