What's up? Mobile instant messaging apps and the truckers′ uprising in Brazil

Carla D.M. Soares, Luiz Antonio Joia, Diego Altieri and João Guilherme Lander Regasso

Technology in Society, 2021, vol. 64, issue C

Abstract: This study aims to investigate the trajectory of the truckers' uprising in Brazil in May 2018 - one of the hitherto largest social movement enabled by WhatsApp in the world - in order to understand its relationship with the use of this mobile instant messaging app. Thus, by applying the Actor-Network Theory as the theoretical and methodological lens associated with a single case study, one identified the relevant actors in the development of the socio-technical network related to this truckers' strike that occurred in Brazil. The study sets forth that this movement comprised sundry actors aligned around a single obligatory passage point – the social networks enabled by WhatsApp – and reveals that WhatsApp, with its specific dynamics, played a crucial role in an uprising that took place in a country of continental dimensions such as Brazil, favoring change in the way the demonstrators gathered and interacted, leading formal organizations to be less necessary and broadening the political participation of the society. Finally, one concluded that WhatsApp enabled a power shift from government to truck drivers and their unions, which indicates the need for a new digital governance based on distribution and transparency of information, accountability, and participation of citizens in government decisions to curb new uprisings enabled by mobile instant messaging apps.

Keywords: Truckers' strike; Social media; Actor-network theory; WhatsApp; Instant messaging system; Mobile instant messaging apps (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:teinso:v:64:y:2021:i:c:s0160791x2031280x

DOI: 10.1016/j.techsoc.2020.101477

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