Social Movements, Platforms, and In/Visibility (VISIMOVE)

In June 2025, as part of the 1000 Ideas funding program, the FWF selected a research project focused on the relationship between visibility, platforms, and social movements. The research project will be implemented at the Linz Institute for Transformative Change, Johannes Kepler University Linz. The project studies contemporary social movements and explores the role of digital platforms in shaping their power and social influence. The researchers` basic assumption is that the mobilization and organization of social movements depend on their visibility on digital platforms. Platforms such as Instagram, Telegram, or Tiktok influence the visibility of social movements through filter settings and content moderation and shape the possibilities of actors to organize themselves collectively. Thus, the management of visibility on (multiple) digital platforms are key to the emergence and success of social movements. This research project aims to understand trajectories of visibility and invisibility of social movements that result from the interplay between the moderation practices and filtering properties of platforms (what platforms do with activists) and the practices of activists (what activists do with platforms). The project aims to create a novel understanding of how visibility trajectories on digital platforms change the ability of social movements to mobilize and drive social change. Empirically, the project plans to explore two radical and contrasting social movements: the Tradwife Movement and the 4B Movement. Tradwives are traditional housewives who advocate a return to conservative values and roles from the last century. The 4B movement is a South Korean movement that emerged around 2015 and gained a foothold in the US context in late 2024. The activists of 4B radically oppose the patriarchy by speaking out against dating, sex, marriage and having children of their own. Depending on the course of the project, other opposing social movements could also be selected for analysis - for example, movements in the context of abortion, which contribute to the current polarization and radicalization of societal discourses. Project leader Milena Leybold (Johannes Kepler University Linz), together with Oana Albu, researcher at the Copenhagen Business School (Denmark) and the project team, is looking forward to spending the next one and a half years working on this exciting topic.