Indirect consumer activism and politics in the market

ABSTRACT

Social movement organizations use consumer activism to mobilize public pressure and cause economic or reputational damage to their target. However, current frameworks fail to explain why organizations would use indirect consumer activism: targeting one firm to elicit change from a third party. This paper aims to explain this choice, drawing upon theories of opportunity structures to explain why groups choose to use indirect strategies. I examine three campaigns using indirect strategies: US-based Grab Your Wallet and Sleeping Giants, and UK-based Stop Funding Hate. Groups use indirect strategies to reach inaccessible targets and to mobilize the public; these strategies help social movement organizations to raise public awareness at the beginning of a campaign. I conclude with some expectations for future research.     

Beyond recruitment: Predictors of differential participation in a national antihunger organization

Surprisingly little research has sought to explain differential participation after recruitment into social movement organizations (SMOs). This study examines the influence of several sets of predictors on participation by members of a national organization in the antihunger movement. The findings highlight the importance of incentive, ideological, and microstructural factors for differential participation and suggest that favorable perceptions of SMOs also promote participation. Final remarks address the implications of the findings for the social movement and voluntary organization literatures.     

Transactional activism without transactions: network perspective on anti-corruption activism in the Czech Republic

In 2007, Petrova and Tarrow coined the term transactional activism, arguing that, despite weak individual-level political participation, civil societies in Central and Eastern Europe were surprisingly strong due to their capacity to establish transactional links. Yet the research which followed, relying mostly on quantitative data, has not uncovered much evidence of how transactional activism works. To make advances here, we take a more qualitative approach and focus on transactional ties among NGOs, developing a more fine-grained conceptualization. Specifically, we distinguish associative ties of loosely defined cooperation and interlocking ties based on the division of labour. We utilize this new conceptualization through a successful anti-corruption initiative known as ‘Reconstruction of the State’. The initiative presented itself largely in transactional terms (plurality of participating actors) and was extremely successful in the run-up to the Parliamentary elections in 2013 in the Czech Republic, inspiring similar initiatives abroad. We use social network analysis and qualitative interviews to test our concept of interlocking transactional ties. In contrast to our expectations, we find limited division of labour in the initiative, with just one organization, in the main, shouldering most of the important tasks. We use our findings to question the previously claimed importance of transactional activism in Central and Eastern Europe. Specifically, we call for more robust evidence describing how cooperation among organizations empowers civil society.     

From democratic participation to civic resistance: the loss of institutional trust as an outcome of activism in the refugee solidarity movement

Adding to the literature on non‐institutional political action and trust, this article argues that the loss of institutional trust is not only a cause but also an outcome of political activism. Studying the Danish refugee solidarity movement in a mixed‐methods research design including survey and qualitative interview data, the article shows that three kinds of activism – political activism, humanitarian activity, and civil disobedience – relate differently to the loss of trust in the institutions of the Parliament, the legal system, and the police. Political activism primarily affects a loss of trust in the Parliament due to low external efficacy and a closed political opportunity structure. Civil disobedience affects a loss of trust in the legal system and the police due to a perceived lack of procedural justice. Humanitarian activity does not affect a loss of institutional trust because it does not imply interaction with the institutions to the same extent as the other kinds of activism. The consequence of losing trust in the political institutions is not an abandonment of democratic values, nor political apathy, but rather a change in civic engagement from a mode of democratically legitimizing participation in the institutions to a mode of contending and questioning the legitimacy of the political institutions. This finding indicates that in turn loss of institutional trust may cause an increase in extra‐institutional political action which is consistent with the commonly assumed causality in the literature. This leads to a final integrating argument for conceptualizing activism and loss of institutional trust as reinforcing factors in a process where, in line with the main finding of this study, activism may cause a loss of institutional trust which, in turn, may cause additional activism, as argued in the existing literature.     

Global activism and new media: A study of transnational NGOs’ online public relations

This study examines how transnational nongovernmental organizations make use of new media tools in their public relation activities and what factors influence their online public relations. A survey of communication representatives at 75 transnational NGOs based in the United States found that promoting the organization's image and fund-raising were the two most important functions of new media for the NGOs. Organizational capacity and main objective of the organization were significant predictors of NGOs’ new media use in their public relations. However, organizational efficiency and revenue did not significantly predict NGOs’ use of new media.     

Routes into activism in post-Soviet Russia: habitus,homology, hysteresis

This paper develops Bourdieusian notions of habitus, capital and field, along with the allied concepts of hysteresis and homology, to examine routes into public activism in post-Soviet Russia. Focusing on a neighbourhood campaign against construction projects in the Moscow district of Izmailovo, we argue that mobilization was driven by activists whose formative years took place during the Soviet period, and this resultant Soviet habitus enabled them to sustain their mobilization, despite the unpropitious circumstances. Our data shows that activists’ engagement was first triggered by perceived discrepancies between Soviet ideals and post-Soviet realities (hysteresis), and then supported by the mutual recognition of actors whose grievances echoed similarities in their structural positions (homologies). However, although mobilization gained momentum, it was unable to achieve definitive success in the face of negative social capital, or what Russians call administrativniy resurs: the arbitrary use of public office power that characterizes a number of social fields in post-Soviet Russia. We argue that understanding post-Soviet mobilization requires an understanding of the continued significance of Soviet ideals, as well of the role of the intergenerational transfer of civic ideals amid Bourdieusian ‘class struggle’.     

Picturing a green virtual public space for social change: a study of Internet activism and Web-based environmental collective actions in China

While increased attention has been paid to the rise of Chinese environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), the role that new information and communication technologies (ICTs) play in these ENGOs' collective actions has rarely been investigated. Based on first-hand information gained from field research with 19 environmental NGOs in Beijing, the author identified 18 Internet-based environmental collective actions and illustrated the specific conditions under which Chinese ENGOs employ the Internet to engage in these actions. Specifically, this study developed an analytical typology of ICT for the environmental movement to examine the extent to which and conditions under which Chinese ENGOs employ ICTs, especially the Internet, for chances of mobilization and social change. From six groups of thematically classified cases, the study also uniquely compared how various web conditions combine with and mediate various structural dimensions of the campaigns to achieve a certain level of social change.     

Reclaiming,proclaiming, and maintaining collective identity in the #YoSoy132 movement in Mexico: an examination of digital frontstage and backstage activism through social media and instant messaging platforms

This article starts from the recognition that digital social movements studies have progressively disregarded collective identity and the importance of internal communicative dynamics in contemporary social movements, in favour of the study of the technological affordances and the organizational capabilities of social media. Based on a two-year multimodal ethnography of the Mexican #YoSoy132 movement, the article demonstrates that the concept of collective identity is still able to yield relevant insights into the study of current movements, especially in connection with the use of social media platforms. Through the appropriations of social media, Mexican students were able to oppose the negative identification fabricated by the PRI party, reclaim their agency and their role as heirs of a long tradition of rebellion, generate collective identification processes, and find ‘comfort zones’ to lower the costs of activism, reinforcing their internal cohesion and solidarity. The article stresses the importance of the internal communicative dynamics that develop in the backstage of social media (Facebook chats and groups) and through instant messaging services (WhatsApp), thus rediscovering the pivotal linkage between collective identity and internal communication that characterized the first wave of research on digital social movements. The findings point out how that internal cohesion and collective identity are fundamentally shaped and reinforced in the social media backstage by practices of ‘ludic activism’, which indicates that social media represent not only the organizational backbone of contemporary social movements, but also multifaceted ecologies where a new, expressive and humorous ‘communicative resistance grammar’ emerges.     

Twitter activism and youth in South Africa: the case of #RhodesMustFall

This article uses the South African student-led campaign known as Rhodes Must Fall, commonly referred to simply as #RMF, to explore youth activism and counter-memory via social networking site Twitter. The RMF campaign took place at the University of Cape Town and comprised student-led protests, which campaigned to remove the statue of British colonialist Cecil John Rhodes, as activists argued that it promoted institutionalized racism and promoted a culture of exclusion particularly for black students. Through a qualitative content analysis of tweets and a network analysis using NodeXL, this article argues that despite the digital divide in South Africa, and limited access to the internet by the majority of citizens, Twitter was central to youth participation during the RMF campaign, reflecting the politics and practices of counter-memory but also setting mainstream news agendas and shaping the public debate. The article further argues that the #RMF campaign can be seen a collective project of resistance to normative memory production. The analysis demonstrates how social media discussions should not be viewed as detached from more traditional media platforms, particularly, as in this case, they can set mainstream news agendas. Moreover, the article argues that youth are increasingly using social networking sites to develop a new biography of citizenship which is characterized by more individualized forms of activism. In the present case, Twitter affords youth an opportunity to participate in political discussions, as well as discussions of broader socio-political issues of relevance in contemporary South African society, reflecting a form of subactivism.     

Repression,resistance and lifestyle: charting (dis)connection and activism in times of accelerated capitalism

ABSTRACT

Studying the nexus of media and social movements is a growing subfield in both media and social movement studies. Although there is an increasing number of studies that criticize the overemphasis of the importance of media technologies for social movements, questions of non-use, technology push-back and media refusal as explicit political practice have received comparatively little attention. The article charts a typology of digital disconnection as political practice and site of struggle bringing emerging literatures on disconnection, i.e. forms of media technology non-use to the field of social movement studies and studies of civic engagement. Based on a theoretical matrix combining questions of power, collectivity and temporality, we distinguish between digital disconnection as repression, digital disconnection as resistance and digital disconnection as performance and life-style politics. The article discusses the three types of digital disconnection using current examples of protest and social movements that engage with practices of disconnection.

Abbreviations: AFA: Anti-Fascist Action; CHRI: Center for Human Rights in Iran; DDoS: Distributed Denial of Service     

Minority environmental activism in Britain: From brixton to the lake district

Historically, the British environmental movement has been devoid of minority participation, but this is changing very slowly, with the emergence of ethnic minority environmental groups and multiracial environmental alliances. These groups have argued that ethnic minorities have little or no access to public funds earmarked for countryside and wildlife preservation issues. They argue that white environmental organizations do not pay attention to the needs of inner-city minority residents and minority access to the countryside. Increased access, community improvement and beautification projects, environmental education, youth training, community garden projects, and issues of environmental racism are all foci of ethnic minority environmental movements. While some white environmentalists have been supportive of them, others have been uncomfortable with them or even hostile to their existence.     

Impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the transnationalization of LGBT* activism in Japan and beyond

The global Covid-19 pandemic has strongly impacted social practices, relocating communications and social networks into the digital space. Contextualized in such impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the local LGBT* activism in Japan achieved a special momentum: both the acceleration of the socio-spatial relocation of LGBT* activism to the digital space and the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics 2020 by 1 year enabled activists to mobilize people domestically and globally. The pandemic was not the actual cause or driver of the local LGBT* activism, yet it has been an important catalyst for the transnationalization of the local movement in Japan, pushing evidently the spatial boundaries to achieve broader public outreach but in turn also receiving stronger support from the global community through transnational networks. This study explores novel dynamics of spatiality and temporality of social transformations through the Covid-19-induced increase in global digital connectedness as well as transnationalization of local actions.     

Organizational “Emotion Work” Through Consciousness-Raising: An Analysis of a Feminist Organization

In this article I explore how organizational processes link to certain emotional responses, as a way of investigating more fully the role emotions play in social movements. Through the construction of a case study of a feminist group, the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women (NYC NOW), I analyze how certain emotions, such as anger, alienation, hopelessness and frustration, are redefined within an organizational context. I find that consciousness-raising serves as the organizational process that helps transform personal emotions into a collectively defined sense of injustice. This transformation has the potential of creating actors dedicated to chapter activism.     

Exploring a model of servant leadership,empowerment, and commitment in nonprofit organizations

This study examined a model of servant leadership's relationship to organizational commitment through structural and psychological empowerment, focusing on leader–follower dyads in a nonprofit organization. Survey data was collected from 128 employees of a nonprofit organization in a northeastern U.S. city. After model re‐specification, a well‐fitting model emerged, indicating that structural empowerment mediates the relationship between servant leadership and organizational commitment. Moreover, the model suggests that structural empowerment's effect on organizational commitment is both direct and indirect—the latter occurring through the meaning dimension of psychological empowerment. This study provides initial support for structural empowerment being a mechanism through which servant leadership impacts organizational commitment in nonprofits. In addition, the role of meaningful work is highlighted as an antecedent to organizational commitment for nonprofit employees. Servant leaders are suggested to create structurally empowering working environments, which support employees' stronger commitment to the organization.     

Hashtag activism and message frames among social movement organizations: Semantic network analysis and thematic analysis of Twitter during the #MeToo movement

During the #MeToo movement, social movement organizations (SMOs) played a crucial role in the online mobilization by utilizing various message frames and appealing hashtags during the social movement. Applying a co-creational approach and using framing as a theoretical framework, the study explored how SMOs use words and hashtags to participate in the #MeToo movement through Twitter. Based on both semantic network analysis and thematic analysis methods, findings of the study enhance literature of social movement organizations and activism as well as provide practical implications for effective social movement campaigns.     

Decisions to Make a Difference: The Role of Efficacy in Moderate Student Activism

Radical student protest has declined in the USA since the 1960s, but less militant forms of campus activism have continued to be a substantial part of larger social movement efforts. However, little research examines participation by today's youth in these moderate campus-based social movement organizations. This study addresses our lack of knowledge about less sensational forms of student activism with fieldwork and semi-structured interviews that illuminate the reasons for undergraduate participation in a student-led environmental group. The data show how school and employment considerations, career goals and social networks influence student decisions to join the organization. Moreover, the findings demonstrate the importance of organizational outcomes to participatory decisions. Students were led to actively participate according to their determination of the social movement organization's ability to achieve tangible goals and the perceived necessity of their contribution.     

Activists against hunger: Membership characteristics of a national social movement organization

This article presents results of the first study of the contemporary antihunger movement. We compare the membership characteristics of one its largest organizations, Bread for the World (BFW), with data on the general population of the United States drawn from the 1985 General Social Survey. When compared with the general population, BFW members are, among other things, unusually well educated, religious, politically liberal and efficacious, and active in church-related and political organizations. The differences in religious and political belief and organizational involvement persist even when BFW members are compared with their equally well educated counterparts in the general population. Our findings thus elucidate certain ideological and organizational bases for membership in BFW. We discuss the implications of the findings for issues in the contemporary study of social movements and for BFW's prospects in the political arena.     

Development of professional commitment among students in social work education

This study seeks to expand empirical knowledge of commitment to social work using a sample of 212 Norwegian students. The first aim is to investigate the development of students’ commitment to social work from the start of education (first year) to its end (third year). The second aim is to investigate how theoretical and relational knowledge contribute to commitment to social work. The third aim is to examine how compatibility between students’ abilities and the vocational demands of social work contribute to professional commitment. A paired samples t-test and an ordinary least squares regression were conducted to test the aims of the study. The results document that students experience weaker professional commitment at the end of education compared to the beginning. It also seems that theoretical and relational knowledge contribute to professional commitment. The findings also indicate that students whose abilities are compatible with the vocational demands of social work experience stronger professional commitment than those for whom a discrepancy exists.     

Early activism and work arrangements of young feminists in Mexico City

The study investigates the relationship between the activism and later work life of young Mexican feminist activists in the context of social movements’ institutionalization and the precarious employment situation. Using the biographical narratives of fifteen feminists in Mexico City who were core activists during the period of high mobilization of the abortion rights movement from 2007 to 2009, this study aims to answer two questions: How does activism impact contemporary activists’ work life in an era of professionalized and institutionalized social movements? And how do their feminist identities and practices differ according to the workplace? The results reveal that (1) young feminists joined women's movement institutions through their activism, although those employment opportunities were unstable, and (2) they used reflexive strategies to manage their feminist identities amidst the uncertainty and to reconcile their work life conditions and their feminist activist identities.     

Employee communication,job engagement,and organizational commitment: A study of members of the Millennial Generation

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between job engagement and two key components of employee-organization relationships (EOR). Findings from a survey of members of the Millennial Generation (N = 539) in the United States indicate that job engagement mediates the relationship between employee communication and organizational commitment. It is concluded that when employees are engaged in their work, their commitment to the organization is strengthened and the likelihood of them leaving the organization decreases. Furthermore, an argument is made in light of the study’s findings that engagement and commitment work in concert to strengthen EORs overall. To foster engagement, organizations should remove obstacles to internal information flow and provide ongoing feedback to employees about individual and organizational issues.