Social Movement and Change

Abstract

With a focus on health communication scholarship, this entry provides an overview of social movement and change. First, the entry reviews social movements, collective identity and agency, and the role of social media in contemporary social movements. Next, the role of health communication in studying health social movements is examined. Health social movements require greater attention from health communication scholarship as these movements reshape the dominant assumptions of health and its accompanying frameworks. Health activism foregrounds the socioecological and structural aspects of poor health, holding accountable external actors such as corporations, states, and broader policies. Health social movements fundamentally challenge hegemonic health assumptions and the concomitant discourse. Therefore, health communication scholarship must pay greater attention to the role health social movements play in challenging the premise of health inequalities and inequity in society.