ABSTRACT
This is the first of two chapters that discuss the use of Facebook in the British disability rights advocacy groups examined in this book: The Hardest Hit; Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC); and The Broken of Britain. This analysis has three main aims. First, it clarifies how each of these groups used Facebook and in particular whether this platformwas merely a venue for conversation and community formation, or it also promoted agency and collective action in a more direct fashion. Second, it investigates the way in which ‘rank-and-file’ supporters of these three groups made sense of complex policy issues in conversations with others. Third, it provides detailed insights into the structure and power dynamics within these groups by shedding light on the relationship between core organisers and online supporters to better understand whether the use of social media granted the latter real influence within the renewed British disability movement that emerged from the opposition to the welfare reform plans discussed in 2010-12. After a brief section that illustrates why this investigation focused on
Facebook and how conversation threads were analysed, this chapter focuses in particular on explaining the main trends that cut across all three case studies. Three main factors determined the ability of a given group’s Facebook page to attract a high volume of user-generated content and conversations. These included: ‘real world’ catalysing events; the ability of core campaigners to build momentum around specific issues and events; and the centrality of seemingly non-political discussion topics – especially personal stories – in enabling disabled supporters to articulate very complex policy issues in ‘everyday’ terms. These results provide a useful overview of the ‘rules of engagement’ on the Facebook pages maintained by contemporary disability rights groups in the U.K. More importantly, these findings demonstrate that, provided that certain conditions are met, conversations on Facebook facilitate the engagement of citizens unfamiliar with politics who would normally sit at the margins of the civic arena, including disabled Internet users, in discussions about salient policy issues. The next chapter elaborates on these findings by bringing each group into the spotlight and exploring its specific perspective on Facebook.
