scholarly journals Sometimes Allies: Parent-Led Disability Organizations and Social Movements

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison C. Carey ◽  
Pamela Block ◽  
Richard K. Scotch

Despite the recent growth of scholarship on parent activism related to disability, the existing literature tends to focus on specific organizations and time periods and draw on a social psychological approach to examine the motivations of parents in becoming activists. This paper considers disability activism as a field of social movement organizations and focuses on disability organizations led by parents and their relationship to organizations led by activists with disabilities. Using qualitative methods informed by theoretically focused coding and grounded situational analysis, we examine the public framing of four national parent-led organizations that are politically prominent. Through this field approach, the analysis reveals the diversity of parent-led organizations, commonalities and the fault lines among these organizations, and the factors which effect the likelihood of alliances between organizations led by parents and those led by activists with disabilities.

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110265
Author(s):  
Jörg Haßler ◽  
Anna-Katharina Wurst ◽  
Marc Jungblut ◽  
Katharina Schlosser

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.


2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (02) ◽  
pp. 449-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael C. Dorf ◽  
Sidney Tarrow

Since the 1980s, social movement scholars have investigated the dynamic of movement/countermovement interaction. Most of these studies posit movements as initiators, with countermovements reacting to their challenges. Yet sometimes a movement supports an agenda in response to a countermovement that engages in what we call “anticipatory countermobilization.” We interviewed ten leading LGBT activists to explore the hypothesis that the LGBT movement was brought to the fight for marriage equality by the anticipatory countermobilization of social conservatives who opposed same‐sex marriage before there was a realistic prospect that it would be recognized by the courts or political actors. Our findings reinforce the existing scholarship, but also go beyond it in emphasizing a triangular relationship among social movement organizations, countermovement organizations, and grassroots supporters of same‐sex marriage. More broadly, the evidence suggests the need for a more reciprocal understanding of the relations among movements, countermovements, and sociolegal change.


2019 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Gayte

In evaluating recent developments in the New Christian Right (NCR), this paper uses the social movement theory approach of framing. Social movement organizations try to gain advantages with authorities and the public by framing their demands in ways intended to persuade people that their cause is valid. The most effective way of doing this is to align their specific issues rhetorically with larger cultural themes and values, which makes the frame accessible to larger audiences. After debating as to whether a conservative religious crusade can be considered a social movement, this paper examines the NCR as a collective movement whose influence on society and capacity to mobilize are heightened by resorting to the ‘discriminated minority’ framing strategy. I argue that viewing the NCR as a social movement allows us to deepen our understanding of both religious conservatism and of the culture wars. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oriol Barranco ◽  
Lluís Parcerisa

There are few empirical studies on the cultural consequences of social movements. This article contributes to alleviating this problem, examining the cultural outcomes produced by the action of the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), one of the most important social movement organizations to appear in Spain in the 2010s. Concretely, through qualitative methods, we analyse the content and form of the PAH’s discourse and the communicative practices developed to disseminate it to the population. Following, we examine this diffusion using quantitative methods. The article shows that PAH activists produced a discourse with a form and content that sought to achieve alignment with the common sense of the majority of the population, that their communicative practices took advantage of the opportunities offered by social and mass media, and, lastly, that the PAH’s diagnosis and proposals resonated among a majority of the population.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 296-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura R. Olson

AbstractIn this article, I compare progressive and conservative religio-political activists' commitment to their movements (the religious left and right, respectively). I rely on data from the Public Religion Research Institute's 2009 surveys of individuals they identified as religious left activists and religious right activists. Do these activists actually say they identify with the movement with which pollsters assume them to affiliate? How potentially influential do they perceive their movements to be? Third, to what extent do activists support their movement's core social movement organizations? I conclude by arguing that the evidence is mixed that the American religious left lacks influence because its activists tend not to be unified.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Kate Hunt

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.”


2017 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 237802311770065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam D. Reich

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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