This paper explores the organizing elements that foster emergent collaboration within large-scale communities on online social platforms like Twitter. This study is based on a case study of the #BlackLivesMatter social movement and draws on organizing dynamics and online social network literature, combined with the analysis of 2050 tweets collected from days where the movement had high levels of activity. Drawing on the literature review, we propose a framework consisting of three organizing elements: structure, engagement, and communicative content that are essential in analyzing online collaboration. This paper uses this framework to analyze the collected tweets and identify how actors organize and engage in large-scale communities founded by emergent online collaboration. This paper identifies characteristics of how these key elements and a dynamic interplay between the two logics of action foster emergent collaboration in social movements using Twitter.

Recent research has damped initial promises for democratic deliberation in social media arenas. Empirical studies find only low degrees of direct reciprocal interaction among participants, a lack of consensus orientation, and accelerated forms of communication that fail to meet traditional ideals of deliberation. In line with recent literature, we argue that traditional deliberative ideals are too narrow to embrace the potential contribution of social media for deliberation about (ir-)responsible business conduct. Instead, we propose to conceptualize social media as arenas for everyday talk, that is, everyday communication practices through which participants informally discuss and express opinions about current issues, thereby contributing to a broader deliberative system. In adopting this lens, we ask: How can everyday talk in social media contribute to deliberation about (ir-)responsible business conduct? Drawing on the latest insights from online deliberation studies, we develop a framework for evaluating everyday talk and propose that its deliberative quality depends on social media appropriate forms of justification, interactivity, equality, and civility. We apply this framework with an analysis of 260,224 tweets about the role of business in climate change. Based on our findings, we critically discuss how everyday talk in social media can contribute to deliberation at the intersection of business and society.

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