On solidarity and volunteering during the COVID-19 crisis in Denmark
Postdoc Hjalmar Bang Carlsen, Postdoc Jonas Toubøl and Benedikte Brincker, Head of Department, have contributed to the journal European Societies with the paper:
The paper unfolds how informal civil society quickly mobilised citizen-to-citizen support when government and non-government organisations in Denmark locked down during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper focuses on two elements of the mobilisation: the role of social networks and social media groups. It reveals that the vast majority of this support was distributed through existing social networks and, therefore, not available to those lacking social connections.
However, the authors also find that social media groups played an important role in the mobilisation, that support organised on social media does not diverge significantly in commitment or kind from support organised in other settings.
The paper concludes by discussing the potential of social media to mitigate the impact of social networks on the distribution of support, pointing to some of the potential barriers to social media groups’ successful facilitation of support to those without a social network.
Get access to the article (open acces).