The theory argues that social movements develop
when individuals with grievances are able to mobilize sufficient resources to take action
. The emphasis on resources explains why some discontented/deprived individuals are able to organize while others are not.
- agitation.
- resource mobilization.
- organization.
- institutionalization.
- decline/death.
Social movements are
purposeful
, organized groups, either with the goal of pushing toward change, giving political voice to those without it, or gathering for some other common purpose. Social movements intersect with environmental changes, technological innovations, and other external factors to create social change.
Greenpeace
; Sierra Club; Audubon Society; Nature Conservancy; World Wildlife Federation; Friends of Earth; Natural Resources Defense Council; Earth Now!; Earth Liberation Front; …
A social movement is an
organized group
that acts consciously to promote or resist change through collective action. –Gives those a voice who don’t normally have (Blacks in the civil rights mvt. and Women in women’s movement, labor movements and the working class).
The characteristics of the social movement are also clear from the various elements of social movement that various sociologists have told. According to Wendall King, there are 5 main elements in the social movement –
Goals, Ideology, Collective synthesis, Organization and status system and methodology
.
- Change must be framed as a crisis.
- Has to be grounded in science.
- Has to have an economic basis.
- You must have evangelists.
- Coalition building.
- Advocacy.
- Government involvement.
- Mass communication.
Social movements are defined as
networks of informal interactions between a plurality of individuals, groups andor organizations
, engaged in political or cultural conflicts, on the basis of shared collective identities.
While there are many differences between social movements, they are typically distinguished by the
people whose behavior they seek to change and the extent of societal change they hope to achieve
, resulting in four types of social movements (alternative, redemptive, reformative, and revolutionary) (p. 707).
All the SMOs
in a nation with
roughly comparable goals, issue orientations, or ideological congruity constitute its social movement industry (SMI). All the SMIs in a nation constitute its social movement sector (SMS).
The four stages of social movement development are
emergence, coalescence, bureaucra- tization, and decline
. The Decline stage can result from several different causes, such as repression, co-optation, success, failure, and mainstream.
Sociologists have looked at social movements and offered several theories to explain how they develop. Three of those theories –
deprivation theory, mass-society theory and structure strain theory
– will be discussed in this lesson.
- Technology.
- Population.
- War and conquest.
- Diffusion.
- Values and beliefs.
- Physical environment.
The phrase social movements refers to collective activities designed to bring about or resist primary changes in an existing society or group. Wherever they occur, social movements
can dramatically shape the direction of society
. … Even when they prove initially unsuccessful, social movements do affect public opinion.
Social movements are broad alliances of people who are connected through their shared interest in social change. Social movements can
advocate for a particular social change
, but they can also organize to oppose a social change that is being advocated by another entity.
Social movements start
when people realize that there is a specific problem in their society that they want to address
. This realization can come from the dissatisfaction people feel or information and knowledge they get about a specific issue. … The first stage of the social movement is known as emergence.
