Hollaback!: The Role of Collective Storytelling Online in a Social Movement Organization Jill P. Dimond, Michaelanne Dye, Daphne LaRose, Amy S. Bruckman School of Interactive Computing, GVU, Georgia Institute of Technology {jpdimond, mdye, dlarose3, asb}@cc.gatech.edu ABSTRACT CSCW systems are playing an increasing role in activism. How can new communications technologies support so- cial movements? The possibilities are intriguing, but as yet not fully understood. One key technique traditionally leveraged by social movements is storytelling. In this pa- per, we examine the use of collective storytelling online in the context of a social movement organization called Hollaback, an organization working to stop street harass- ment. Can sharing a story of experienced harassment real- ly make a difference to an individual or a community? Using Emancipatory Action Research and qualitative methods, we interviewed people who contributed stories of harassment online. We found that sharing stories shift- ed participants’ cognitive and emotional orientation to- wards their experience. The theory of “framing” from social movement research explains the surprising power of this experience for Hollaback participants. We contrib- ute a way of looking at activism online using social movement theory. Our work illustrates that technology can help crowd-sourced framing processes that have tradi- tionally been done by social movement organizations. Author Keywords Social Movements; Emancipatory Action Research; Fem- inist HCI; Social justice; Activism; Storytelling ACM Classification Keywords H.5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Miscellaneous. “Posting it did a weird thing to me though... I used to be able to brush off a lot of the stuff I get on the street and at work… but now I think it means something more to me...” --P7 INTRODUCTION The CSCW and HCI communities are beginning to exam- ine the role of technology in social justice issues. Re- searchers in CSCW have moved beyond the workplace and have started to engage with social issues such as the experiences of marginal users [60], health [26,43], the environment [17,44], and international development (ICTD) [12,33]. Movements such as the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, that have taken advantage of social media, have piqued interest within the HCI research community [54]. But there is little work within HCI that examines activists who contend with issues of social jus- tice and are using collaborative information communica- tion technologies (ICTs) to do so. Furthermore, there is little work that positions activism within the context of social movements. By social movements, we refer to Tar- row’s definition that distinguishes social movements from political parties and advocacy groups. He states social movements are contentious and “better defined as collec- tive challenges, based on common purposes and social solidarities, in sustained interaction with elites, oppo- nents, and authorities” [57]. Examples of social move- ments include the civil rights, anti-globalization, and fem- inist movements. Storytelling and narrative have long played a part in so- cial change and social movements [4,13]. According to scholars of social movements, storytelling is how people learn and exercise agency, shape identity, and motivate action [19]. In this paper, we examine the role of collec- tive storytelling online in the context of a social move- ment organization, Hollaback. Hollaback uses collective storytelling online to draw awareness to a newly named, but old phenomena, called street harassment. This term refers to harassment in public spaces directed towards traditionally marginalized groups such as women, non- whites, and LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Transgender, and Queer) people. Specifically, this paper examines the role of storytelling using technology in a social movement organization. We investigate how the social movement concept of framing can help to explain participants' expe- riences of sharing stories on Hollaback. We explore how sharing stories of harassment online has impacted those who have shared them and examine if these stories have influenced what the organization focuses on in terms of activism. More broadly for the CSCW community, this work con- tributes, first, a model for a CSCW system that embodies the values of feminist HCI [3]. Second, it is a model for the use of CSCW technology by activists, where the soft- ware architecture supports a transnational decentralized federation of activists who coordinate globally and do actions locally. Third, this work is an example of the power of storytelling in a social movement organization supported by collaborative software. For more detail on all of these focuses, see [15]. For this paper, we focus on the connections between social movement theory and storytelling online, and the ways in which CSCW tech- Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. CSCW ’13, February 23–27, 2013, San Antonio, Texas, USA. Copyright 2013 ACM 978-1-4503-1331-5/13/02...$15.00.