Crafting Moral Infrastructures: How Nonprofits Use Facebook to Survive

TL;DR

This study explores how non-profit organizations strategically use Facebook and other ICTs to build moral infrastructures aligned with their ethical frameworks, challenging traditional technology adoption theories.

Contribution

It reveals that NPOs craft infrastructures based on moral economy principles rather than utility, offering a new perspective on ICT use in civic engagement.

Findings

NPOs effectively use ICTs without failing to adopt tools.

ICT use is shaped by moral economy frameworks, not just utility.

Existing theories do not fully explain NPOs' technology assemblages.

Abstract

We present findings from interviews with 23 individuals affiliated with non-profit organizations (NPOs) to understand how they deploy information and communication technologies (ICTs) in civic engagement efforts. Existing research about NPO ICT use is largely critical, but we did not find evidence that NPOs fail to use tools effectively. Rather, we detail how various ICT use on the part of NPOs intersects with unique affordance perceptions and adoption causes. Overall, we find that existing theories about technology choice (e.g., task-technology fit, uses and gratifications) do not explain the assemblages NPOs describe. We argue that NPOs fashion infrastructures in accordance with their moral economy frameworks rather than selecting tools based on utility. Together, the rhetorics of infrastructure and moral economies capture the motivations and constraints our participants expressed and challenge how prevailing theories of ICT usage describe the non-profit landscape.