Social movement

About: Social movement is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 23103 publications have been published within this topic receiving 653076 citations. The topic is also known as: movement & syndical movement.

Identities and Politics: Toward a Historical Understanding of the Lesbian and Gay Movement

Abstract: Critics of identity politics often wax polemically as they charge contemporary social movements with narrowly and naively engaging in essentialist politics based on perceived differences from the majority. Such essentialism, critics charge, inhibits coalition building (e.g., Phelan 1993; Kimmel 1993), cannot produce meaningful social change, and reinforces hegemonic and restrictive social categories (Seidman 1997). It is even responsible for the decline of the Left (Gitlin 1994, 1995). Social movement scholars similarly view “identity movements” as cultural rather than political movements whose goals, strategies, and forms of mobilization can be explained better by a reliance on static notions of identity than by other factors.

Scaling Social Movements Through Social Media: The Case of Black Lives Matter:

Abstract: In this article, we explore the potential role of social media in helping movements expand and/or strengthen themselves internally, processes we refer to as scaling up. Drawing on a case study of B...

MASTERING THE ART OF SOCIAL MEDIA: Swiss parties, the 2011 national election and digital challenges

Abstract: Online communication has become a central part in the communication repertoires of political actors in Western mass democracies. In Switzerland, where broadband, internet use, and media literacy are amongst the highest in the world, all major political parties run their own website and are active on social media. This article seeks to show how Swiss political parties deal with social media, how they implement it and how they use social media. The study builds on empirical data from a structural analysis of party websites, the official Facebook sites, and Twitter feeds. These social media sites were analysed for their resonance, update frequency, and thematic clusters focusing on information, mobilization, and participation. A weekly assessment of the user numbers illustrates the development of user resonance throughout the 2011 election year. While political parties claim to appreciate the dialogue and mobilization potentials of social media, they mainly use social media as an additional channel to spread...

Globalisation, Transnational Political Mobilisation, and Networks of Violence

Abstract: This article examines how globalisation processes provide new incentives and opportunities for non-state political entrepreneurs to build transnational political movements. Drawing on the literatures on non-violent social movements and transnational networks, the article examines terrorism and political violence as components of the ‘repertoires of contention’ used by radical transnational groups seeking political change. Examples from both the pre- and post-9/11 periods are provided, and the implications for traditional models of state security are discussed. The article concludes by contending that the combination of increased levels of globalisation and the emergence of new networks of violence is creating a fundamental shift in the international security environment, in which the distinction between internal and external security threats is increasingly blurred. While state security strategies are reflecting these changes, less attention has been paid to the political implications of these changes. Ne...

Measuring user credibility in social media

Abstract: People increasingly use social media to get first-hand news and information. During disasters such as Hurricane Sandy and the tsunami in Japan people used social media to report injuries as well as send out their requests. During social movements such as Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and the Arab Spring, people extensively used social media to organize their events and spread the news. As more people rely on social media for political, social, and business events, it is more susceptible to become a place for evildoers to use it to spread misinformation and rumors. Therefore, users have the challenge to discern which piece of information is credible or not. They also need to find ways to assess the credibility of information. This problem becomes more important when the source of the information is not known to the consumer. In this paper we propose a method to measure user credibility in social media. We study the situations in which we cannot assess the credibility of the content or the credibility of the user (source of the information) based on the user's profile. We propose the CredRank algorithm to measure user credibility in social media. The algorithm analyzes social media users' online behavior to measure their credibility.