Documents Jansson, Jenny 4 results

"This policy brief examines how trade unions can use YouTube videos as a tool for organising and informing trade unionists and workers. Although often expensive to produce, YouTube content offers an effective way for trade unions to reach out to young people who are less likely to be union members. The briefing provides a cross country analysis of YouTube usage by unions, and case studies of successful campaigns using the medium. The authors distinguish two types of video: those that mobilise for protest actions, and videos that inform the audience about issues important to unions and their activities, such as wages or working conditions. They caution that ‘inward-looking' videos, although important for galvanising supporters, are less effective in winning new members for unions in what is a very crowded market for viewer's attention. Used efficiently, YouTube can nevertheless serve to raise awareness among the public about unions and what they stand for."

"“Trade Unions on YouTube provides a much-needed assessment of how old social movement actors employ new social media platforms to promote themselves and their activities today. A must-read for trade unions scholars and activists alike, this book illustrates how, in the age of digital media, there is more than one pattern towards trade union revitalization and each of them implies different communicative challenges.”—Alice Mattoni, Associate Professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna, Italy
This book investigates how trade unions representing different social classes use YouTube videos for renewal purposes. Information and communication technology has undoubtedly offered new opportunities for social movements, but while research suggests that these new means of communication can be used for trade union revitalization, few studies have examined what unions actually do on social media.
By analysing more than 4500 videos that have been uploaded by Swedish trade unions, Jansson and Uba explore how unions use YouTube to address issues such as recruiting new members, improving internal democracy, promoting political campaigns and constructing (new) self-images. The results demonstrate that trade unions representing a range of social classes use different revitalization strategies via YouTube.
This research will be of use to students and scholars researching European politics and political participation, trade unionism and labour movements in the digital age. "

"Trade unions are called to increase their influence on policy‐making by becoming more politically active and use social media, but only a few studies investigate unions' online political activism. We propose that industrial relations regime of a country relates to unions' perceived opportunities for mobilisation and thereby also unions' online political activism. We test this argument with the help of data about European trade union confederations' political mobilisation on YouTube, 2007–2017. The results showed, expectedly, that resource‐rich confederations in the organised corporatist regime (Scandinavia) use YouTube for political activism to lesser degree than in other regimes; when these confederations do pursue political activism, such videos are often related to elections and reflect the political party‐union relationship. Unexpectedly, the resource‐poor confederations in the transitional regime (Central and Eastern Europe) mobilised politically on YouTube to the same extent as have the confederations in the social partnership, liberal and state‐centred regimes."

"Although trade union revitalization processes have been thoroughly examined by industrial relations scholars, less is known about the implications of such processes on unions' self-image. This article addresses that gap in knowledge by investigating how the self-image of a major Swedish public-sector trade union, the SKTF/Vision, changed after a thorough revitalization process took place. The findings indicate that due to pressure resulting from public-sector privatization, the union abandoned much of its former self-image and replaced ideas of ‘the collective' with individualism. This article analyzes these changes and discusses the implications for the union movement."