The Face(book) of Unionism

Background

A growing body of research examines the role of ICT in unions. The literature falls into three overlapping streams: (1) a review of how unions use ICT (e.g., Fiorito & Bass, 2002; Greer, 2002; Stevens & Greer, 2005); (2) the impact of IT on union effectiveness (e.g., Fiorito, Jarley, & Delaney, 2002); and (3) the potential benefits IT offers unions and the broader labor movement, both domestically and globally. Most studies treat the union as the unit of analysis, examining, for example, unions’ usage of the web. Diamond and Freeman (2002) offer one of the few analyses of actual union members’ use of IT, studying usage primarily among U.K. rank-and-file and to a lesser extent among U.S. unionists.