Empowerment and threat in response to mass protest shape public support for a social movement and social change: A panel study in the context of the Bersih movement in Malaysia

2018 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 230-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hema Preya Selvanathan ◽  
Brian Lickel
2020 ◽  
pp. 146144482095435
Author(s):  
Hema Preya Selvanathan ◽  
Brian Lickel

Mainstream and alternative media often frame key political events in divergent ways. The present research examined how mainstream and alternative media consumption was linked to public support for Bersih, a pro-democracy movement in Malaysia. We conducted a two-wave panel study before and after the Bersih 5 protests demanding electoral reform ( N = 422), and another two-wave panel study before and after the 14th General Elections which were historic in unseating the ruling government ( N = 386). Against mounting corruption, the two events were important to Malaysia’s democratic transition. Across both studies, alternative media consumption was linked to more positive attitudes toward the Bersih movement, especially among people who were strong supporters of the previous ruling government. Mainstream media did not play a consistent role in shaping attitudes toward the movement, nor was there evidence of backlash among government supporters. Thus, alternative media may have legitimized the cause for social change.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026858092110053
Author(s):  
Naoto Higuchi

Between the decline of mass protests in the 1970s and the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima nuclear meltdown in the 2010s, which resulted in the resurgence of mass demonstrations, social movements were widely regarded as uncommon in Japan. In this essay, the author reviews Japan’s social movement studies in the last decade, focusing on the influence of the lack of mass protest since the 1970s on scholarly interests. The essay examines the following four topics: (1) slow responses to the resurgence of mass demonstrations in post-3.11 Japan, (2) quick responses to the rise of the radical right movement, (3) the emergence of cynical approaches to studying social movements, and (4) the redemption of the history of Japan’s postwar social movements. Despite some twists and turns, we can see how social protests are a perpetual element of Japanese society that sociologists study as a common phenomenon.


Author(s):  
Ahmad Izudin

This article will examine how progressive Islam’s reasoning can be a reference to free human beings from the exploitation and domination of social class? So what social movements can we do in the midst of crush the nation’s problems related to the exploitation of natural resources that increasingly vine? From this point on, I hope to get a meta-theory regulation that can be implied entirely for the benefit of society, in order to be free from exploitation and domination. To answer this important position, the discourse of social movements can be mapped into two, namely old social movement and new social movement. While Islam as a universal religion, there is no need to discuss theological-transcendental issues, but how the theology should create a new, more applicable avenue of dialectics to answer the question the rulers of powers domination. In the hope of a progressive, inclusive, open-minded, and pluralist theological doctrine. The results of this study may contribute to the development of science and the movement that became a turning point and reference in social change.[Artikel ini hendak mengkaji bagaimana nalar Islam progresif yang dapat menjadi acuan untuk membebaskan manusia dari eksploitasi dan dominasi kelas sosial? Lantas gerakan sosial apa yang dapat kita lakukan di tengah himpitan persoalan bangsa terkait eksploitasi sumber daya alam yang kian menggurita? Dari titik ini, maka saya berharap mendapat satu regulasi metateori yang bisa diimplikasikan sepenuhnya untuk kepentingan masyarakat, agar bisa terbebas dari ekspolitasi dan dominasi. Untuk menjawab posisi penting ini, maka diskursus gerakan sosial dapat dipetakan menjadi dua, yakni old social movement dan new social movement. Sementara Islam sebagai agama universal, tidak perlu lagi membahas persoalan teologis-transendental, tetapi bagaimana teologi itu harus menciptakan ruang dealektika baru yang lebih aplikatif menjawab persoalan dominasi kekuasaan para penguasa. Dengan harapan munculnya doktrin teologis yang progresif, inklusif, open-minded, dan pluralis. Hasil kajian ini semoga memberikan kontribusi bagi perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan dan gerakan yang menjadi titik balik dan acuan dalam perubahan sosial.]


Author(s):  
Beverly Gage

This chapter explores social movements as a new lens through which to approach grand strategy. Although grand strategists and social movement strategists often view each other as opposites, they have more to learn from each other—and more in common—than either group might think. Within the realm of strategic thought, there has long been significant intellectual overlap between military, political, and social-movement approaches. Far from standing apart from questions of war and peace, stability and instability, conflict and diplomacy, nearly every significant movement for social change has actively engaged these questions, including the real or potential use of violence. Around the world, still more radical movements, many of them at least nominally Marxist in orientation, produced vast literatures on the virtues and vices of revolutionary strategy, as well as the complex task of transforming members and leaders, after victory, from revolutionaries into statesmen. In modern Western democratic societies, social-change strategists tend to favor non-violent methods, but debates rage nonetheless.


2009 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-198
Author(s):  
Amanda Tattersall

Social movement organisations need to have a pragmatic understanding of our current weaknesses and challenge ourselves to be much more adventurous for how to build social power and transformative change. This article considers three core weaknesses of our activist organisations, including how our issue agenda is often reactive, our disconnection from place and our poor track record on collaboration. It then suggests that the hope for stronger social change lies with a proactive issue agenda, strong reciprocal coalitions and the ability to move campaigns at multiple scales (locally, regionally, nationally, globally). The article includes a variety of examples that suggest how this stronger kind of organising is possible.


1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ira Silver

Those who lack the financial means to organize for social change may turn to elite funders, yet in doing so risk having their goals co-opted. Activist philanthropy minimizes this threat because its grant decisions are made by movement insiders. This structure leaves donors occupying a precarious position. Their money is essential, yet their class position is discrediting. The Crossroads Fund raises its money by integrating donors as activists alongside community organizers. Even though community organizers have greater power inside the foundation, integrating donors requires that community organizers defer to donors' wider class and racial privilege. By showing that securing funding from donors hinges on legitimating their identity claims, this study bridges social movement theories about resource mobilization and collective identity formation.


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