Mobilizing and educating via social media: How do Swedish trade unions use YouTube?

• Trade unions have faced a significant problem of member decline for several decades even in the countries with the traditionally high union membership. The use of social media has been proposed as important revitalization strategy which allows reaching to new audiences. The purpose of this study is to examine how different Swedish trade unions have accomplished this task by investigating and assessing their use of YouTube. We expect that the represented social class: working, white-collar or upper-middle-class, influences how unions use social media. Results based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of numerous YouTube videos demonstrate that working class unions use YouTube for mobilization, while white-collar unions focus more on existing members and upper middle class unions aim to educate their own profession. All unions also use YouTube for improving the transparency of the organizations by posting a significant number of videos about annual congresses, as well as promote the traditional labor movement issues such as salaries, equality and welfare.

Keyword

trade unions

youtube

class

mobilization

social media

Statskunskap

Political Science

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

rap (subject category)