Hashtag and Co: How Issue Amplifiers on Social Media Enable Emergent Grassroots Activism

Hashtags have become powerful tools for citizens worldwide to attract attention to social issues and challenge the status quo. Hashtags are capable of enabling a process of social issue emergence—a phenomenon in which topics develop in public discussions on social media, then they can be accompanied by real-life protests, and eventually traditional media pick them up, propelling them into the mainstream. The #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements are among the notable examples. However, since the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk, the platform suffered a 23% decline in daily app users and is ultimately losing its importance for activism. Moreover, Twitter/X hashtags are not the only online tool that help promote grassroots voices. Various social media platforms that serve diverse audiences offer functionalities that enhance spreadability and searchability affordances, similar to the hashtag. In this theory-building contribution, we analyze literature of digital activism, conduct concept explication of hashtag activism, and present a new concept of issue amplifiers. Then we formalize the theory into an illustrative agent-based model. First, building on the literature review, we conducted a concept explication of hashtag activism and developed a conceptual and an operational definition of hashtag activism. A conceptual definition condenses the meaning of the concept, while an operational definition guides how to register and measure it. Second, based on the concept explication of hashtag activism, we developed the concept of issue amplifiers—social media functionalities with logics similar to the hashtag that enable similar emergent phenomena. These are simple integrated tools on social media platforms that allow users to create and easily share templates that may consist of words, images, videos, or sounds. The content shared with these templates is searchable and shareable and can enable the emergence of a trend. We call these functionalities issue amplifiers and present the examples of “Add Yours” stickers on Instagram stories, TikTok sounds, and TikTok stitches and duets. Issue amplifiers are distinguished from other social media discursive phenomena by specific technological affordances (spreadability and searchability), discursivity, framing, and symbolic capacity. Finally, we present an agent-based model that formalizes the theoretic concept of issue amplifiers and the social issue emergence process. The model simulates how different topics compete for users’ and traditional media’s attention in the hybrid media system. This agent-based model is built on our literature research, the review of relevant agent-based models, and empirical data. It sheds light on the complex process of social topics discussions emerging on social media platforms. The simulation allows to investigate the user attention thresholds and the possible strategic interventions activists can turn to.