Discursive legitimation in online crowdfunding: A study of Kickstarter projects promoting human rights

Abstract

The internet-based crowdfunding platforms have in many ways changed the way projects are nowadays funded. Apart from opening to the small businesses, it has created funding opportunities for non-governmental organisations, citizens’ initiatives, non-formal groups and individual projects, which used to have rather limited access to this sort of resources. However, the widening and liberalisation of the market poses new challenges for these entities as well – the project ideas have to be effectively elaborated in order to stand out from the crowd, reach the potential supporters and persuade them to get engaged with the project. This paper explored the discursive practices in crowdfunding for human rights projects, with particular focus on discursive strategies employed in project descriptions on the crowdfunding platforms Kickstarter. Within the discourse analysis framework, the study addressed the various strategies employed in the legitimation of social action (Van Leeuwen 2008), in this case, donating money or otherwise supporting the projects. The findings suggest that rationalisation and appealing to morality are most frequently used to legitimise the social action of crowdfunding on online platforms. The research into discourse of crowdfunding highlights the current tendencies employed for engaging the potential contributors, but also reveals how the crowdfunding and human rights activism are socially constructed on online platforms like Kickstarter.