Associate Professor of Sociology Kelsy Kretschmer co-leads a new study on how left-leaning domestic activist groups choose which communication technologies to use.
Kelsy Kretschmer
By Colin Bowyer, Communications Manager - March 12, 2025
Activism has been dramatically impacted by the development of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Digital options exist for everything activist groups do, including recruiting new members, meeting and collaborating with each other, planning events, and documenting group decisions. ICTs also introduce new risks and challenges, including surveillance from opponents and state actors, as well as adapting to the technological capacity of members. While technology choices are fundamental to growing and sustaining activist groups, little is known about how and why activists come to use particular ICTs.
In new research still under review, Associate Professor of Sociology Kelsy Kretschmer, '03, explores how activist organizational structures and processes influence the ICT choices of group members. Partnering with engineering Professor Glencorra Borradaile and Ph.D. student Alexandria LeClerc, and supported by the National Science Foundation, Kretschmer and her co-authors analyzed 40 interviews with 33 distinct left-leaning activist groups in the U.S., ranging in size and purpose.
“This eight-year collaboration between myself, Glencora, and Alex dives into, for the first time, how activists today are making technology decisions under the threat of surveillance,” said Kretschmer. “Broadly speaking, we’re trying to answer which activists are thinking about privacy and security and who is not.”
Technology changes have dramatically reshaped the ways social movements operate, with more and more platforms becoming available for activists to find each other, organize, meet, communicate, and plan courses of action. The technologies available range from familiar and common (e.g., Google and Facebook) to often daunting and complex (e.g., email encryption). As activists weigh their options, group members must find a balance between user-friendly functionality, and their perception of surveillance risk.
From the collected qualitative data, Kretschmer and her co-authors found that formalized bureaucratic groups, like the American Civil Liberties Union or Planned Parenthood (though they were not included in the study), were less likely to prioritize privacy in choosing which ICTs to use compared with smaller informal groups. While there were some small informal groups that did not prioritize privacy enhancing technologies (PETs), all the groups that insisted on high privacy standards for digital communication were small, local collectives.
This new paper builds on research by Kretschmer, Borradaile, and LeClerc, published in 2021 in Sociology of Computer Science, which looked at activists’ ability to use encrypted technology, as well as who utilized encrypted communication.
“Digital or not, technologies that require significant knowledge to use will pose a barrier to recruitment,” said Kretschmer. “The most familiar digital platforms, like Facebook, are often those with few, if any, privacy protections for users, meaning that they are not end-to-end encrypted, and the information existing on these platforms is visible to third-parties. Group leaders will need to make technology choices that balance their own view of best practices with members’ willingness and ability to learn new technologies.”
Security culture varies dramatically across groups, with some prioritizing open, inclusive practices over closed, exclusive ones. Some groups may sacrifice privacy in favor of easier, more familiar tools; other groups may change technologies more frequently to ensure more protection for their group. Achieving robust privacy for a group’s digital information requires using specialized, generally not widely adopted, and often fast-changing PETs and practices that can complicate and slow communication and recruitment.
“Small, informal collectives are often built by highly committed people who know each other well, so they are better positioned to overcome cumbersome technology,” said Kretschmer. “Conversely, larger bureaucratic organizations are structured to participate in mainstream political processes such as electoral politics, fundraising, and collaborative campaigns, like lobbying and marching, to exert influence on policymakers. These organizations choose not to shroud their activities, because it may hinder outreach, awareness, or recruitment.”
“We’re seeing structure and culture intersecting to produce fascinating incentives for groups to consider,” concluded Kretschmer. “The next steps to explore would be to include right-leaning groups, as well as international activist organizations, to see if their choices are similar to what we found.”