Digital Media in Grassroots Anti-Corruption Mobilizations

Corruption is a global problem that affects millions of people, and activists all over the world mobilize against it. When they do so, they increasingly employ various types of digi­tal media. First, the chapter discusses two leading roles that digital media might have in grassroots anti-corruption struggles, each of them linked to one specific approach to cor­ruption. On the one hand, they are in line with a view of corruption as a principal–agent problem, hence assisting activists in enlarging the monitoring and denouncing capacity of people concerning corruption. On the other hand, they can sustain a view of corruption as a collective action problem, hence helping activists in increasing the public awareness on corruption to change the normative understanding of what corruption is and does to soci­eties. Second, the chapter addresses digital media as they entangle with big data. While anti-corruption activists have always relied on data of all kinds to support their struggles, this section tackles three specific types of data-related practices (data production, data embedment, and data transformation). It also shows how they are in tune with either the collective action or the principal–agent approach to corruption. Third, the chapter dis­cusses another, more pragmatic, and situated approach to corruption and, in its frame­work, the potential role of digital media for anti-corruption activists, arguing for the de­velopment of comparative studies on the subject matter. Finally, conclusions revisit the previous sections, taking into consideration three main directions toward which research on anti-corruption from the grassroots and its relationship with digital media might devel­op in the near future.