Social Opportunity Structures in Hacktivism: Exploring Online and Offline Social Ties and the Role of Offender Convergence Settings in Hacktivist Networks

Hacktivism represents the promotion in the cyber landscape of ideologically motivated agendas using hacking techniques. Despite research on the topic has provided some clues on how hacktivist networks develop, the processes behind their evolution remain mostly unknown. This gap in the literature prompted us to research the role of online/offline social relationships and of the offender convergence settings in the creation, recruitment process and development of hacktivist networks. This study is based on 30 interviews with hacktivists, and it uses the social opportunity structures framework to analyze the development of 21 hacktivist networks. The results show that said networks can be divided in sub-categories based on the type of connections used to create them. Online social relationships and online convergence settings (particularly social media platforms and IRC channels) seem to play a key role in the development of hacktivist networks, while offline contacts are limited. For the recruitment process, hacktivists use comparable strategies to any organization, but three different categories were identified when discussing the level of sophistication applied to the selection of new candidates.