The Impact of Environmental Factors on Factionalism and Schism in Social Movement Organizations

Social Forces ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. B. Balser
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
The Impact

scholarly journals Working Anita Bryant: the Impact of Christian Antigay Activism on Lesbian and Gay Movement Claims

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina Fetner
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Lesbian And Gay ◽  
Gay Movement ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
The Impact

Social movement scholarship claims that opposing movements can createopportunities and generate mobilization for the other side. However, thereare still open questions as to how this influence between opposingmovements operates on an organizational level. This paper looks closely atone aspect of the impact of opposing movements: rhetorical strategies. Iexamine historical documents produced by social movement organizations todetermine the processes through which interactions between opposingmovements are integrated into the everyday work of producing movementclaims. This historical analysis evaluates the flyers, newsletters, andpress releases of lesbian and gay movement organizations in the UnitedStates over time, comparing documents produced before the emergence of theChristian antigay countermovement in 1977, with those produced immediatelyfollowing the countermovement’s entry into the political scene. I analyzethe shifts in lesbian and gay activists' claims between these two brieftime periods and link these changes to the presence of Christian antigayactivists. I find that frames, tone, and language shift for issues thatwere directly addressed by the Christian antigay movement (lesbian and gayrights), but that no similar change was present for issues on which theantigay movement remained silent (police harassment and lesbian/gay mediarepresentations). These findings support the claim that opposing movementsalter the political context in which the other side works, but they alsodemonstrate that new opportunities produced by an opposing movement may beissue-specific rather than movement-wide.

scholarly journals The Development of Sectoral Worker Center Networks

2013 ◽  
Vol 647 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Héctor R. Cordero-Guzmán ◽  
Pamela A. Izvănariu ◽  
Victor Narro
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Labor Market Institutions ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Market Institutions ◽  
Market Outcomes ◽  
Worker Centers ◽  
Worker Center ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
The Impact

In this article, we argue that understanding the impact of economic structures on low-wage workers requires the study of emerging worker centers and networks and that individual labor market outcomes and experiences are mediated and impacted by the work of these institutions. We focus on the formation of sectoral worker center networks and address three key issues: (1) What are some of the reasons why worker centers and worker center networks have developed? (2) How do these organizations manage their roles as labor market institutions and social movement organizations? and (3) Why did worker center networks focus on employment and in particular sectors of the low-wage labor market? We find that sector-based organizing (1) facilitates the development of worker- and sector-targeted service strategies, thereby enabling low-wage worker groups and organizations to better achieve their service and policy goals; (2) maximizes opportunities for the organizations to obtain national resources; and (3) expands the reach of organizational networks by bringing organizations together to share resources and best practices. By providing a range of worker-, employment-, and labor market–centered services in specific labor market sectors, worker centers and their networks solidify their role as labor market institutions and become more effective advocacy and social movement organizations.

scholarly journals Influence of the pandemic lockdown on Fridays for Future’s hashtag activism

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110265
Author(s):  
Jörg Haßler ◽  
Anna-Katharina Wurst ◽  
Marc Jungblut ◽  
Katharina Schlosser
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
German Language ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
The Public ◽  
Twitter Activity ◽  
Movement Organizations

Social movement organizations (SMOs) increasingly rely on Twitter to create new and viral communication spaces alongside newsworthy protest events and communicate their grievance directly to the public. When the COVID-19 pandemic impeded street protests in spring 2020, SMOs had to adapt their strategies to online-only formats. We analyze the German-language Twitter communication of the climate movement Fridays for Future (FFF) before and during the lockdown to explain how SMOs adapted their strategy under online-only conditions. We collected (re-)tweets containing the hashtag #fridaysforfuture ( N = 46,881 tweets, N = 225,562 retweets) and analyzed Twitter activity, use of hashtags, and predominant topics. Results show that although the number of tweets was already steadily declining before, it sharply dropped during the lockdown. Moreover, the use of hashtags changed substantially and tweets focused increasingly on thematic discourses and debates around the legitimacy of FFF, while tweets about protests and calls for mobilization decreased.

Exploiting a Crisis: Abortion Activism and the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Kate Hunt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Medical Procedure ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Global Crisis ◽  
Opportunity Structures ◽  
Movement Organizations

How do social movement organizations involved in abortion debates leverage a global crisis to pursue their goals? In recent months there has been media coverage of how anti-abortion actors in the United States attempted to use the COVID-19 pandemic to restrict access to abortion by classifying abortion as a non-essential medical procedure. Was the crisis “exploited” by social movement organizations (SMOs) in other countries? I bring together Crisis Exploitation Theory and the concept of discursive opportunity structures to test whether social movement organizations exploit crisis in ways similar to elites, with those seeking change being more likely to capitalize on the opportunities provided by the crisis. Because Twitter tends to be on the frontlines of political debate—especially during a pandemic—a dataset is compiled of over 12,000 Tweets from the accounts of SMOs involved in abortion debates across four countries to analyze the patterns in how they responded to the pandemic. The results suggest that crisis may disrupt expectations about SMO behavior and that anti- and pro-abortion rights organizations at times framed the crisis as both a “threat” and as an “opportunity.”

scholarly journals The Organizational Trace of an Insurgent Moment

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 237802311770065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam D. Reich
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
York City ◽  
Social Movement Organizations ◽  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Formal Organizations ◽  
Movement Organizations ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between social movements and formal organizations has long been a concern to scholars of collective action. Many have argued that social movement organizations (SMOs) provide resources that facilitate movement emergence, while others have highlighted the ways in which SMOs institutionalize or coopt movement goals. Through an examination of the relationship between Occupy Wall Street and the field of SMOs in New York City, this article illustrates a third possibility: that a moment of insurgency becomes a more enduring movement in part through the changes it induces in the relations among the SMOs in its orbit.

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