Contention Beyond Social Movements: Activism and its Benefits
1. CONTENTION BEYOND SOCIAL
MOVEMENTS:
Activism and its Benefits
Mary Joyce
MA Student | Department of Communication | University of Washington
ICA Pre-Conference on Qualitative Political Communication Research | May 22, 2014
2. ACTIVISM
A Nested Model
SOCIAL MOVEMENT
CAMPAIGN CAMPAIGN CAMPAIGN
Tactic Tactic Tactic Tactic Tactic Tactic Tactic Tactic
Individual actions not
part of collective tactics
Tactics not part of
campaigns
Campaigns not part of
social movements
5. METHODS
Using Digital Accounts to Study Remote Activism Events
• Content analysis
• Global Digital Activism Data Set source
documents
• News stories describing 426 digital
campaigns in 100 countries from 2010-2012
• Main document sources: LexisNexis and
Global Voices Online
• Random sample of 100 campaigns from 61
countries drawn for this study
• Identification and collection of goal
statements in the texts
7. TAKEAWAYS
• Scholarly attention on social movement distracts attention from a wide array of
more numerous activism efforts.
• Online news accounts, particularly citizen journalism, are valuable for the qualitative
analysis of globally dispersed efforts.
• Reactive (threat-reducing) campaigns are far more common than proactive (benefit-
seeking) campaigns.
• More campaigns are organized around immediate threats, such as a planned
reduction of pension benefits, than abstract threats, such as global warming.
8. THANK YOU
Mary Joyce
MA Student | Department of Communication
University of Washington
@MetaActivism | mjoyce@uw,edu
This presentation is available @ www.meta-activism.org