Digital Communicative Media Unionism

Citation

Salamon E (2025) Digital Communicative Media Unionism. In: Canella G (ed.) Raising Class Consciousness. Dynamics of Virtual Work. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature Switzerland, pp. 117-135. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-02238-7_7

Abstract
This chapter introduces a conceptual framework for understanding digital communicative unionism, examining how unions leverage online platforms and framing strategies to shape collective action and class formation. Integrating critical political economy of media, social movement studies, and rhetorical communication, the chapter analyzes online unionization announcements and interviews with newsworkers and a union organizer to reveal how union communication mediates workers’ resistance. Through a case study of US digital newsworkers’ organizing efforts from 2015 to 2022, the chapter highlights how unions use independent Twitter accounts and websites to express industry and workplace grievances, discursively negotiate power relations, and forge a collective organizational identity. It illustrates how the perception of a digital journalism business crisis affects employment relationships between newsworkers and employers. Digital communicative unionism offers valuable insights into how unions’ online organizing efforts and framing strategies have the potential to influence industry change, transform workers’ power struggles, and reshape class relations.

Keywords
Labour; Technology; Communication; Power dynamics; Digital organising

• Digital Communicative Media Unionism