The tension between connective action and platformisation: Disconnected action in the GameStop short squeeze

Michael Vaughan; Johannes B. Gruber; Ana Ines Langer

doi:10.1177/14614448231182617

The tension between connective action and platformisation: Disconnected action in the GameStop short squeeze

Michael Vaughan^*
, Johannes B. Gruber
, Ana Ines Langer

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Although the Reddit-led short squeeze of GameStop shares in 2021 drew comparisons with Occupy Wall Street, this article focuses on one key area of difference: where Occupy exemplified the theoretical model of connective action through its discursive and technological openness, mobilisation around the short squeeze followed a different pattern characterised by discursive and technological disconnections, which we argue partly reflects the intervening decade of platformisation. Our case shows how platforms can establish boundaries as well as brokerage points in contentious politics, with particular regard to repertoires of action, collective identities and discourses. We show how in our case, these boundaries impeded discursive and technological connections, instead organising users into relatively disconnected zones and ultimately reducing their power and impact over broader discursive systems. Our argument is explored using three data sets from Reddit, Twitter and legacy news media outlets, using a combination of non-negative matrix factorisation (NMF) topic modelling and manual content analysis.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	632-654
Number of pages	23
Journal	New Media and Society
Volume	27
Issue number	2
Early online date	1 Jul 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231182617
Publication status	Published - Feb 2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023.

Funding

The authors would like to acknowledge feedback from Paul Lagneau-Ymonet, participants in the 2022 American Political Science Conference, reviewers for the 2023 International Communication Association Conference, and the journal’s two anonymous peer reviewers for their insightful comments The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/ or publication of this article: This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, funding code 16DII125. The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/ or publication of this article: This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, funding code 16DII125.

Funders	Funder number
American Political Science Conference
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung	16DII125

Keywords

Connective action
content analysis
inequality
occupy
platformisation
topic modelling

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The tension between connective action and platformisation: Disconnected action in the GameStop short squeeze

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