The challenge facing existing airport campaign groups when incorporating social media into their campaign: A social network analysis of Airport Watch’s social media utilisation

•There are clear differences between the Twitter networks of Airport Watch.•Airport Watch connects to a range of users to enhance its message.•Social media does not replace offline forms of activism.•The ephemeral nature of social media and over-reliance on one person is problematic.•Lack of an experienced social media operator hinders the response on social media. Social media has enabled people to do things differently across different campaigning spheres. For campaign groups, social media provides frequent interaction and an ability to quickly disseminate information (Harrington and Lewis, 2014; Poell and Van Dijck, 2015). But the incorporation of social media can cause challenges for existing campaign groups. This paper uses social network analysis to explore the challenges created by social media’s incorporation through an anti-airport expansion group associated with the ongoing campaign against Heathrow airport expansion; Airport Watch. NodeXL and Twitonomy were used to extract social media data and interviews were undertaken with the social media coordinator of Airport Watch to answer questions resulting from the social network analysis findings. The results demonstrate a difference in interaction within its Twitter social media networks whilst its Facebook page provides a clear indication of Airport Watch dominating influence and power over other users. Furthermore, the interviews enabled an understanding behind the reasons for the utilisation of social media as an information dissemination platform and how the chairperson and volunteer base do not have the experience to operate social media and thus cannot always respond instantly or even at all; something which is a requirement on social media. The implications of these results are also discussed in relation to future social media practice.