Successful Social Movement Research Articles

Unveiling the online dynamics influencing the success and virality of TikTok social movements: A case study on pro and anti hijab feminist activism

When TikTok started as a youth-oriented platform, it was mostly used for light entertainment, including music, songs and dance clips. Today, however, it is often relied upon as a hub for social and political activism. Hashtags are an important affordance to create visibility and attract attention. Using a qualitative multimodal thematic analysis, this study examines the shifting patterns in TikTok’s nature as a social media platform and investigates its various affordances in the realm of activism, in general, and feminist activism, in particular. Adopting a comprehensive approach, which takes into account various dynamics, including the overall political and social context, the various actors and the deployed tools and tactics, this study investigates why and how some feminist TikTok campaigns, such as #MahsaAmini which erupted in Iran to resist the imposition of the hijab following the murder of Mahsa Amini, are more likely to go viral and gain more international visibility than other TikTok feminist campaigns, such as #HandsOffMyHijab which erupted in France to resist the hijab and niqab ban. Findings revealed how various factors contributed to increasing the virality and international visibility of the Iranian Mahsa Amini’s #WomanLifeFreedom campaign, including the used online tactics, the support of media and political actors, the power of celebrities and social media influencers, and the online and offline support by male figures. The undertaken thematic analysis identified different dominant themes and representations of hijab in the two online social movements, reflecting varying expressions of feminisms, activisms and resistance. In so doing, the study offers a conceptual model for understanding these online dynamics within the appropriate socio-political and cultural contexts.

Letter From the Co-Editor: Yes, “Shit’s Got to Change.” But How? A Call for a Deep Scholarship Social Movement

This letter from the editor is in response to Benjamin et al.'s (2024) call to action surrounding the structures and systems of the tourism academy. It recommends a social movements approach as a possible framework for taking next steps. This Deep Scholarship Movement suggests (1) identifying and assembling key leadership change agents with diverse viewpoints, (2) enhancing self-efficacy, increasing consciousness-raising, and maximizing resource mobilization, the three primary components of successful social movements, and using them to work toward (3) community consensus building. These are challenging and daunting recommendations. This letter argues, however, that this or some other systemic, organized approach is necessary for those of us in varying aspects of leadership to clear the way and establish deeper, richer, more inclusive and less oppressive environments for our early-and mid-career colleagues.

Entangled social movements: extractivism and water justice in El Salvador

ABSTRACT El Salvador’s 2017 national metal mining ban and contentious 2021 water law seemingly represent distinct cases of social movement victory and failure. However, this study deploys relational methodologies to examine how El Salvador’s anti-metal mining and water justice movements emerged together, became partially separated, and remained thoroughly entangled. The concept of social movement entanglement builds on and extends dominant notions of relationality in social movement studies by emphasizing processes of intra-relation, mutual constitution and becoming-with. Rather than study how separate movements interact, investigating entanglement highlights how social movements become separated and remain entangled through acts of material and discursive politics. Examining the entangled origins, mobilizations, and outcomes of El Salvador’s anti-metal mining and water justice movements shows how these movements were neither the same nor distinct. Salvadorans bearing the brunt of water injustices lived these movements as one struggle. However, to pass the historic metal mining ban required anti-mining activists to distance their social movement goals and discourses from the more politically contentious and legally complex water law. Vitally, the strategic separation of these movements led to their further entanglement, as the historic ban informed, reinforced, and legitimized transformations within the water justice movement. From their origins to their evolving presents, El Salvador’s water and mining politics have remained entangled. Such entanglements implicate social movement theory, methodology and praxis in El Salvador and beyond and center the power-relations that shape what counts as social movement success and failure, and whose interests and environments are worth fighting for.

Testing the bidirectional causation among media attention and the protest scale: the case of Hong Kong

Media attention is crucial for the success of social movements. In contemporary hybrid media ecology, news media, social media, and on-site protests interact with each other during social movements. The present study investigated the relationships among the scale of street protests, attention from news media, and social media in the Anti-ELAB movement in Hong Kong. The results show that attention from pro-democracy and nonlocal media significantly influences fluctuations in the protest scale. Moreover, they closely correlate with changes in protest size, highlighting the importance of political parallelism in media coverage during contentious movements. We also found a two-way relationship between the degree of social media attention in the LIHKG forum and the scale of on-site protests. This suggests that social media not only serves as a platform for public discourse on protest events but that it also acts as a mobilizing force for participants. Additionally, our results indicate that news media has a significant influence on shaping attention trends on social media, thus confirming the effectiveness of traditional media in driving social movements in Hong Kong, even amid the rise of social media platforms.

WHEN FAILURES ARE INTENDED: THE USE OF STRATEGIC DEFEAT TO SHAPE LEGISLATIVE OUTCOMES

Influencing the lawmaking process is crucial for social movement success, but activists struggle to specify the content of bills. This article proposes that activists can shape legislation through strategic defeat, which involves using tactics expected to fail in achieving their primary goal but aimed at securing alternative advantages to enhance the movement's position. To develop this concept, this study draws on archival research and interviews with LGBT+ leaders, legislators, and key informants who participated in the campaign to legalize civil unions in Chile, where activists introduced politically unfeasible bills. While this strategic choice seems counterintuitive, their aim was not to pass these bills but to gain access to legislative spaces and cultivate a network of supporters. Then, as political conditions improved, activists leveraged these advantages to significantly shape the civil unions law. This article highlights how specialized strategic choices create opportunities for influence and reevaluates the role of defeat for social movements.

“Jo Kawin Bocah” Social Movement to Reduce Child Marriage Rates in Central Java

The “Jo Kawin Bocah” (Javanese term for “No Child Marriage”) movement implemented by the Central Java Government over the past two years has significantly reduced the number of child marriages in Central Java province. This research aims to analyze the concept of “Jo Kawin Bocah” as a government-sponsored movement, identify the critical success factors, and explore the concept in terms maqāṣid al-sharī'ah (Sharia objectives). This field research uses a qualitative approach and deductive thinking, with data collected from interviews and documentation. The findings show that the social movement is feasible because stakeholders are aware of the negative impacts of early marriage. Another critical success factor is the involvement of community members and district/city leaders and collaboration between civil society organizations, the government, educational institutions, and other cross-sector organizations. Viewed from the maqāṣid al-sharī'ah side, the social movement “Jo Kawin Bocah” can realize the protection of the soul (ḥifẓ al-nafs), protection of the mind (ḥifẓ al-‘aql), protection of assets (ḥifẓ al-māl), and protection of offspring (ḥifẓ al-nasl). This research implies that increasing awareness about the negative consequences of early marriage is the key to the success of social movements.

(Not so) powerful allies? Decision makers’ reactions to advantaged group allies in collective action

AbstractDo allies in collective action have a positive impact on political efficacy? Theoretical considerations and common sense might lead us to expect that advantaged group allies will be beneficial to the success of social movements. However, across five experimental studies, with samples from the United States and Germany (three pre‐registered, total N = 696, 48% women, Mage = 38), we find that such involvement does not significantly affect authorities’ reactions to the demands of disadvantaged groups. Decision makers were given information about proposals supported either by only disadvantaged group members or by disadvantaged group members and advantaged group allies. Their support, budget allocations, voting intentions and perceptions of movements and proposals did not differ as a function of this information. However, collective actions including allies did reduce perceptions of intergroup conflict. These results were replicated across different contexts with student and local politicians and with participants acting as parliamentarians in fictional scenarios.

What distinguishes successful social movement from unsuccessful ones

This article wants to explore the channels through which social forces gather together. The anti-awakening protesters of the 1920s had a great social impact through “anti-awakening” propaganda. In this era of increasingly scarce connections between individuals, the building and consolidation of identity will become a challenge. Construction and consolidation of identity, are common in the movement, conscious or not, to ensure solidarity.

Factors Affecting the Success of Social Movements in Pakistan: A Case of Women’s Rights Movement

Aim of the Study: The objective of this research study is to identify different factors that contribute to the success of social movements in Pakistan. It determines how the general public may influence government policies, as they are not included in legitimate channels of policymaking. Methodology: A case study design is employed in this study. Primary data is collected from key informants of different social activists fighting for women's rights in Pakistan. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty key informants. Thematic analysis is used to analyze the collected data and then themes are generated. Findings: Different factors are identified including leadership, the effectiveness of targeted issues, legal cover, pillars of power, support of other social groups, funds to organize social movements, media coverage, modes of action, opposing elements, social influencers, and the size of movements that affect the success of a social movement. Conclusion: This research has identified several important factors that contribute in the success of social movements. The policymakers need to address these identified factors in order to diffuse social movements. Identified factors that contribute to the successful social change enable activists, advocates, and organizations to create more effective tactics. Stakeholders may maximize their effect and raise their chance of attaining desired results by identifying and analyzing these elements.

A Strategic Approach to the Alliance-Formation Process Between Activists and Legislators in Chile

ABSTRACTLegislative allies are widely recognized as key to social movement success, but the emergence of their alliance with activists remains understudied. This article proposes a strategic approach to this phenomenon based on the cases of the environmental, labor, and LGBT+ movements in Chile and their allied legislators. According to this approach, an alliance emerges due to two necessary conditions. Movement organizations must display tactical capacity, which signals their adaptability and competence to participate in Congress. And a socially skilled leadership creates the trust required for movement leaders and legislators to cooperate during the lawmaking process. This approach emphasizes that alliances emerge from activists’ strategic efforts to build a social tie, whose effectiveness is mediated by legislators’ expectations and congressional norms. By specifying the strategic dimension of an alliance, this study highlights the capacity of activists to foster cooperative relations with state actors.

How do Political Opportunity Structures affect the success of social movements in China and the USA?

This paper investigates the effects political opportunity structures have on the mobilisation, organisation, and outcomes of civil rights movements in the USA and Hong Kong. The Civil Rights Movement between the 1950s-60s and the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement of 2019 are used as case studies in this research. The paper examines the various attributes of both regions’ political input and output structures while examining how the movement was organised and strategised. It then considers whether either movement can be deemed successful. Through comparative analysis, it contrasts the assessments made in both case studies to determine which factor discussed had the most significant impact on the success of both campaigns. It finds that the initial hypothesis put forth can be disproved and that a fluid link between the movement and institutional elites plays the most critical role in the success of both movements.

Queering the Way: Investigating the Relationship Between LGBT+ Advocacy and Policy Advancement

The modern LGBT+ rights movement in the United States has pushed both political and social advancements forward since the mid-twentieth century, furthering the fight for equality. Even as hundreds of anti-LGBT+ bills have been proposed and passed in states across the country throughout the last decade or so, they have remained a force to be reckoned with. This study analyzes the specific tactics used by LGBT+ activists and nonprofits from the mid-twentieth century to present day, through the framework of Douglas McAdam’s Political Opportunity Theory to explain how campaigns or movements are made successful. Political Opportunity Theory, or Political Opportunity Structure, argues social movement success is most dependent on the availability of political opportunities (McAdam, 2013). The study primarily draws on interviews of LGBT+ activists and aligned policy makers, both archived and original, ultimately seeking to determine which advocacy strategies most effectively advance political and social acceptance. Using political theories, previous scholarly literature, and activist interviews, this study found that many factors contribute to the overall success of an advocacy campaign: access to resources, ability to mobilize populations, clear goals and strategy, and strong relationships between outsider activists and political insiders. The goal of this report is to advise the creation of effective policy change inside political arenas and social change both through advocacy and through increased LGBT+ support from powerholders in government, to further promote LGBT+ equality and understanding in the United States.

“Listen to the science!”—The role of scientific knowledge for the Fridays for Future movement

The Fridays for Future movement (FfF) has drawn a lot of public and academic attention in recent years. So far, studies investigated the organization, mobilization, and motives of the movement from different perspectives as well as the relevance of science for FfF. Mostly from an external point of view researchers looked at the types of science communication and its reception by the audience (i.e., framing theory). In this paper, we combine theories of science communication with the resource mobilization approach in social movement studies and thereby develop a theoretical framework for the analysis of the use of scientific knowledge by climate movements. We focus on the resource mobilization theory (RMT) and the notion of activists as alternative science communicators. RMT emphasizes the role of resources and organization to explain the success of social movements. Specifically, we regard legitimacy as a moral resource and analyze the importance of communication of climate scientific knowledge for FfF as a political movement. We argue that a climate movement like FfF relies on climate scientific knowledge which serves as a moral resource when climate activists refer to it to legitimate their claims. Empirically, we draw on a survey of more than 500 FfF activists in Germany, that was conducted as a mixed method study in 2020 and 2021. Our objective is to close a gap on the relevance of science for FfF activists from the inner perspective. Following the research question “How and why is scientific knowledge being used by FfF activists to mobilize people?” the findings indicate a rather strategic use of scientific knowledge as an end in itself within the movement. Unsurprisingly, we see that individual strategic use of scientific knowledge within the movement corresponds with the belief that FfF should include scientific knowledge in the general communication strategy of FfF. Moreover, our data show that activists overwhelmingly derive their goals from scientific knowledge and reject the idea that science could be used imprecisely just as an instrument to attain their goals. These learnings shed light on the question of whether science is used as a moral resource within climate movements like FfF.

MIXING WITH THE CROWD: HOW MOBILIZATION AFFECTS DIVERSITY IN DEMONSTRATIONS

The internal diversity of demonstrations speaks to fundamental debates about voice and equality, solidarity, social capital, and social movement success—yet is rarely empirically investigated. We study how mobilization distinguishes between internally diverse and homogenous demonstrations in terms of education and class. We use unique protest survey data from 16,134 participants in 76 demonstrations in nine European countries. We find that mobilization processes explain variation in internal diversity for education but hardly for class. Whereas informal mobilization decreases internal diversity, organizations’ involvement increases diversity. Diversity is also negatively affected by the presence of transmitters—protesters who are both asked to participate and who ask others. This homogenizing impact of transmitters is more pronounced in demonstrations more strongly dominated by informal mobilization processes. Our findings support recent arguments against the association between informal mobilization and demonstration diversity and stress the enduring relevance of formal organizing.

A time of reproductive unrest: the articulation of capital accumulation, social reproduction, and the Irish state

ABSTRACT By the end of 2013, the Republic of Ireland had exited the bailout and was entering a period of economic recovery. Yet by 2015 the largest collective protest since independence emerged, challenging the proposed introduction of water charges. Since water, multiple successful social movements organising primarily on the terrain of social reproduction have developed. In this article, I argue that this period of reproductive unrest sharpened inherent contradictions in the way that capital accumulation, social reproduction and the Irish state are articulated to one another. Moreover, these contradictions are not unique to Ireland, but rather emblematic of neoliberal states more broadly. The article intervenes into debates on neoliberal crisis management since the 2007 Global Financial Crisis, as well as demonstrates the value of using social struggles as a lens through which to understand potential fractures in the global political economy.

Public narrative and sustained civic engagement: The Wichita County Water Conservation Area in Rural Kansas

ABSTRACT Sustained civic engagement is important to the success of social movements, which contribute to community development outcomes. Our qualitative case study of the Wichita County Water Conservation Area (WCA) suggests that sustained civic engagement among producers in Western Kansas can be understood as a positive feedback loop whereby organizers use public narrative to increase social, cultural, and political capitals in their community. The Wichita County WCA team uses public narrative to increase interpersonal solidarity (social capital) and develop a shared sense of meaning and purpose (cultural capital), while taking a diffuse and relational approach to leadership (political capital). They manage emotions such as fear, grief, despair, and frustration in a manner consistent with the Public Narrative model of social action. Our findings suggest that organizers should consider using a public narrative approach to sustain civic engagement in rural communities.

The Revolution Within: State Institutions and Unarmed Resistance in Palestine. By Yael Zeira. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 240p. $99.99 cloth, $29.99 paper. - The Israeli Settler Movement: Assessing and Explaining Social Movement Success. By Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler and Cas Mudde. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 280p. $99.99 cloth.

The Revolution Within: State Institutions and Unarmed Resistance in Palestine. By Yael Zeira. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 240p. 29.99 paper. - The Israeli Settler Movement: Assessing and Explaining Social Movement Success. By Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler and Cas Mudde. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 280p. $99.99 cloth. - Volume 20 Issue 1

Social Media and Social Movements

Abstract This contribution assesses the function and use of corporate-run social media, including its efficacy for organizing social movements. An extended critique of Black Lives Matter considers the impact of its social media activities on mitigating racial inequality. Drawing from successful social movements, participatory democracy, mass physical protest, and independence from established political institutions appear as necessary ingredients for constructing social media strategies for social change.

A importância das Redes Digitais no engajamento político dos jovens da Universidade do Porto: Reflexão sobre a atividade e presença da política em Portugal

e impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution with the digitization of the world and the internet of things is notorious in the layer of postmodern society. Mobile phones, for example, have changed the way people interact and communicate with others in public space (Abdel-Aziz et al., 2016). These digital tools are often used to keep users informed about events and news, either by broa-dcasting them on public screens or made availa-ble to them over wireless networks anytime and anywhere as shown by Abdel-Aziz (2016). This is especially popular among young people, as shown by Eurostat (2022), in 2021, 95% of young people in the European Union use the internet every day. Digital media also have a profound influence on others in the success of social movements (Kluse-ner, 2018), as seen in movements like #Blackslive-matter or even the Yellow Vests Movement. Now, within this context, we sought to understand how social media platforms can be related to the enga-gement and political presence of young people. For this, we examined the presence of politics in the daily life of this population to be able to induce the weight of this factor in political engagement. Based on data collected from interviews carried out with a sample of 84 university students in Portugal, we analysed their political consumption habits (both in the medium of digital and traditio-nal media) and their opinions on political activism. The impact of the internet and digital media was found not to have a strong relationship with poli-tical engagement, which actually revealed a pre--existing trend: the low participation of young Por-tuguese people in politics, as shown by Accornero e Ramos Pinto (2015). Of those who have some political presence in their daily lives, most are indi-rectly - with the television news in the background - and very few actively seek it. Within this group, digital is the main means of political search.

Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler and Cass Mudde (2020), The Israeli Settler Movement: Assessing and Explaining Social Movement Success. New York: Cambridge University Press

Sivan Hirsch-Hoefler and Cass Mudde (2020), The Israeli Settler Movement: Assessing and Explaining Social Movement Success. New York: Cambridge University Press