Abstract
This article draws on the theories of Max Weber to explore how social media can redefine organization and hierarchy in the contemporary labor movement. Through a mixed-methods approach combining quantitative analysis of social media posts and in-depth interviews with key grassroots activists in Denmark, the article highlights how the personal, affective, and participatory nature of social media challenges traditional union legitimacy. The findings suggest that as affect and individual narratives become increasingly powerful tools for the labor movement, unions must explore ways to incorporate these new modes of communication. This includes a deep understanding of the interplay between different forms of legitimacy on digital platforms, and how these can complement each other rather than compete in the pursuit of labor rights and democratic organization. This study contributes to a broader discussion on the impact of digital platforms on organizations, offering a unique perspective on the intersection of technology and power.
Introduction
The proliferation of social media has significantly altered the landscape of political activism, reshaping interactions between civil society movements and traditional power structures. This is particularly evident in the labor movement. The historic unionization of the first Amazon warehouse in 2023 by the grassroots activists Amazon Labor Union using primarily social media to organize and communicate with the public (Milkman, 2022, p. 99) and UK Deliveroo couriers successfully crowdfunding a strike fund for the first time (Körfer and Röthig, 2017) both highlight the growing role of digital tools in labor activism. These instances highlight new labor dynamics, demonstrating how digital campaigns can mobilize workers outside established unions. However, when coupled with the widespread global decline in union membership, this increasing digitally enabled grassroots labor activism can lead to a loss of legitimacy for established labor organizations, often seen as digital dinosaurs (Geelan, 2021). Legitimacy, as Dufour and Hege note (2010), is therefore a fundamental element of union renewal (2010, p. 352).
This article explores the dynamics of this rising digital labor activism. Drawing on Max Weber’s theory of authority, the central argument is that social media prompt questions about democracy, power, and legitimacy in labor organizations. Using a detailed case study of a Danish grassroots labor activism network, this article highlights the shifting sands of legitimacy as elected union leaders who wield authority through rational rules and statutes face challenges from charismatic online groups using personal narratives and affect to mobilize in favor of radical industrial action.
Scholars note that the rise of social media sites spells significant changes to the labor movement as members use digital tools in more interactive and participatory ways (Pasquier et al., 2020). This significantly impacts trade union authority because online activists can mobilize members and influence public opinion on labor issues on an increasingly larger scale. Bryson et al. (2010) suggested already a decade ago to examine how labor unions could adopt features that make online social networks popular (2010, p. 42). However, as Barnes et al. (2019) note, the growing research on unions and social media predominantly examines trade union use, rather than exploring how members interact with these platforms (e.g. Carneiro & Costa, 2020; Hennebert et al., 2021; Houghton & Hodder, 2021). Those that do focus on grassroots tend to employ qualitative methods like interviews or observations (Wood, 2015) or compare the social media use of grassroots networks with established unions (Hau & Hansen, 2025). Furthermore, despite its position as the world’s largest social media platform, few studies on trade unions and their use of social media specifically concentrate on Facebook. As Jansson and Uba (2019) note, Twitter in particular is well studied (Hodder & Houghton, 2015; Panagiotopoulos, 2021; Pasquier et al., 2020), despite the platform’s low popularity among unions and low-paid workers compared to Facebook (Panagiotopoulos & Barnett, 2015).
This study builds on existing research with a novel methodological approach, combining in-depth qualitative interviews with a systematic examination of over 800 Facebook posts. This mixed-methods approach provides a particularly nuanced understanding of how social media communication impacts the labor movement. The study also focuses exclusively on civil society activists and their understanding of affect, legitimacy, and hierarchy. This study captures the emerging, often dynamic forms of activism that reshape the contemporary labor movement and uncovers how these actors, often operating outside traditional union frameworks, use social media to challenge union authority. While focusing on Denmark, this article offers a novel perspective on the intersection of technology, authority, and union organizing that contributes to a broader discussion on the impact of digital technologies on labor organizations.
Literature review
In recent years, researchers have highlighted the mobilization and organization potential of social media in political campaigns and activism (Agur & Frisch, 2019; Ekman, 2018; O’Connell, 2018), showing how political outsiders use social media to bypass traditional political discourse and build new spaces for alternative politics (Denisova & Herasimenka, 2019; Jungherr et al., 2019), subvert existing power structures (Abidin, 2021; Just & Petersen, 2023), and create “defiant spaces” (Abdulla, 2023). The process also implies a weakening of institutional power, and for organized labor, this represents a double-edged sword as social media can be used by individual members or factions to push their own agendas in opposition to union hierarchies (Barnes et al., 2019).
Affect has emerged as a major theme in the study of digital activism, with researchers noting the effectiveness of anger-triggering communication in generating engagement and shares on Facebook pages (Gerbaudo et al., 2023; Stark & Crawford, 2015). The unique affordances of social media facilitate a kind of activism that mobilizes via shared emotion and cascading social connection (Hautea et al., 2021) that can lead to affective publics, shaping public discourse (Bas et al., 2022; Papacharissi, 2016). This means affective engagement essential in transforming interests, values, norms, or identities into effective motivators for political behavior (Marx, 2019).
As Jansson and Uba (2019) note, social media has simplified interaction with audiences and made access to communication channels more easily accessible. A Facebook post, for instance, can quickly organize demonstrations that previously required extensive resources and planning, and this reduced cost of online activism diminishes the need for more traditional mobilization resources (2019, p. 2). These developments have led to the characterization of today’s media environment as a “hybrid media system” (Chadwick, 2017), as the more participatory nature of social media challenges traditional mainstream media narratives. The low barriers to entry that allow everyone to express their opinions could potentially increase ordinary people’s “voice” (Couldry, 2010, p. 1), empowering workers and ordinary civil society members (Carter et al., 2003; Walker, 2021).
Particularly for the labor movement, grassroots activism on social media is a vital and understudied element of how new forms of online membership engagement impact union hierarchies and internal democracy. For example, Soriano and Cabañes (2020) have shown how online organizing of freelance workers can challenge—or reinforce—narratives of labor marginality and poor labor conditions. Some scholars argue that modern information technologies offer the potential for less hierarchical organizations (Dencik & Wilkins, 2020), and redistribute “control over means of communication” in unions (Greene et al., 2003, p. 284). Social media politics have been linked to gender and empowerment (Thornthwaite et al., 2018; Hurley, 2021), and digital communication technologies appear to enable new worker networks (Hecksher & Carré, 2006; Hennebert et al., 2021; Walker, 2021). This has spurred cautious optimism about the possibilities of digital communication technologies to empower workers (Ticona, 2015) and increase union democracy (Cockfield, 2005). It has also been suggested that union leaders must relinquish central control over online discussions if they truly want to empower members (Rego et al., 2016) and use social media to organize workers (Hau & Savage, 2022).
Tempering this positivity, other research indicates persistent gender bias in social media politics (McGregor & Mourão, 2016) and the potential for social media to reinforce symbolic violence (Recuero, 2015), arguing that political organizations deliberately use social media to create partisan echo-chambers (Ceia, 2020). Scholars have sharply criticized the commercialization of supposed public spheres (Baym, 2015; Couldry & van Dijck, 2015) and the algorithm-curated nature of social media posts (Karatzogianni, 2015), raising doubts about their role in transformative change. This for-profit consideration is likewise highlighted by Barassi (2015), who underscores the problematic aspect of digital capitalism in which social media platforms commodify and benefit from activists’ personal narratives without any direct advantage to the movements themselves. Indeed, Dencik et al. (2018) highlight the risks of increased police surveillance on social media, which could potentially deter participation and compromise the safety of activists, a concern echoed by Geelan and Hodder (2017) regarding employer monitoring. To this end, Etter and Albu (2021) examine the commercial interests involved in how social media algorithms influence activists’ online practices, arguing that this algorithmic facilitation can not only support but also work against activists’ intended goals (2021, p. 70).
Organizationally, authors have argued that digital networks reproduce traditional union hierarchies (Kerr & Waddington, 2014), create uncontrollable threats to union leadership (Pasquier & Daudigeos, 2019), or simply do not lead to a rethinking of existing union identities (Houghton & Hodder, 2021). Digital activism as a field has been accused of being both hyped and fuzzy, and since the use and implementation of different technologies is socially mediated (Cockfield, 2005; Martínez Lucio & Walker, 2005), both “objective” technologies and activist practices deserve scrutiny (Kaun & Uldam, 2018). Offering a balanced perspective, Uldam (2018) points out that the internet may serve as a tool for civil society to hold powerful individuals accountable, but it also facilitates potential censorship of dissenting opinions.
Theoretical framework: Max Weber on authority and legitimacy
Max Weber’s classic theories on the dynamics of hierarchy, legitimacy, and authority in complex, democratic organizations offer a nuanced framework for understanding the evolving relationship between labor unions and their members within a broader societal and digital context.
In particular, Weber’s (1946) conceptual apparatus of charismatic and bureaucratic authority provides a foundation for understanding the transformative power of digital activism. Weber understood bureaucracy as a rational necessary for the functioning of modern societies (p. 81), but argued that bureaucratic tendencies characterized by formal rules and hierarchy would invariably conflict with democracy (Weber, 1978, p. 985).
Weber outlined charismatic legitimacy as individual leadership based on personal confidence, principally non-institutionalized and tied to affect and relational ties between leaders and followers (Weber, 1978, p. 1250). Bureaucratic legitimacy, on the other hand, rests on the validity of legal statutes and functional competences based on rational, institutionalized rules.
Several authors (Hau, 2022; Hecksher & McCarthy, 2014; Pasquier et al., 2020) have contrasted labor unions’ stable hierarchies and collective identities with the fluid, individual-centric networks of online civil society activism (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). I argue this juxtaposition highlights tensions between the bureaucratic needs of labor unions and the participatory, more charisma-driven ethos of grassroots activism.
Crucially, Weber’s (1978) theory frames legitimacy as a key aspect of power, or what he termed “domination” (p. 213). Weber (1978) argued that legitimacy was not vital to explaining political order, as actors may simply follow their habits (p. 213), but considered it central for reaffirming disrupted expectations of collective action. Thus, for Weber, legitimacy is paradoxically secondary in maintaining the status quo but vital for exercising organizational power in times of crisis (Weber, 1978, p. 31). This is key to understanding how social media reshapes authority structures within the labor movement, as these platforms represent significant opportunities for coordinating collective action outside of unions, which constitutes threats to union leadership.
Context
Denmark has a strongly coordinated economy. Unlike many other EU countries, Denmark relies heavily on self-regulated collective bargaining over legislation (Arnholtz & Hansen, 2013) and has a notable high union density of 64% (Arnholtz & Navrbjerg, 2021). This gives union’s substantial institutional power but is highly contingent on maintaining union legitimacy and central control.
Danish trade union leaders tend to focus on social dialogue and bargaining to improve labor conditions for their members, eschewing outright conflict and industrial action such as strikes. Perhaps in response to this, online grassroots networks mobilizing on Facebook have sprung up in significant challenge to unions since 2018 onwards (Hansen & Hau, 2022b). The Facebook page Workers in Motion (WIM) started as a response to the perceived timidity of established unions in 2018, quickly gaining over 12.000 followers and becoming the most visible platform for labor activism and grassroots unionism in Denmark. This initiative, led mainly by construction and industrial workers from 3F, Denmark’s largest union with 262,000 members, presents itself as a cross-labor solidarity initiative that is supportive but critical of established unions.
Methods
This study combines qualitative interviews with grassroots union activists and social media data from the WIM Facebook page. Important work has been done combining social media data with qualitative methods (Andreotta et al., 2019; Miller & Venkatraman, 2018; Robards & Lincoln, 2017), and this article complements earlier work by extending the methodology to the study of labor activism.
Social media data were used to identify larger themes and general sentiments, which were then followed up in 17 semi-structured, qualitative interviews with grassroots activists as well as participation in several WIM public gatherings and one invited online meeting. The WIM page is public and open to everyone, but page administrators were informed about the research project before a complete, anonymized set of 886 posts and comments from the page as extracted during the collective bargaining round from 1 January to 1 May 2023. This included the number of shares and likes, links, videos, and photos, but no names or identifying user information. Facebook was selected due to its position as the by far largest social media in Danmark, with 84% of all Danes having a profile on Facebook, compared with 13% for Twitter (Danmarks Statistik, 2023), where labor activism has little or no presence. The observation period was selected to coincide with a critical phase of Danish collective bargaining, ensuring that the data captured was representative of key discussions and sentiments during a crucial moment in labor organizing.
All interviewees had links to WIM and were active in online labor activism networks. Interview questions focused on social media communication; democracy, relationships between members and union officials; and labor strategies. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed with informed consent and full anonymity. A content-driven, exploratory approach to coding yielded distinct themes without recourse to pre-established analytical categories (Guest et al., 2011, p. 7). All interviews and posts were originally in Danish and the translations are my own.
Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), a popular, generative statistical model for topic modeling (see Wang et al., 2012), ten predominant themes were identified. The social media posts were tokenized into individual words in full lowercase, removing punctuation and numbers, and omitting 351 common Danish stop words to eliminate noise and focus on meaningful words. The interpretation of each topic was based on the top 10 words with the highest probability, along with a distribution of these topics in the dataset, which offers a basic measure of each topic’s importance. To further corroborate the findings, a small random selection of sample posts was qualitatively analyzed, assuring that the proposed probable topic assigned by the LDA model aligned with the actual content.
The choice of topic modeling using LDA was driven by the need to systematically uncover dominant themes and sentiments in the vast array of unstructured Facebook data. LDA is a useful solution to cope with unstructured text data from social media (Egger & Yu, 2022) as it presents a statistical way to uncover underlying patterns or themes in a dataset through quantifying relationships between words (Shahbazi & Byun, 2020). The mixed-methods approach, which combines interviews and topic modeling, allows for a more nuanced and holistic understanding of digital labor activism, balancing the depth of individual experiences with an understanding of collective dynamics.
The exclusive use of public social media content from civil society activists was chosen to preserve privacy and reduce traceability given the research’s political nature, but also to provide insight into emerging forms of public discourse and mobilization strategies in open fora. This methodological choice offers a unique perspective on how affect and individual narratives become powerful tools in the digital labor movement. Although generalizability is limited due to the detailed case study, the depth of analysis afforded by this provides a solid foundation for understanding similar dynamics in other contexts and could be supported by cross-country studies in future research.
Findings
Social media
The LDA analysis of the 886 WIM posts and comments reveal an online community with a deep interest and engagement in labor affairs, actively engaging in discussions about wages, agreements, strikes, voting, and union strategy. Comments on WIM were full of first-person accounts reflecting individual experiences and direct contact with the labor market issues debated on the site. This personal investment is emphasized by a clear emotional tone in comments filled with angry and happy smileys or emojis such as “strong arm,” “fist,” or “red flag.” They include criticism of bargaining results, demands for improved working conditions, calls for a more member-centric negotiation process, and a desire for a shift in union strategy that focuses more on mobilization and strikes. Together, these discussions articulate challenges to the authority of union leaders and suggest a desire for a more participatory, member-driven union structure (see Table 1).
Themes and Distribution in Workers in Motion.
The most prevalent theme, “Bargaining and Industry Discussions,” suggests a critical view of the 2023 collective bargaining agreement among WIM members, indicating a potential challenge to traditional union authority. The tone is rough and often humorous, and the posts highlight the significance of having negotiators who are in tune with workers’ real-life experiences and interests, ridiculing officials who are seemingly out of touch. One user even suggests rewarding union negotiators with “a closed fist” if they fail to deliver a strong bargaining result, and terms the union “a damn couch association” due its perceived lack of tenacity.
The themes “Democratic Participation and Solidarity” and “Local Groups and Voting” emphasize the desire for a more participatory and democratic union structure, highlighting the potential of social media to enable more direct forms of engagement and solidarity. There are explicit calls for union officials to mobilize members across the country, calling for shop stewards’ meetings, membership agitation, and a stop to “theater performances” in favor of direct action. WIM
The themes “Work Conditions and Trade Union Role” and “Wage Discussions” reflect the ongoing debates about work conditions and wages. There is notable anger about the loss of a national holiday in 2022 because of government cutbacks, Store Bededag. Union leaders are criticized for insufficient protest against this measure and for not initiating widespread strikes, with one combative user calling for the union to put their foot down and mobilize members to prevent the abolition of Store Bededag, secure inflation-adjusted wage increases, and assert workers’ power to the new government, showing Danish PM Mette Frederiksen “who calls the shots in the labor market.”
The prominent discussions in the themes “Struggle and Strikes” and “Key Union Negotiators” reflect a desire for more radical industrial action, particularly strikes.
Finally, the themes “Employers, Agreements, and the Role of Government” and “Inflation and Local Negotiations” reflect broader concerns about the role of employers and the government, and the economic realities affecting workers.
Together, these themes suggest a complex and contentious situation, with significant disagreements between activists and union leaders about strategy. A sense of frustration toward the union leadership, perceived as detached from workers’ realities, is evident, and frequent references to specific local groups, key negotiators, and influential individuals further underscore the changing dynamics of union organizing on social media.
As will be evident in the following section, the themes identified through this topic modeling resonate with the insights shared by grassroots activists. In particular, “Bargaining and Industry Discussions” and “Democratic Participation and Solidarity” directly align with sentiments expressed in the interviews, such as the call for more member-centric approaches and strategic shifts in union tactics to more direct action.
Interviews
Old and new hierarchies
Activists in WIM highlighted the significance of Facebook as a space for challenging power relations within the labor movement. They widely emphasized the ease of use and the huge width of communication as the positive qualities of social media, with several noting that Facebook had become their primary source for labor news. WIM and similar pages enable workers across the country to coordinate and discuss labor affairs outside of union fora. The leading grassroots activists in WIM articulated that social media enabled them to challenge not only the union leadership but also the entire media landscape: There was a time when we had our own union newspapers [. . .] and we made them because the established press, Berlingske Tidende [Danish conservative newspaper] and whatever they were called, they didn’t speak up for us. We had to do it ourselves. Especially during the 90s and 00s, the media sphere was cleared—the big conglomerates now control the information flows while union magazines just quietly collapsed and went “pfff.” Now it’s starting to grow again, because social media gives us an opportunity to make it grow. (George, builder)
In interviews, activists painted their communication as being more in line with “real people,” focusing on personal narratives and individual stories: We need some goddamn real people, ordinary folks who can tell us what the world’s like. It’s compelling when a shop steward from some construction crew gets up and says, ‘This is how I see it. There’s 10 times more weight behind those words than some professional union secretary or somebody who’s paid by the organization. (Frank, leader of a local builder’s union club)
These statements emphasize what Weber would term charismatic legitimacy, where personal stories and direct appeals are used to galvanize worker support, in contrast to bureaucratic legitimacy, which is characterized by structured organizational communication. Unions were seen to be unable or unwilling to harness a more activist approach to labor issues, and activists used Facebook to connect with likeminded critics of the union leadership, with activist Danny even terming Facebook an “escape valve for union activism.” These frustrations with union structures and desires for more radical action mirror the themes “Struggle and Strikes” and “Key Union Negotiators” from the LDA results, illustrating the real-world underpinnings of the discourse found in Facebook groups. Similarly, it aligns with Weber’s concept of charismatic authority, where activists’ calls for direct action, strikes, and leader mobilization reflect a form of leadership that is more emotional and personal, challenging the bureaucratic structures of traditional union authority included in the highly coordinated Danish system of collective bargaining.
Digital storytelling, such as that on WIM, allows personal narratives to be linked with broader political issues (Siapera et al., 2018) and redistribute meaningful symbolic resources, expanding avenues for public participation (Couldry, 2010, p. 373). The personal narratives of labor activists are crucial in challenging established union narratives and rely on charisma, affect, and individualized action formations for their strength, allowing everyday individuals to confront and dispute mainstream narratives (Chadwick, 2017, p. 207). As Papacharissi (2016) writes, “Technologies network us, but it is our stories that connect us.” The right use of personal stories on social media can redistribute communicative power, allowing activists to widely distribute their message and influence public debate beyond what was previously possible (Geelan, 2021). Indeed, earlier studies on grassroots labor networks in Denmark show they tend to either outperform or go toe-to-toe with unions on Facebook in terms of reach (Hansen & Hau, 2022a), partly because of their emphasis on personal stories and affect, which help drive greater engagement from followers. However, the passion and fervor of charismatic leaders may not translate into a steady, enduring form of authority needed to support long-standing organizational structures (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012). As Weber poignantly suggests, ”Emotional revolutionism is followed by the traditionalist routine of everyday life” (Weber, 1946, p. 103).
“The anger bank”: Affect and authority
The viral potential of emotion-driven content can contribute to a new form of charismatic authority but also impedes efforts toward transparency and accountability within unions. These affective dynamics underline the complexity of balancing multiple forms of legitimacy and power on social media. Some activists were vocal about deliberately mobilizing affect in response to perceived union timidity and reserve: We are speaking directly to outrage, empathy, and a sense of justice. It’s about getting to what we call, “the anger bank.” [. . .] You must appeal to that feeling that there’s someone up there who doesn’t give a damn about traditional women’s professions and other low-wage groups. It’s about always having an opposition, people should intuitively have the experience that it is “us against them. (Ian, leader of local Kindergarten teacher’s union club)
Other activists highlighted precisely that showing anger on social media worked well because it was human, present, and empathetic, which was something the more sanitized and professional union communication failed to do: Sometimes we do some posts that work really well, because you can tell we’re a bit angry. It feels human and at eye level, and you feel seen and heard if you’re experiencing similar things. I experience that very, very rarely from the union. Rarely anyone showed great emotion, and their posts are all polished and graphically appealing, but it takes something away. (Hannah, local union communications employee)
The rise of affective politics as a tool for grassroots labor mobilization is a clear manifestation of charismatic authority. Followers are inspired through raw emotional resonance rather than established rules or tradition, such as the more “polished” union posts Hannah describes, which conform to more traditional standards of political communication. The personal, emotive nature of social media aligns well with groups drawing on charismatic authority, creating a novel platform for grassroots networks to emerge and challenge bureaucratic union communication. In WIM, this charisma is encapsulated in the ability to speak to the anger, frustration, and sense of injustice experienced by members of the working class. Leaders employ emotive language and compelling personal narratives to appeal to these affective experiences, effectively tapping into the “anger bank” of their followers. While mobilizing affect is by no means a new phenomenon—Weber of course developed his concepts long before Facebook—the specific affordances of social media serve to heighten and charge this affectual-charismatic dynamic, making it easier for actors without stable organizational structures, communications departments, and paid ads to spread their message. Effective labor organizing on digital platforms must navigate the tension between charismatic appeal and structured bureaucracy, ensuring both immediate mobilization and long-term stability.
“You with him or with me?” Legitimacy in grassroots networks
Grassroots networks like WIBWIM typically adopt an informal leadership and decision-making approach, diverging from traditional union models. This informality is a deliberate choice reflecting a particular ethos, and during an online network meeting in WIM, Johnny, a leading activist, explained that the group relied on a few committed activists leading through action and resolve: “We have no general assemblies. Whoever is present at a given meeting decides. [. . .] We are a few who take charge and run ahead and then we just hope that the others will follow, and they always do.” WIM illustrates a charismatic form of leadership in which authority is not institutionalized but dynamically centered around a few key individuals. This mode of operation, characterized by ad hoc decision making by whoever is present, reflects a fluid, action-oriented style. It suggests trust in direct, personal forms of influence and decision making and confidence in spontaneous leadership. While agile and effective in mobilizing grassroots support, it also poses questions about sustainability and the challenge of maintaining cohesion without formal structures.
Johnny also explained his method for handling offline dissent:
You know what I do when I get challenged? I get the guy up, get him up beside me, and I say to my crew, “Who are you with? You with him or me? Raise your hands!.” I stick my neck out every time and it just shuts ’em down.
What if it fails?
Haha, well, it hasn’t failed yet!
(Johnny, leader of local scaffolder’s union club)
Johnny’s tactic of directly confronting challenges by rallying his crew for visible support hinges on his personal appeal and ability to inspire loyalty. He also regularly appeared in influencer-type videos on WIM mobilizing members to action or providing his take on a current labor issue. Whether on- or offline his leadership involves leveraging his charisma to reinforce authority, creating a direct, emotional bond with his followers both on Facebook and in his local union club. This method is both risky and personalized, as it depends on the patient’s continued ability to demonstrate strength and command loyalty, rather than on established rules or procedures. Charismatic authority can be highly effective but also unstable and volatile. If Johnny’s personal challenge were to someday fail, his authority would be severely undermined.
Other labor activists more peripheral to WIM also highlighted the inherent inequalities of this type of authority, noting how the democratizing potential of social media has its limits: Anybody can express a point of view, but there’s not an equal opportunity to get it across. [. . .] I can write to 30 electricians from among my Facebook friends. My chairman down in the local branch probably has 300 electricians as Facebook friends, and he can get better content produced, he can work professionally with our communications team about what he wants to communicate, and so on. So, social media is an unequal power relationship, because you also remove the democratic structures that were supposed to make the debate equal. (Karl, electrician)
As other researchers have noted, while social media may provide an unprecedented platform for communication, it does not constitute a level playing field for activists (Blum & Uldam, 2024). While social media ostensibly democratizes access to discourse, it can also inadvertently replicate traditional hierarchical structures, merely extending them into the digital realm (Kerr & Waddington, 2014). Similarly, other WIM activists highlighted that while having likes on Facebook might showcase popularity, it lacked legitimacy: [Likes on Facebook] are not organized. Democracy is a way of life. Democracy is organized influence. That’s also why you need to have political discussions in the trade union movement among members, so they feel that this association is theirs and whatever is done is what they have decided needs to be done. Otherwise, it’s just populism, leaders speaking directly to members over the heads of their clubs. (Carsten, graphic designer)
This ties into previous research on social media, which shows how the institutional legitimization of “individualized charismatic authority” can precisely lead to populism (Gustafsson & Weinryb, 2020). Importantly, bureaucratic legitimacy does not equate with stale hierarchy. Rather, as Karl and Carsten point out, the rules and formal structures of unions may ensure equal representation and access to speech by providing a democratic structure to labor organizations.
Likes and shares on Facebook serve as a testament to the charismatic appeal of leading activists, enabling them to break away from traditional bureaucratic structures and mobilize a wider audience. However, this form of authority also has its limits, as it often depends on the individual characteristics of the leader and can wane over time or be susceptible to the changing algorithms and trends of social media.
Discussion
In his analysis of different forms of authority, Weber was attentive to the tension between idealism and pragmatism, or what he termed at various times an “ethic of absolute ends” and an “ethic of responsibility” (Weber, 1946, p. 101), or revolutionary and evolutionary strategies (Weber, 1967, p. 38). Although ideally supplementary strategies, the former are more characteristic of organizational outsiders, and the latter more of organizational insiders. The findings in this study mirror this tension between different understandings of authority and the guiding ethics behind them.
Weber outlined a universal trend whereby control shifts from the direct actors involved, that is, members, to a smaller set of individuals employing rational methods, that is, leaders (Weber, 1978, p. 985). This centralization is primarily driven by the need for coordination and discipline, so that democracy is inevitably challenged by bureaucracy and the efficiency afforded by centralized leadership (Weber, 1978, p. 985). However, the analysis of the WIM grassroots network in this article clearly illustrates how digital platforms can disrupt traditional power relations within the labor movement. Social media provide unprecedented reach and immediacy for non-organizational actors, allowing non-experts to be visible in political discussions that would otherwise take place among a narrow elite (Hautea et al., 2021), making internal disagreement visible to the public (Hau, 2022), and enabling ordinary people to mobilize widely through affective and personal stories (Gerbaudo et al., 2023). The immediacy and wide reach of platforms like Facebook amplify the impact of networks relying on charismatic legitimacy, creating new mobilization patterns distinct from traditional organizing methods and making unions appear stale, hierarchical, and unresponsive.
However, as Weber (1946) noted, charismatic authority is inherently unstable (p. 103). Effective leadership must demonstrate both “warm passion and a cool sense of proportion” (1946, p. 99), balancing charismatic legitimacy and passion that inspire followers with the strategic planning and bureaucratic approach necessary for long-term stability. As described by Hansen and Hau (2022a), mobilizing emotions and anger is far more problematic for established unions, who cannot use charismatic authority in the same way as activists. As institutionalized political organizations, trade unions operate within defined bureaucratic frameworks that are essential to be able to handle both large membership numbers with different needs, complex agreements, and legal conundrums. Unions must balance emotional appeal with more rational and fact-based communication that does not undermine their credibility. They steer clear of narratives that might alienate moderate members or provoke unnecessary ire from employers or politicians, as this could lead to weaker bargaining positions. Unions must also consider their public image; too much anger or antagonism risks damaging their reputation, especially in a labor market model like the Danish one, which emphasizes consensus and moderation.
Conclusion
This study shows how social media are reshaping union dynamics, especially in contexts like Denmark with strong labor traditions and high levels of digitalization. By decentralizing authority, platforms like Facebook enable more direct and personal member mobilization, challenging traditional union leadership. While this study has focused on Denmark, similar dynamics could emerge more broadly in Scandinavia, or indeed other countries like Germany, the Netherlands, or Canada, with strong traditions of organized labor coupled with high levels of digitalization. As Jen Schradie (2015) reminds us, context is crucial for digital labor activism, which requires high internet penetration, strong legal protections for freedom of association, and receptive union attitudes toward digital tools. In such environments, social media can rapidly engage members, fostering new forms of authority and legitimacy. However, while charismatic authority may mobilize members through personal narratives and affect, bureaucratic structures provide crucial stability and equal representation.
Max Weber emphasized an inherent clash between the public nature of democratic authority and the secretive essence of bureaucratic authority (Weber, 1978, p. 991), and this article argues this clash is further exacerbated by the public nature of social media and the focus on personal stories and affect. Indeed, the future of democracy may hinge on resolving similar value conflicts between leaders and members, efficiency and idealism, bureaucracy and passion, or structure and expression. The fundamental question then becomes how unions can strike this difficult balance between engagement and organizational integrity.
Preliminary studies have indicated that union facilitation of online networks without the exercise of outright control may provide this balance. This can provide new forms of collective action, a “grassroots” image, and shared feelings of togetherness among a dispersed work force (Pasquier & Wood, 2018). Importantly, unions must act as “orchestrators” (Wood, 2015) of “flashmob unionism” (Pasquier et al., 2020) or adopt “social media unionism,” which supports autonomous networks (Hau & Savage, 2022). They must also work to integrate grassroots both online and offline, being attentive to processes of internal democracy and transparency (Hau & Hansen, 2025).
The findings in this study suggest that as affect and individual narratives become increasingly powerful tools for the labor movement, unions must explore ways to incorporate these new modes of communication without compromising their traditional organization. By doing so, unions can ensure their continued relevance and effectiveness, harnessing the power of social media to advocate for workers’ rights and shape the future of labor organizing. This requires a deeper exploration of the interplay between charismatic and bureaucratic authority in the digital sphere, and how these forms of authority complement rather than compete in the pursuit of labor rights and democratic organization.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.