Social Movement Organizations Research Articles

Between scale and impact: member prototype ambiguity in digital transformation

ABSTRACT Digital transformation can produce scaling in numbers – growing organisational boundaries by adding new users, customers, or members. For membership-based organisations, such as social movement organisations (SMOs), digital scaling brings an inflow of new resources and members at a pace that previously was unimaginable, as well as mounting power and influence. But sustained rapid growth in new membership also can introduce a tension related to digital scaling and political or social impact. In this research, we trace this tension to member prototype ambiguity – that is, to a perceived variation in the attributes, assumptions, and actions of the new members entering the organisation. Such ambiguity can have a destabilising effect on collective identity that might significantly weaken the political or social impact of the SMO. In this longitudinal study of Amnesty International, we examine how digital transformation and scaling unveiled this tension and how the professional core at two of Amnesty’s national sections, Australia and Sweden, addressed the prototype ambiguity that ensued. This research contributes to the existing literature on digital transformation, prototype ambiguity, and social movements, by providing insight into the challenges and opportunities presented by digital scaling in membership-based organisations such as SMOs.

Elite Feminist Adherence and Framing: Women Nobel Laureates Speak Out against Gender Inequality

ABSTRACT As feminist movements have become more diffuse, feminisms have increasingly emerged from and thrived within unexpected, “other” spaces. Elites have the potential to be powerful feminist adherents in social movement organizations as well as in these “other” spaces, yet we know little about the heterogeneity of their feminisms. We examined an understudied group of elites – women Nobel laureates – and the ways they forward a variety of feminisms across a range of historical and professional contexts. Drawing on a content analysis of 76 speeches, we examined if laureates express feminist adherence, how adherents frame gender inequality, and how adherence and framing vary over time and across award categories. Of all women Nobel laureates analyzed, nineteen expressed feminist adherence, framing gender inequality as: 1) women’s underrepresentation among laureates, 2) women’s oppression under patriarchy, and/or 3) not just a women’s issue. Feminist adherence became more common over time, and use of the third, most expansive and intersectional frame was especially concentrated within recent decades (more so than the other two frames). Peace and Literature laureates were more likely than Science laureates to express feminist adherence and to frame issues beyond the gender disparity among laureates. We argue that the variation in adherence and framing correspond to differences in laureates’ historical context and field of work. Our analysis responds to calls for more comparative research on framing, and we contribute to scholarship about variation in feminist attitudes by showing how historical conditions and professional communities can both influence adherence to and articulations of feminism.

“Horizontal” Two-Step Flow: The Role of Opinion Leaders in Directing Attention to Social Movements in Decentralized Information Environments

ABSTRACT The increasing ubiquity of online social networking sites has brought with it questions as to whether old models of communication flows—specifically, the two-step flow model—have potential explanatory power in an era when individuals can follow politicians, celebrities, and other opinion leaders. We expand research using two-step flow to explain attention in the new media ecology by accounting for what we term horizontal two-step flow, wherein non-media actors leverage the influence of online opinion leaders, who may include traditional news media actors, to attract attention to their messages. Using the political fight over repeal of the Eighth Amendment of the Irish Constitution, we examine engagement with communication messages from pro- and anti-repeal organizations in the country, demonstrating that the horizontal two-step flow model of communication explains attention to social movement organizations. In particular, we find that opinion leaders—those with high social influence on Twitter, either via verified status or high degree centrality—increase the diffusion of social movement messages beyond movements’ social media follower bases.

Defending democracy against the ‘Corona dictatorship’? Far-right PEGIDA during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT This article analyzes how a preexisting far-right social movement organization responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the case of the Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident (PEGIDA) in Germany. We show that PEGIDA quickly adapted its previous immigration-related collective action frame, now predominantly portraying itself as a defender of democracy, constitutionality, and civil rights, while accusing the German government of installing a ‘Corona dictatorship’. In addition to improving our understanding of the development of a key far-right social movement organization during the pandemic, our article contributes to the study of far-right ideology more broadly. Examining a critical case of far-right activism, our analysis of PEGIDA underscores the need to review the conventional scholarly distinction between radical and extreme right ideology based on formal pro- and anti-democracy stances. While claiming to espouse the idea of democracy, activists sharply attacked democratic institutions and their main representatives as ‘totalitarian’ or ‘dictatorial’ – a key extremist feature of contemporary far-right discourse particularly visible during the pandemic. Indeed, PEGIDA’s discursive shift during the pandemic seems to be in line with broader developments of far-right ideology in the protest arena and in party politics, where formal support of democracy goes together with a rhetoric of delegitimization of contemporary democratic institutions and their representatives. Methodologically, we draw from original empirical data collected with the tools of (virtual) ethnography and protest event analysis that we analyze through a frame-analytical lens.

Crafting counter frames: Shell's corporate strategies in the Nigeria campaign, 1995–1998

In this article we analyse the actions of Royal Dutch/Shell (since 2021, Shell) considering the campaign against them and their operations in Nigeria in the mid-1990s. Using the concept counter-frames we analyse Shell's internal documentation of the campaign to understand how a multinational extractive industry engaged in disputes of legitimacy and against critiques of their operations. Focusing on frame disputes in the campaign the article contributes with an understanding of the practical development of counter-frames. Using historical records in the form of internal situational reports circulated among subsidiaries during the campaign period we show how different strategies such as lobbying, individual contacts, embedded journalists, production of information products and the development of social programs all were developed through a historical and contingent process between subsidiaries, the public and social movement organisations. Rather than solely identifying strategies used by oil companies the paper expose and analyse the internal logics of Shell which add important insights on the development of corporate strategies in in light of environmental and human right campaigns, legislations and standards.

ʻYou gotta be responsibleʼ: How Kokua Hawaii fostered kuleana for the land and people of Hawaiʻi

Recent scholarship has focused on the vital role of social movement organizations as key pathways into activism. Yet attention to how learning unfolds within social movement organizations has not been adequately studied. Informed by critical learning sciences, we investigated Kokua Hawaii, a social movement organization that catalyzed a near half century of grassroots activism throughout Hawaiʻi and the Pacific. We argue that Kokua Hawaii offered a space for activists to: (1) conceptualize eviction as a symptom of colonialism and capitalism, (2) open themselves to Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) epistemologies and lifeways, (3) participate in shared labor and collective care, and (4) author affirming and purposeful activist identities. Data includes 34 publicly available oral history interviews with members of Kokua Hawaii. We conclude by reflecting on our scholarly responsibilities to past, present, and future social movements.

Addressing racism and Islamophobia under the rules of colorblindness: When social movements engage in category work to reform the meanings of regulatory categories

Research at the intersection of social movements and categories has stressed how movements initiate and transform categories that influence the emergence, downfall, and restructuring of markets and industries. Yet, this literature tends to underestimate how social movement organizations are under pressure to align with powerful regulatory categories. This pressure is emplaced, depending on ideology and laws, and can be avoided by adopting reformist strategies and engaging in category work in free spaces. I discuss how Rainbow, a nonprofit organization, while seemingly aligned with the state-imposed categories of “underprivileged neighborhoods” and “diversity,” sought in practice to reform the meanings of these categories to address racism and islamophobia. Through ethnography, interviews, and textual analysis, I demonstrate how social movements facing pressure to comply with regulatory categories can engage in category reform, challenging the substance of these categories in free spaces and altering their meanings, while buffering oppositions through reformist strategies.

Place Leadership in Social Accountability Initiatives

ABSTRACT This paper explores how social movement and civic actors enact and contribute to place leadership. It does so by examining how social movement organizations in South Africa use social audits to investigate and challenge government accountability and service delivery failures. The paper describes the meaning-making practices evident in social audit reports, and detail how social audit actors construct issues and positions through three framings – rights, regulations and lived realities. In this process, they leverage rights discourses and governance arrangements to legitimize their place leadership, and draw on multiple aspects and experiences of place to expose failures of governance and in the realization of rights. Through the dynamic interplay between legitimizing and exposing, they translate embodied realities and relations in and of place into a sense of purpose and direction for mobilizing a wider network of governance actors. On this basis, the paper contributes a social accountability perspective to place leadership studies. MAD statement This paper aims to Make a Difference (MAD) by exploring how social movement actors contribute to collective place leadership through constructing and contesting the meanings of local governance issues and relationships. The paper highlights how social movement actors illuminate place as the objective and measurable built environment, and as subjectively experienced and constituted as places of heritage and community but also dislocation and trauma. That they use social audits to interrogate governance failures and legitimize communities’ situated knowledge suggests such social accountability initiatives offer a space for place leadership outside of but also interacting with broader governance networks.

A Seat at the Table: A New Data Set of Social Movement Organization Representation before Congress during the Twentieth Century

The authors ask descriptive questions concerning the relationship between social movement organizations (SMOs) and the state. Which movement’s SMOs are consulted the most by the state? Do only a few “spokes-organizations” speak for the whole of movements? Has the state increasingly consulted SMOs over time? Do the movements consulted most by the state advise only a few state venues? The authors present and describe a new publicly available data set covering 2,593 SMOs testifying at any of the 87,249 public congressional hearings held during the twentieth century. Testimony is highly concentrated across movements, with just four movements giving 64 percent of the testimony before Congress. A very few “spokes-organizations” testify far more often than typical SMOs. The SMO congressional testimony diversified over the twentieth century from primarily “old” movements such as Labor to include “new” movements such as the Environmental movement. The movements that testified most often did so before a broader range of congressional committees.

Хабермас и интернет: обратная трансформация публичной сферы в эпоху новых медиа?

According to Jürgen Habermas, one of the leading figures in the conceptualization of the public sphere and public opinion, the public sphere must be considered as an arena that allows citizens to freely express, discuss, criticize and, eventually, publish their opinions on common topics. According to some new media theorists, such a sphere is being re-created within the age of new information technologies. The Internet’s contribution to public opinion and organization of social movements is also attributed to the development of deliberative democracy, changing the perception that citizens can participate in political processes only during elections. In this sense, the Internet can become a new impetus for democratization of societies and formation of a participatory culture, providing equal opportunities to all people, including members of diverse minority groups excluded from the public sphere in the era of traditional media. Supporters of this thesis are trying to adapt the concept of the public sphere by J. Habermas to the modern digital world. In other words, for them, the Internet-cafe of the 21st century plays the role of coffeehouses and salons of the 18th‑19th centuries. Those who analyze the new media from a critical perspective, on the contrary, see the Internet as a great machine that can be used to control and manipulate citizens. Approaching the issue from a completely different perspective, they note that new information technologies lead to capitalist exploitation and corporate control, on the one hand, and to the dissemination of false information and interference in the private life of citizens, on the other. In the field of economics, the concepts of “digital capitalism”, “cybercapitalism”, “surveillance capitalism”, and “wikinomics” are already widely used, implying the commodification of virtual data, which ultimately results in a huge “personal data market”. This study aims to compare the aforementioned perspectives and answer the question of whether the Internet can contribute to the formation of a free public sphere separate from the political sphere.

Formas de vulnerabilidade de pessoas LGBTQIAPN+ no Brasil

Abstract This integrative literature review identifies the forms of vulnerabilities experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender individuals and as well as those of other identities in Brazil. The analysis of the five selected and classified articles revealed mental and physical vulnerabilities in contexts of violence, training environments, COVID-19, existence and deprivation of liberty. These vulnerabilities are historically associated with this community and have been accentuated over the years. Organization of social movements for this population and scientific production incentives are needed to afford greater visibility, reduce injustices and promote changes to the current scenario.

Social Movement Sustainability on Social Media: An Analysis of the Women’s March Movement on Twitter

Social media has emerged as a powerful medium to organize and mobilize social movements. In particular, the connective action of social media builds associations and allows for the continuity of social movements. Yet there is a lack of research on how connective action emergent from social media messages sustains long-term social movements. Accordingly, in this study, we concentrate on Twitter messages related to Women’s March protests held in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Using an interpretive analysis followed by the topic modeling approach, we analyzed the tweets to identify the different types of messages associated with the movement. These messages were classified using a set of categories and subcategories. Furthermore, we conducted a temporal analysis of the message (sub)categories to understand how distinct messages allow movement continuity beyond a specific protest march. Results suggest that while most of the messages are used to motivate and mobilize individuals, the connective action tactics employed through messages sent before, during, and after the marches allowed Women’s March to become a broader and more persistent movement. We advance theoretical propositions to explain the sustainability of a long-term social movement on social media, exemplified through large-scale connective action that persists over time. In doing so, this study contributes to connective action research by providing message categorization that synthesizes the meaning of message content. The findings could help social movement organizers learn different ways to frame messages that resonate with broader social media users. Moreover, our approach to analyzing a large set of tweets might interest other qualitative researchers.

FAR-RIGHT DIGITAL ACTIVISM DURING AND BEYOND THE PANDEMIC

While digital activism has formed part of social movements’ contentious repertoires for at least two decades, online forms of protest have risen to unprecedented importance across the globe in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This article studies continuities and shifts in digital activism before, during and beyond the pandemic, drawing from a case study conducted of the Dresden-based far-right social movement organisation PEGIDA. Seeking to shed new light on the role of the internet and social media for sustained far-right mobilisation, I explore long-term trends in PEGIDA’s digital activism since its emergence in 2014. To this aim, I draw from an original patchwork ethnographic dataset generated through participant observation of demonstrations in Dresden and digital ethnography in 2019-21 as well as undertaking a thorough literature review. The empirical analysis indicates three key findings: Firstly, the longitudinal perspective reveals that a social movement actor’s digital practices are not bound to one or a few ideal-types, but highly dynamic over time. Secondly, my interpretive-ethnographic lens emphasises the constitutive dimensions of digital activism. Thirdly, the analytical focus on digital activism during the pandemic adds new insights into the relationship between the online and offline worlds of mobilisation. As a whole, this article underscores some of the key advantages of (patchwork) ethnography in relation to other methods in protest research.

Role of Social Activism Representative Board of Indonesian National Youth Committee (BP-KNPI) in Malaysia During Movement Control Order 2020-2021

Through activism, community organization, and engagement in social movements, youth worldwide are becoming active actors, demonstrating their ability to influence society in times of crisis. In the context of Indonesian youth, especially those who are part of the diaspora community, attachment to fellow children of the nation is evidenced by social activism, as was the case in Malaysia during the movement control order between 2021 and 2022 through the representative body of the Indonesian Youth National Committee (BP-KNPI). Since its establishment on October 9, 2011, the Indonesian Youth National Committee (BP-KNPI), the representative body for Indonesian youth in Malaysia, has been proactive in playing its role as a second-track diplomatic force, advocating for youth and employment issues, and engaging in social activism to help Indonesian communities in Malaysia. During the pandemic period between March 2020 and December 2021, with the movement control order policy, the representative body of the Indonesian Youth National Committee (BP-KNPI) plays a role in social activism in three domains: (1) the field of employment by supporting the labour recalibration program, which repatriates illegal Indonesian workers in Malaysia (2). in the humanitarian realm by organising assistance from both internal and external parties, such as the Indonesian embassy in Kuala Lumpur; and (3). conducting second-track diplomacy to strengthen relations with the Malaysian Young Council and elements of the Malaysian government. In cyberspace, BP-KNPI Malaysia is also very active in raising solidarity and providing information related to recalibration programmes and social assistance through its members' potential as content creators and relationships with well-known media. Our research concludes that BP-KNPI Malaysia, as a youth civil society, has always been proactive in problem-solving during the pandemic through social activism in humanity, migrant workers from Indonesia, and legal literacy in cyberspace. BP-KNPI Malaysia also tactically implements the spirit of energy and harmony promoted by DPP-KNPI.

“Communist Controlled Black Barbarism”: The Citizen’s Councils of America’s Anti-Communist Master Frame Cluster and the Renovation of White Supremacist Ideology

Using insights from a content coding analysis of discourse from the most influential White supremacist segregationist organization of the early Cold War decades, Citizen’s Councils of America (CCA or Council), I argue that social movement organizations use a master frame cluster, a package of closely related, overlapping frames with a core master frame to adapt and update pre-existing, older ideology to contemporaneous sociopolitical currents and thereby mainstream, modernize, and streamline propaganda messaging. From its media outlets and White supremacist ideology, the Council deployed what I call its Anti-Communist Master Frame Cluster, proclaiming that unrestrained Black savagery and misguided White sympathy, including liberals, leftists, and socialists, all followed a downward slope toward communist tyranny or what the Council called, “Communist controlled Black barbarism.” Twenty-first century conservative rightwing media has inherited the CCA’s master frame cluster to discredit Black Lives Matter protests, still using anti-communist messaging, but with a “Black-on-Black” crime narrative as the main propaganda weapon against Black protest.

Do Human Rights Reinforce Border Regimes? Differential Approaches to Human Rights in the Movement Opposing Border Regimes in Berlin

ABSTRACT Scepticism often dominates the debate regarding the potential of human rights for eroding border regimes. Powerful actors make use of human rights to justify migration control. However, subaltern groups can also rely on human rights to challenge oppression. In this article, I argue that the ambivalence of human rights must be contextualised within the wider human rights politics pursued by different social actors. By drawing on my ethnography of the social movement contesting border regimes in Berlin, I analyse how different social movement organisations contest deportation and I emphasise crucial differences in their approaches to human rights. More specifically, human rights NGOs, which I conceptualise as moderate organisations, draw on legal notions of human rights and oppose deportations only partially. In contrast, radical organisations oppose all deportations by elaborating non-legal notions of human rights. I contend that NGOs see human rights as imperatives that need to be upheld by the law and state institutions. In contrast, radical organisations conceive of human rights as aspirations for social justice and locate the source of human rights in social struggles. These differential approaches to human rights entail a distinctive potential for eroding border regimes as they underpin different models of migration governance.

A South African Perspective on Learning in Social Movement Activism

There is a body of education scholarship in South Africa that captures the role played by social movements in democratising education in post-apartheid South Africa. However, this scholarship says little about how power dynamics affect learning and intellectual labour in social movements or social movement organisations. In addition, the issue of learning in social movements or social movement organisations is hardly explored in the South African social movement literature. This lack of focus on how activists, especially grassroots activists in working-class communities, learn and produce knowledge in social movements and organisations obscures the complexity of learning and knowledge production in activist settings. This article explores how activists, especially grassroots activists, learn in social movements. Based on secondary literature and interviews, the article advances two main arguments: First, learning in social movements and organisations takes place in non-formal and informal ways. Both these forms of learning take place inside and outside formal educational settings. And they both contribute to the empowerment and critical consciousness of activists in social movements and organisations. In addition, informal learning takes place inside and outside popular educational spaces. However, it is not inevitable that non-formal and informal forms of learning in activist settings will generate critical knowledge and activist practices that disrupt the status quo. Second, power relations based on “race”, social class, gender, and sexuality, among other axes of social division, impact on how learning takes place in non-formal or popular contexts of education. This article seeks to understand how power relations shape the learning and knowledge production process in social movements and organisations.

The antinuclear power movement in India after the Fukushima disaster: the case of Koodankulam

ABSTRACT This article shows how the international nuclear disaster in Fukushima affected the antinuclear movement in Koodankulam by using the cross-national diffusion model proposed by Kriesi, Koopmans, Duyvendak and Giugni (1995) . It examines the impact of the international disaster on the antinuclear movement and its subsequent expansion in terms of protest events and organizational trajectories. It also describes the new participants and actors in this antinuclear power issue. The research questions are addressed through archives, handbills, unpublished documents, and semi-structured interviews. I argue that diffusion of information and domestic opportunities helped the antinuclear groups erect a protest camp that offered manufactured vulnerability. This induced several meso and micro level social movement organizations and political parties to join the antinuclear movement, leading to expansion at the organizational level and the formation of coalitions. Further, the participation of newly joined social movement organizations and political parties in the mobilization helped the movement expand its protest events and led to an increase in the level of contention. The study contributes to the study of antinuclear movements and cross-national diffusion.

Mobilization momentum: A network approach to the temporality and effectiveness of environmental movements

Past environmental scholars have sought to explain why environmental mobilization succeeds or fails in reducing environmental hazards, but less scholarship has assessed why environmental mobilization occurs. To examine this question, we employ a month-level temporal model to predict the likelihood of a mobilization event taking place, and a network-analysis model that predicts the involvement of Social Movement Organizations (SMO's). Our results indicate that, with the exception of anti-nuclear mobilization, the environmental movement saw demobilization effects from past events, most strongly for institutional events such as lawsuits. However, past SMO participation significantly increased the likelihood of a non-nuclear environmental protest occurring in the subsequent period. We also find that SMO's prefer to participate in events which match their past experiences, have greater public participation, and target the government. These findings support resource mobilization theory by highlighting the positive influence that SMO's have on mobilization formation and momentum as well as demonstrating how SMO participation shapes and is shaped by event characteristics. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our results for the future of the environmental movement.

Datafication and implicated networks of demobilization: social movement demobilization in datafied societies

ABSTRACT An increasing number of social movements have taken the form of connective action achieved through datafication structures in the absence of central coordinating social movement organizations. Social movement demobilization in digitally-mediated connective action remains a relatively understudied area. Drawing together social movement studies and communication studies, we introduce the theoretical framework of ‘implicated networks of demobilization’ (INsD) to explore the dynamics and implications of datafication for social movement demobilization. Based on examples from the Anti-Extradition Bill movement in Hong Kong and the 2020 George Floyd protests in the United States, we theorize that the connective action embedded in the datafication structure confronts three demobilizational dynamics: implicated data, materiality, and epistemic dynamics. These dynamics imply that connective action mobilization in datafied societies faces constraints pertaining to state-level network oppression, potential threats imposed by the material datafication structure, and the spread of digital knowledge of self-protection. The INsD framework contributes to understanding the interactive data-mediated dynamics between the state and activists in connective action.