Helping the world one ‘like’ at a time – The rise of the SLACKTIVIST.

Freya Samuelson-Cramp* and Elvira Bolat** (PhD)*Good Agency **Bournemouth University

The 5th International Conference On Social Responsibility, Ethics,

And Sustainable Business

How do you prefer to donate or support charities?

MILLIONS DO NOT DELIVERWITH KONY 2012

• Video was watched over 100m times on YouTube

• 3.7 million people pledged their support to help bring down Joseph Kony.

• No physical revolution was acted upon

Slacktivismˈslaktɪvɪz(ə)m/

‘A willingness to perform a relatively costless, token display of support for a social cause, with an accompanying lack of willingness to devote significant effort to enact meaningful change.’(Kristofferson et al. 2014)

WHO ARE SLACKTIVISTS?

WHAT ARE THEIR MOTIVATIONS?

HOW CAN WE ENGAGE THEM?

Aim is

to investigate the motivations and interactions of social media users towards

non-profit social media campaigns, with particular interest of

studying slacktivists.

Theoretical Background

• Slacktivism behaviour (Rotman et al.’s, 2011; Lee and Hsieh, 2013)

• Social media in NPOs (Lawrence, 2013; Lovejoy et al., 2012; Kristofferson et al., 2014; Grummas, 2014)

• Social media consumption (Rauniar et al., 2014; Hajli, 2013; Baker and White, 2010; Pi et al., 2013)

• Social media users and the role of personality (De Valk et al., 2009; Ross et al., 2009; Correa et al., 2010; Seidman, 2013; Khaldi, 2014)

ACTIVISTSLACKTIVIST

NON-CONFORM

IST

Groups Of Social Media UsersAnd Their Relationships With

Charities

Kristofferson et al. (2014)Grummas (2014)

Vie (2014

Emotional stability

Openness to Experiences

Agreeableness

Conscientiousness

Extroversion

Donors’ Characteristics: Personality Traits

(Stroebe and Frey, 1982; Brunel and Nelson, 2000; Sergeant at al., 2006; Bekkers and Wiepking, 2010)

Emotional/

Psychological

Altruistic

Familial Demonstrable

Donors’ Characteristics: Motivations

(Stroebe and Frey, 1982; Brunel and Nelson, 2000; Sergeant at al., 2006; Bekkers and Wiepking, 2010)

Conceptual Framework

Underpinning: TRA, TPB, Goldberg’s big five personality factors

Method

• Online survey • A 48-item questionnaire:

- The Big Five Personality test (Gosling et al., 2003);- Motivations and attitudes towards participants’ engagement with charities

social media campaigns and content (Flora and Maibach, 1990; Pikkarainen et al., 2004; Sargeant et al., 2006; Grau and Folse, 2007; Fielding et al., 2008; Leek and Christodoulides, 2009; Seidman, 2013);

- Categorisation of supporter types (Mano, 2014 + adaptation for slacktivism type).

• Sample – Facebook users (convenience and snowballing) • 294 responses overall but 154 – usable responses• Usable sample: 34% male and 66% female participants

Demonstrable

Attitudes Towards Charity-related Social Media

Attitudes Towards Social Media

Familial DemonstrableFamilial

Results (1)

The subjective norm had the strongest measured relationship with attitudes towards charity-related social media than any other constructs that were analysed.

NON-CONFORMI

ST

Those with Non-Conformist behaviours were found to have the most significant relationship with the subjective norm.

Yet it was different to what had been seen for activists and slacktivists, this relationship was negative.

SLACKTIVIST

ACTIVIST

Results (2)

Emotional stability Slacktivists (68%) and Activists (69%) rated lowest in this personality scoring, suggesting they are affected more by their emotions and sets them apart from the Non-Conformists.

Openness to ExperiencesSlacktivists (93%) and Activists (87%) rated the highest on this trait.This trait has been stressed as an important factor in civic engagement (Mondak et al. 2010, Brandstatter and Opp 2014).

AgreeablenessSlacktivists rated the highest in this trait (91%) which has been linked to being compliant with requests from others (Carlo et al 2005). Activists (78%) and Non-Conformists (70%) rated much lower.

ConscientiousnessSlacktivists rated the highest on scores of conscientiousness. This trait has been linked to doing ones moral duty however lower levels of conscientiousness have been found to correlate with the highest levels of giving (Ben-Ner and Kramer 2011).

ExtroversionThose who showed activist traits were most likely to portray the extroversion trait.This trait has been linked to people using social media to present their 'real' self rather than an “ideal” self (Michikyan et al 2014).

Results (3)

Results (4)

• Slacktivists and Activists were found to be very similar with their results.

• 93% rated highly on the personality trait -Openness to Experiences.

• Rated the highest in Agreeableness.• Rated higher in being motivated by altruism on social media than activists.

Overall Results

Emotional/Psychological motivationsAll social media user groups disagreed the most to being influenced by emotional/psychological motivations towards charities via social media

Altruistic motivationsResults found that there were more actvists who felt strongly motivated by altruism, however there was an overall larger amount of slacktivists who agreed to feeling this way. Non conformists were least motivated by altruism.

Altruistic Motivations + ConscientiousnessAs slacktivists rate highly in both altruism and conscientiousness this could help to explain why they turn to social media to support causes. As low levels of conscientiousness correlate with high levels of giving this would explain that although slacktivists are motivated by altruism their propensity to give tangibly and greatly is lacking. Turning to social media to support charities compliments both of these personal traits.

Overall Results (cont)

Implications

• Further ways of exploring 3 groups via quasi-survey experimental studies or netnographic research!

• Nurturing approach to communication with slacktivists!• Refrain from using emotional tactics BUT….?