Exploring the empowering and paradoxical relationship between social media and CSR activism

This research explores the extent to which social media empowers consumers' CSR activism. Analysis of in-depth interviews with consumers reveals that they experience both high and low empowerment from a behavioral, affective, and cognitive perspective. The study also revealed the presence of two paradoxes that influence the level of empowerment. The first is a social judgment paradox whereby a consumer experiences being both social judge and socially judged. The second paradox is an efficiency/inefficiency paradox reflecting the impact of social media on the time and effort required for performing CSR activism. The research findings extend and counter current theoretical thinking and managerial practice related to CSR activism in social media and they provide the basis for a typology of CSR activists in social media that provides directions for future research.