Is the medium the message? Exploring the intersection of social media and collective action in the San José Bike Party

Abstract

ABSTRACT The San José Bike Party (SJBP) is a diverse collective of cyclists gathering for monthly group rides around the urban centre of San José, California. By leveraging social networking platforms, the SJBP announces a route and theme just prior to the ride each month. We argue that organizing, producing, and participating in these rides constitute a political act which can help to promote civic engagement and collective action. Further, we explored the way in which collective action can be fostered via social media. Through analysis of semi-structured individual interviews, focus-group interviews, moving methodologies and field observations derived from researcher participation in SJBP events, we articulate the complexities of contested and negotiated meanings of the use of technology, social media and activism assigned to the event by participants, yielding these themes: Critical Analysis of Social Media’s Influence, Political Expressions in the SJBP and Prefigurative Politics in the SJBP.