The Drum Beat 307 - Social Movement Communication

An Introduction from the Executive Director of The CI:

The processes that have most significantly shaken, stirred and changed the world we live in are often called "Social Movements". Some of the more prominent examples include the suffragette, women's, civil rights, anti-apartheid, anti-tobacco, land rights, environment, debt relief and a range of other social movements. Those just quoted are multi-national and sometimes global in scale. Most communities and countries will also have very significant examples of their own social movements on their specific national and local issues.

Inherently, such social movements are communication dependent; in their very essence and being they are communication processes. And they have been effective; impact has been secured and sustained. It would be very difficult to make a case that the civil rights, tobacco and women's movements, for example, have not secured substantial gains. There is lots to do of course - but much has been achieved.

So - if these social movements have been communication-based and have had impact, then what can we learn from them for our development communication strategies and efforts?

- Warren Feek

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This issue of The Drum Beat focuses on 12 articles summarised from peer-reviewed journals which examine the communication strategies of various social movements. This is not a comprehensive collection; it provides just a few examples of the examination of social movement communication.

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1.Struggle to be Seen: Social Movements and The Public Sphere in Brazil

by John A. Guidry

This article analyses how community movement activity defines the dynamics of contention and conflict in the public sphere. The author examines the history of community action in three popular and poverty stricken neighbourhoods in Belém, Brazil. The title of this paper is a metaphor for the way many residents have felt about their relationship to their political and institutional leaders - a feeling that the total lack of knowledge about what was occurring on the ground has prevented officials from taking action. One interviewee even said that because the politicians avoid seeing the poverty, "they cause poverty." Guidry's central argument is that "movement action shapes and reshapes the boundaries of public spheres, allowing popular social forces, elite actors, and the state to mutually influence and transform each other." Guidry offers several insights. The first is that collective action allows more powerful actors to see politics differently, while less powerful actors see their own agencies and capacities differently. This reorientation of views is essential for transformative politics. The second is that successful movement leaders translate the everyday language of the community into the language of power by inserting political discussion into all facets of life (the prayer group, the school, the block party). According to Guidry, it is this process of drawing out dialogue from the community and altering it from simple complaints to strategies for change that is at the basis for action and an understanding of the potential for change.

2.Getting to the Truth: Evaluating National Tobacco Countermarketing Campaigns

by M. C. Farrelly, C.G. Healton, K.C. Davis, P. Messeri, J.C. Hersey & M.L. Haviland

This report details the methodology and results of a 2000 study that compares the impact of the American Legacy Foundation's "truth" campaign against Phillip Morris's "Think. Don't Smoke" campaign on the attitudes, beliefs, and intentions of youth (12-17) towards tobacco. The concept behind the "truth" campaign is to market anti-smoking messages as a brand by using "edgy" youths, promotional items, street marketing and a website, in that way replacing the identity portrayed by tobacco companies with a "truth" alternative identity. The results demonstrate that the way anti-smoking advertisements are crafted and designed has a dramatic effect on how attitudes shift after exposure; it became apparent that the indirect strategy of the "truth" campaign was an essential part of its success. Young people respond better to communications that provide opportunities for them to become empowered and assert their independence; this is often best achieved by setting up challenges to established practices and organisations such as the tobacco industry. Addressing the industry rather than the behaviour itself changes the dynamic of the response towards an actual behaviour.

3.The Selling of Civil Rights: The Communication Section of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

by Vanessa D. Murphree

This article examines the history and communication and public relations strategies of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), an offshoot organisation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the civil rights group headed by Martin Luther King, Jr. during the early to mid 1960's. It is the author's belief that an intentional estrangement from white America in its communication strategies eventually led to the withering and downfall of the organisation. Yet Murphree notes that this frustration and difficulty with dealing with mainstream media is characteristic of the problems faced by dissident groups in communicating their messages and can contribute to the radicalisation of an organisation. Murphree suggests that there is a balance to be found between cooperation and the maintenance of good relations with the "establishment" forces and the need for direct action and purity of ideological stance. SNCC's efforts were key in getting the civil rights questions onto the national agenda by enlightening an otherwise unaware populace (in the north) and actively opposing racist media (in the south). Finally, this case study outlines the potential importance of both external and internal communications in a social movement. It was essential that the SNCC was communicating effectively with both its constituents (southern blacks) and the nation as a whole. Murphree concludes that it was this abandonment of an external communications component that eventually contributed to the demise of the SNCC at the end of the decade.

4.Electronic Communication and Environmental Policy in Russia and Estonia

by Shannon O'Lear

This article examines how a transnational environmental group based in the two former Soviet republics of Estonia and Russia, the Peipsi Lake Project (PLP), has developed communication strategies that have enabled them to overcome the challenges of working on a boundary environmental problem. The author believes that electronic communications can be effectively used to create "perceived spaces of resistance" that strengthen the voices of grassroots organisations. The PLP has found that there are, however, limits to the suitability of email and electronic communications for these types of movements. One challenge is that many of the people in the immediate vicinity of the lake are relatively economically poor and do not have access to these types of technology. Through a programme that trained and used local university students as community organisers, these students were able to record the insights and sentiments of the villagers surrounding the lake and were able to communicate to them the intentions of the PLP.

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See also "The Power of Movement" by Warren Feek - click here.

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5.Social Movement Rhetoric and the Social Psychology of Collective Action: A Case Study of Anti-Abortion Mobilization

by Nick Hopkins & Steve Reicher

The authors examine the rhetoric and techniques used in the anti-abortion movement by conducting an in-depth textual analysis of a speech given by an activist to a university audience. The anti-abortion campaign is a social movement that relies on very strong imagery in its communications, but this imagery is nevertheless dependent on certain social categories for the anti abortion protagonists themselves (the subject), the fetus/baby and women (the objects of debate), pro-abortion activists (the opposition) and the general public at large (the audience). The central point of construction for the movement lies with the categorisation of the fetus (the object). The fetus is defined as a human person right from the moment of conception - this is done by building a sense of continuity: the embryo contains all the information that will eventually become the new person (e.g., height, hair color, personality, health conditions). The fetus is also ascribed an agency: it has a desire to live and acts inside the womb by smiling and swimming - purposeful behaviours that are attributable to a personified thing. It is through this process of constructing the fetus as a human being that the movement can cast abortion as "killing". Hopkins and Reicher suggest that, while there are bound to be substantive differences across different movements, these constructive processes are fundamental to securing mass movement participation.

6.Social Construction of an Alcohol Problem: The Case of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and Social Control in the 1980s

by Craig Reinarman

Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) has achieved widespread name-recognition within the general public and remains a powerful political lobby group within the United States. MADD's initial strategy was to represent itself as the "Voice of the Victim", supporting victims at the local level through courtroom monitoring and support services to the bereaved families. Simultaneously, the national chapter became increasingly media savvy. According to Reinarman, this process of addressing the individual and promoting the victim could not have happened without the historical context of the Reagan era, and a moral ideology that ran parallel to MADD's message. Reinarman points out that social movement theory suggests that "the existence of compelling troubles or substantial human suffering may be necessary but not sufficient conditions for the emergence of a successful movement for public action."

7.Media Framing of Movement Protest: The Case of American Indian Protest

by Tim Baylor

This article is a media analysis of a one major network's coverage of the American Indian protests during the late 1960's and early 1970's that eventually culminated in the standoff at Wounded Knee in 1973 following the shooting deaths of 2 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents. This protest is identified as a part of a social movement; the author looks specifically at the coverage afforded to the American Indian Movement (AMI), a social movement organisation (SMO). The author examines how the media portrayed this activity using a constructionist framework that demonstrates how each news clip contains several recurring frames of reference towards the actors involved. These frames can be positive or negative and reflect strongly on public opinion about a particular movement's aims, objectives and tactics. The results of this case study lead the author to believe that there are "serious questions regarding the efficacy of engaging in direct action protest to gain media attention." The conclusion is that while SMOs are largely dependent on media organisations for coverage of their issues, the coverage can be damaging and difficult to control, and organisations should be "wary" of the contact they make with the media.

8.From Protest to Agenda Building: Description Bias in Media Coverage of Protest Events in Washington, D.C.

by Jackie Smith, John D. McCarthy, Clark McPhail & Boguslaw Augustyn

This study examines how social movement protest activity influences media framing of issues by analysing the mass media coverage of protest activity in Washington, D.C. in 1982 and 1991. The aim of the researchers is to determine whether the news media frames issues in a manner that is consistent with protest group aims, and what factors surrounding the protest and its coverage affect these frames. The primary variable is whether the coverage focuses on the episodic element of the protest event itself or the thematic element of the issues driving the protest. They conclude that, even when organisations are successful in garnering sufficient coverage, it is likely that the protest will be portrayed in a manner that ultimately undermines the movement's goals.

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9.Art of Green Learning: From Protest Songs to Media Mind Bombs

by Anita Krajnc

This article examines the role of "public education" as a component of social movement strategy. Its focus is on the environmental movement and its need to develop methods for widespread dissemination of the "green" message. The author suggests that public education of the type necessary to advance the green movement must go beyond the standard communication channels and their emphasis on media, advertising and community networks. Learning channels like music, drama, and literature are under-appreciated in their importance and potential. The author identifies and gives examples of a number of strategies that the green movement could use to better advantage. First, she outlines the cultural learning strategy of music that grew out of grassroots folk music - focused on labour, civil rights, women's, and conflict issues - as well as mega-music events (e.g., LiveAid concerts of the 1980s). She examines the ways that social movements have interacted and used mass media and alternative media as learning strategies. And she identifies the use of informal schools as an element of social movement public education in labour and civil rights struggles.

10.Use of Staged Events in Successful Community Activism

by Donna Simmons

This short article discusses the use of staged events to draw attention to social movement issues by detailing the experience of one particular community group during the 1980's. The author discusses how Concerned Neighbours in Action (CNIA) developed a strategy that enabled them to force various levels of government to deal with the environmental damage and dangers caused by the Stringfellow hazardous waste site in southern California. CNIA determined that they needed dramatic visuals if they were to get the necessary coverage of their grievances and influence the full range of their intended audiences. This strategy began with a community meeting in 1980 to which the media and the executive officer of the local water control board were invited. The members showed movies, took questions from the audience, and then asked the executive officer a series of increasingly difficult yes/no answer questions, recording his responses on a large banner and then asking him to sign an "accountability agreement". When he refused, he was resoundingly booed by the audience and made a sheepish exit under the eye of the camera. By the next morning, a contaminated pond that had been discussed at the meeting had been filled in and sealed.

11.Contending Stories: Narrative in Social Movements

by Francesca Polleta

Polleta suggests that the narrative is just one of the many forms of social movement talk, and she begins by attempting to discover its nature and role. She suggests that storytelling is governed by social rules that may in fact make it likely to contribute to the reproduction of dominant understandings. Narratives affect movement development in several ways. The first is their role in fledgling movements, whose emergence is often described as a process whereby protest "wells up", "explodes" or "bursts" forth from a previously unaware and unprepared grassroots populace. This suggests spontaneity, which is not always the case, but this appearance of spontaneity may have strategic value. Narratives are also important in attempting to describe the origins of a social movement. When does protest begin? When does one become an "activist"? These questions are unanswerable in an objective manner. When organisations and movements encounter setbacks, it is often narrative that is used to explain defeat in ways that might put a more positive perspective on the tide of events.

12.Out of the Parlors and into the Streets: The Changing Tactical Repertoire of the U.S. Women's Suffrage Movements

by Holly J. McCammon

McCammon examines the development and role of the suffrage parade as a means of claiming public space and making political statements. It is her goal to understand what causes movements to adopt such public approaches. Parades constituted a form of mass communication during the early 20th century and were not yet widely known as a social movement tactic in the United States. The dominant "separate-sphere" ideology of the time excluded women from most forms of political activity and the parade represented a relatively dramatic change from the efforts of the previous generations of suffragettes. These parades attracted the attention of the press and allowed women to present their issues in a public forum while maintaining dignity and demonstrating considerable resolve. In addition to finding strong support for the impact of organisational diversity, decentralisation, and conflict among suffragettes as precursors to tactical change, the results revealed that the presence of fundraising activities was also a significant determinant of parade activity.

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