Abstract
There is an ongoing debate about whether digital media undermines or enhances the ability of stakeholders—in particular, secondary stakeholders—to influence a firm’s policies and practices. One prevailing perspective (Barnett, Henriques & Husted, 2020; Barnett, Henriques & Husted, 2024) is that digital media leads to slacktivism, a token display of support, which impedes the ability of stakeholders to act collectively and makes it easier for firms to dismiss stakeholder claims. Another perspective (Colleoni, Zyglidopoulos & Illia, 2024) argues that even though synchronicity may be difficult to achieve, digital media in the form of hashtags makes it easier for heterogeneous stakeholders to converge around a broader demand for societal change and indirectly pressure firms to change their policies and practices. In this exchange, we expand on Colleoni, Zyglidopoulos, and Illia’s (2024) arguments by encompassing other forms of digital activism beyond generic hashtags. Drawing from the logic of connective action, we argue that two universal pathways—connectivity and velocity—applicable across a wide range of digital activism, are reshaping and enhancing stakeholders’ ability to influence a firm’s social policies and practices.
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