Author Identifier

Lili M Archer

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0099-1444

Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts Honours

School

School of Arts and Humanities

First Supervisor

Dr Kay Hearn

Abstract

Trade union density and power in Australia has been in decline since the 1970s. This has occurred while use of the internet and social media platforms such as Facebook has grown significantly. For some time, the potential that these technologies offer with regard to union revival has been debated and discussed, yet there has been limited research that assesses the content Australian unions are sharing on social media platforms. This thesis contributes to the research by analysing the Facebook content of Hospo Voice, Australia’s first digital union and a project of the Victorian branch of the larger trade union United Voice.

Hospo Voice launched in May 2018 and offers hospitality workers in the state of Victoria an online union subscription at a low cost, mirroring the prices of online streaming services such as Netflix. This thesis argues that Hospo Voice successfully utilises the internet and social media, in combination with other offline organising strategies, in order to communicate with and mobilise workers in the hospitality industry. The framework of industrial relations mobilisation theory and a content analysis methodology has been utilised to analyse the Facebook content of Hospo Voice over a six-month period in order to reach this conclusion.

Available for download on Monday, December 02, 2024

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