Spread the word! Chain-sms as a framework for discussion and decision-making in protest movement

The sms (Short Message Service) is an aspect of technological change that has created new forms of social interaction, and a novel phenomenon in Danish society: the spread of chain-sms. Chain-sms has helped to channel, shape and change ordinary people’s ways of creating groups and communities and also how social movements organize protests. Fear-stricken teenage girls, youngsters illegally organizing parties in other peoples’ properties, rural protest groups and the protest movement linked to the youth centre “Ungdomshuset” in Copenhagen are among those groups who have used chain-sms as a tool for interaction.. During periods of March 2007, ten to forty different chain messages were circulating daily among protesters. These sms show the ways that roles and external relations have been constructed by protesters, as well as how solidarity and internal relations of power can be shaped and changed by chain-sms. Interestingly, the complex networks of simultaneous chain messages seem to constitute a framework for discussion and decision-making by a kind of popular referendum by way of sms.

About the authors:

Ulrik S. Kohl and Nikolaj Villumsen worked as scientific assistants (videnskabelige medarbejdere) under the research programme “Youth and Diversity” 2007-2008 at the Danish Archive for Folklore, an independent research institution under the Danish Ministry of Culture. Both specialized in the use of electronic communication and networking amongst the youth protest movement connected to the Copenhagen cultural centre “Ungdomshuset”. Both hold a BA degree in History from the University of Copenhagen and are at the moment studying Digital Design and Communication at ITU, Copenhagen.