Comment on Elena Pavan/2. Connecting Collective Actions to Social Media: Comments on an Exploratory Empirical Exercise

This article comments on an exploratory study by Pavan (2013) of collective actionand social media. The proposed model in the study suggests blending evidence from actors,connections, content, and distribution of online messages, but limited blending is presented.Further, the study lacks a longitudinal dimension; data was collected on a single day and nofollow-up study for the annual event was conducted or proposed. This article compares Pavan'sstudy with another examination (Howard et al., 2011) of social action and social media thatdoes examine more data from more sources, all across time. While the exploration and proposedresearch design is interesting, further development, along with longitudinal data collection, wouldhave strengthened the work.