Environmental website production: a structuration approach

Abstract

The World Wide Web has excited much speculation, and a growing body of scholarship, about its potential to advance the communicative power of social movement organizations. As a medium that enables online publishing, and selected features and functions, websites could be important in this regard. Yet, studies of social movement websites have documented these groups’ modest uses of the medium, and few scholars have studied the organizational factors shaping social movement website production. In this study, I examine US environmental group website production practices. Drawing on structuration theory, I consider how organizational priorities, processes and resources limit and constrain website production. I use structuration theory to analyse environmental group website production practices as gleaned from semi-structured interviews with 28 environmental group webmasters. I conclude that despite their awareness of the Web’s capabilities, webmasters experience production constraints related to organizational norms, knowledge, and resources. Ultimately, I aim to provide an explanation for studies that find limited uses of the Web among social movement groups, to better understand the processes and practices involved in cultural production online, and to elucidate on some of the challenges website production poses for social movement groups.

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