How Diverse Users and Activities Trigger Connective Action via Social Media: Lessons from the Twitter Hashtag Campaign #ILookLikeAnEngineer

TL;DR

This study analyzes the #ILookLikeAnEngineer Twitter campaign, showing how diverse user participation and event-driven triggers fostered sustained engagement and connective action in social media activism for gender diversity in engineering.

Contribution

It identifies specific trigger types—event, media, industry, personality—that enhance participation and momentum in social media activism campaigns.

Findings

Diverse participation increased activity during key moments.

Event alignment with offline activities boosted engagement.

Multiple trigger types collectively supported campaign momentum.

Abstract

We present a study that examines how a social media activism campaign aimed at improving gender diversity within engineering gained and maintained momentum in its early period. We examined over 50,000 Tweets posted over the first ~75 days of the #ILookLikeAnEngineer campaign and found that diverse participation - of types of users - increased activity at crucial moments. We categorize these triggers into four types: 1) Event-Driven: Alignment of the campaign with offline events related to the issue (Diversity SFO, Disrupt, etc.); 2) Media-Driven: News coverage of the events in the media (TechCrunch, CNN, BBC, etc.); 3) Industry-Driven: Web participation in the campaign by large organizations (Microsoft, Tesla, GE, Cisco, etc.); and 4) Personality-Driven: Alignment of the events with popular and/or known personalities (e.g. Isis Anchalee; Michelle Sun; Ada Lovelace.) This study illustrates how one mechanism - triggering - supports connective action in social media campaign.