The combustible mix of coalitional and discursive power: British trade unions, social media and the People's Assembly Against Austerity
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The combustible mix of coalitional and discursive power : British trade unions, social media and the People's Assembly Against Austerity. / Geelan, Torsten.
In: New Technology, Work and Employment, Vol. 37, No. 2, 2022, p. 161-184.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The combustible mix of coalitional and discursive power
T2 - British trade unions, social media and the People's Assembly Against Austerity
AU - Geelan, Torsten
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - This article investigates how the British trade union movement sought to challenge the politics of austerity after the North Atlantic financial crisis of 2008 by founding a union-led coalition: the People's Assembly Against Austerity. To lay the ground for the study, it redefines the concept of discursive power as the capacity of trade unions to influence the public debate by producing and self-mediating frames and circulating them through the mainstream media, the Internet and social media to a mass audience. Data were collected over 3 years (2013–2015) using interviews and scraping tweets from Twitter. The findings reveal how the People's Assembly created and sustained a heterogenous coalition through a policy of nonpartisanship and a consensus-driven decentralised network of grassroots local assemblies orchestrated by a national organisation. The article contributes to the literature on trade union revitalisation by demonstrating how combining coalitional and discursive power is a combustible mix that can help revitalise the political influence of trade unions.
AB - This article investigates how the British trade union movement sought to challenge the politics of austerity after the North Atlantic financial crisis of 2008 by founding a union-led coalition: the People's Assembly Against Austerity. To lay the ground for the study, it redefines the concept of discursive power as the capacity of trade unions to influence the public debate by producing and self-mediating frames and circulating them through the mainstream media, the Internet and social media to a mass audience. Data were collected over 3 years (2013–2015) using interviews and scraping tweets from Twitter. The findings reveal how the People's Assembly created and sustained a heterogenous coalition through a policy of nonpartisanship and a consensus-driven decentralised network of grassroots local assemblies orchestrated by a national organisation. The article contributes to the literature on trade union revitalisation by demonstrating how combining coalitional and discursive power is a combustible mix that can help revitalise the political influence of trade unions.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - austerity
KW - coalititional power
KW - discursive power
KW - information and communication technologies
KW - Peoples's Assembly Against Austerity
KW - social media
KW - trade union power
KW - trade union
KW - revitalisation
KW - United Kingdom
U2 - 10.1111/ntwe.12236
DO - 10.1111/ntwe.12236
M3 - Journal article
VL - 37
SP - 161
EP - 184
JO - New Technology, Work and Employment
JF - New Technology, Work and Employment
SN - 0268-1072
IS - 2
ER -
ID: 300075923