1. Social Movement Project
Study Human Rights Violations around the world to see how the creation of a social movement might better a group of people’s lives in a country outside of the United States (global perspective!)
Universal Declaration of Human Rights

2. Parts of the Project
Understanding how information is spread from person to person (collectivity)
Why Social Movements need to happen or what might “spark” one
Types of Social Movements
Theories of Social Movements
Stages of a Social Movement

3. Collective Behavior and Social Movements How societies change…

4. Studying Collective Behavior
Activities involving a large number of people, often spontaneous, with the absence of well-defined norms
Localized
Dispersed

5. Localized Collectivities: Crowds
A temporary gathering of people who share a common focus of attention and whose members influence one another
Example:
PROTEST CROWD:
PEOPLE ENGAGE IN A VARIETY OF ACTIONS, INCLUDING STRIKES AND BOYCOTTS
A COLLEGE STUDENT SIT-IN

6. Acting Crowds Turn Violent
Mob
A highly emotional crowd that pursues a violent or DISTRUCTIVE goal
Lynch mob
Riots
A social ERUPTION that is highly emotional, violent & undirected
Watts, south central, after a LAKERS championship

7. Dispersed Collectivities & Mass Behavior
Collective behavior among people dispersed over a wide geographical area
Ways of Sharing Information
Rumor
Gossip
Public opinion
Propaganda
Panic
Mass hysteria
Fads
Fashions
Disasters

8. Rumor and Gossip
Rumor – unsubstantiated information people spread informally, often by word of mouth
Gossip – is rumor about the personal affairs of others

9. Public Opinion & Propaganda
Public opinion – widespread attitudes about controversial issues
Propaganda– information presented with the intention of shaping public opinion

10. Panic & Mass Hysteria
Panic- how people react to a perceived threat or other stimulus with irrational, frantic, and often self-destructive behavior
Mass hysteria- how people respond to a real or imagined event often with irrational and even frantic fear and often self-destructive behavior

11. Fashions and Fads Fashions Fads
A social pattern favored for a time by a large number of people
Fashion characterizes all forms of art
Traditional style gives way to changing fashion
Can trickle down through less expensive copies
Conspicuous Consumption – people buying expensive products simply to show-off their wealth
Fads
An unconventional social pattern that people embrace briefly but enthusiastically
Sometimes called crazes

12. Disasters
An event, generally unexpected, that causes extreme harm to people and damage to property
Natural disaster
Technological disaster
Intentional disaster

13. The social consequences of disasters of all types:
1) disasters cause damage to human community.
2) social damage is more serious when an event involves some toxic substance.
3) the social damage is most serious when the disaster is caused by the actions of others.

14. Theories of Crowd Behavior
Why do Collectivities happen?

15. Theories of Collective Behavior
Contagion Theory
Convergence Theory
Emergent-Norm Theory

16. Theories of Crowd Behavior
Contagion Theory
Crowds exert hypnotic influence over their members, people surrender to a “collective mind” its members rid themselves of inhibitions and act out and the crowd assumes a life of its own
Critical evaluation
Crowd actions result from the intentions and decisions of specific individuals
Not necessarily irrational

17. Theories of Crowd Behavior
Convergence Theory
The crowd doesn’t generate the action, but rather the members themselves stimulate the action of the crowd
Example: neighborhood groups concerned about crime and want to do something about it
Critical evaluation
Some people do things in a crowd that they would not have the courage to do alone
Crows can intensify a sentiment simply by creating a critical mass of like-minded people

18. Theories of Crowd Behavior
Emergent-Norm Theory
People in crowds have mixed interests
In less stable crowds (expressive, acting, and protest), norms may be vague or changing one does something and others jump on the “bandwagon” people in crowds make their own rules as they go along
Critical evaluation
A symbolic-interaction approach that POINTS out that PEOPLE in a crowd take on different roles

19. Studying Social Movements
Organized activities that encourage or discourage social change

20. Four Types of Social Movements There are four types of social movements based on who is changed and how great the change is. Source: Based on Aberle (1966).

21. Types of Social Movements
Alterative
Least threatening to the status quo; limited change for limited people
Redemptive
Targets specific people for a radical change
Reformative
Limited social change that targets everyone
Revolutionary
The most extreme; seeks a basic transformation of an entire society

22. Theories of Social Movements
Why do Social Movements happen?

23. Theories of Social Movements
Deprivation Theory
Mass-Society Theory
Structural-Strain Theory
Resource-Mobilization Theory
Cultural Theory
Political-Economy Theory
New Social Movements Theory

24. Deprivation Theory
Social movements arise among people who feel deprived or are lacking something in their lives
Relative Deprivation – a perceived disadvantage arising from some specific comparison

25. Mass-Society Theory
Socially isolated people seek out social movements as a way to gain a sense of belonging
Movements are personal as well as political

26. Structural-Strain Theory
Six factors encourage the development of these social movements:
Structural conduciveness
Arise out of perceptions of problems by the people
Structural strain
Experiencing relative deprivation
Growth and spread of an explanation
Making clear reasons and solutions for suffering
Precipitating factors
Specific events give rise to collection action
Mobilization for action
Action stage; Protest and rallies
Lack of social control
Authority either has a quick, harsh response or gives the “green light” for change

27. Resource-Mobilization Theory
No social movement is likely to succeed or even get off the ground without substantial resources
Money
Human labor
Offices and communication facilities
Access to mass media

28. Cultural Theory
Social Movements do not only depend on resources and political power but culture as well.
People develop shared understandings of the world that legitimize and motivate collective action

29. Political-Economy Theory
Social movements arise within capitalist societies because the capitalist economic system fails to meet the needs of the majority of people
Karl Marx thought this would happen in all industrialized nations… it did not

30. New Social Movements Theory
Emphasizes social movements in postindustrial societies that have a new focus
Many older social movements were concerned with economic issues and small groups of people
Most of today’s movements are international
Tend to focus on cultural change and improving social and physical surroundings
Draws support from middle and upper classes

31. Stages of Social Movements
Stage one: emergence
Perception that something is wrong
Stage two: coalescence
Defining itself and “going public”
Stage three: bureaucratization
Organizing rationally to get job done
Stage four: decline
Is the movement in need of regrouping or is it simply time for its demise?
Reasons:
Signals success has been reached
Signals organizational problems (leadership, etc.)
Leadership sells out to other interests
Demise may result from state-sponsored repression

32. Stages in the Lives of Social Movements Social Movements typically go through four stages. The last is decline, which may occur for any of five reasons.

33. American Social Movements of the 21st Century
Many of the nation’s serious social woes remain unchanged
Poor public schools, crime, size of government, race relations, cost of political campaigns, health care costs, free speech, etc.
Reasons why social movements will continue to be part of the American scene
Protest should increase as more historically marginal groups gain a greater political voice
Technology means people can stay current with events as they happen
Because many problems are global in scope, only international cooperation can solve them

34. Social Change Social Change
The transformation of culture and social institutions over time in Traditional, Modern, and Postmodern Societies

35. Why Cultural Change Takes Place
Culture and change
Invention
Production of new objects, ideas, and social patterns
Discovery
Taking note of existing elements of a culture
Diffusion
The spread of products, people and information from one culture to another

36. Other Reasons Why Conflict and social change Ideas and change
Tensions and stressors between individuals and groups can bring about change
Different groups gain and lose power and privilege as they struggle for their own positions
Ideas and change
Ideas can fuel social movements which bring about social change
The idea of equal rights for everyone
Demographics and change
Increases and decreases in numbers of groups of people can lead to social change as society may need to expand and/or contract
Need for jobs, housing, education, etc.

37. Modernity Process of Social Change Resulting From Industrialization
Modernization Theory
Modernity
Process of Social Change Resulting From Industrialization

38. Characteristics of Modernity
Decline of small, traditional towns
High-tech communications puts small towns in touch with the world
Expansion of personal choice
An unending series of options referred to as “individualization”
Increasing diversity in beliefs
Modernization promotes a more rational, scientific world-view
Future orientation and growing awareness of time
People living in industrialized nations tend to focus more on the future than on the past

39. Powerlessness and Modernity
Persistent social inequality undermines modern society’s promise of individual freedom
Problems of relative disadvantage for racial and ethnic minorities
Power of multinational corporations
Does technology solve the world’s problems, or does it cause the world’s problems?

40. Modernization and the Future
Modernization theory claims that in the past the entire world was poor and that technological change, especially the Industrial Revolution, enhanced human productivity and raised living standards in every nation
Solution to poverty – promote technological development around the world

41. Modernization and the Future
Dependency theory
Today’s poor societies have little ability to modernize, even if they want to
Rich nations achieved their modernization at the expense of poor ones
Solution to poverty – Discontinue ties with rich countries that perpetuate current patterns of global inequality