Networks in Moverment (original) (raw)
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Qualitative Research, 2020
Social network analysis (SNA) is an interdisciplinary method that takes as its starting point the premise that social life is created primarily and most importantly by relations and the patterns formed by these relations. While SNA is often associated with the quantitative analysis of network measures, we illustrate through our overall mapping of, and interpretation of the relations within the Denver food movement, the advantages of a qualitative approach. We bring together information from surveys, network diagrams, betweenness centrality measures, and interviews to offer an interpretive process that reveals both the structure and activist- and organization-level meanings to explain resource mobilization and collaboration. We propose that qualitative SNA allows researchers to (a) understand the context and content of network structures and (b) better interpret quantitative measures with additional qualitative data. Based on our findings, we additionally suggest that for social movement scholars, qualitative SNA offers a deeper understanding of how organizations collaborate to advance organizational and movement goals.
A considerable number of studies in the social movement literature stress that social networks are a key factor for those participating in political protest. However, since empirical evidence does not universally support this thesis, we propose to examine three core questions. Do networks really matter for participants in political protest? Are social networks important for all types of protest? Finally, what are social networks and in which ways are they important? By answering these questions this paper aims to provide three contributions to social movement literature: first, we want to put networks in their place and not reifying their influence on participation processes; second, we describe and explain variations of networks influence on protest participation; third, to pursue the theoretical reflection initiated by Kitts, McAdam, and Passy on the specification of network effect on contentious participation, that is, to disentangle the different processes at stake. Many scholars argue for empirical works analyzing the link between networks and cognition, but this remains a pious wish. Here, we propose to systematically examine the effect of social interactions on activists' cognitive toolkit.
Walk and Be Moved: How Walking Builds Social Movements
Recent scholarship recognizes the city’s role as “civitas”—a “space of active democratic citizenship” and “full human realization” based on open and free encounter and exchange with difference. The current research emerges from and fills a need within this perspective by examining how local urban contexts undergird and bolster social movement organizations (SMOs). Our theory elaborates and linear regressions assess the relationships between four urban form variables and SMOs. In addition, our theory also examines how urban walking mediates the relationships between these local contextual traits and SMOs. Drawing primarily from the ZIP Code Business Patterns and U.S. Census, we generate a data set of approximately 30,000 cases, permitting regression analyses that distinguish strong direct effects of density, connectivity, housing age diversity, and walking on the incidence of SMOs. Sobel tests indicate that for density and connectivity, walking mediates the relationships with SMOs in a way consistent with the mechanisms of the hypotheses.
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Betweenness centrality: Measures how many times an element lies on the shortest path between two other elements. In general, elements with high betweenness have more control over the flow of information and act as key bridges within the network. They can also be potential single points of failure. Bridges and bottlenecks: Individuals with high levels of betweenness centrality. Closeness centrality: Measures the distance each element is from all other elements. In general, elements with high closeness can spread information to the rest of the network most easily and usually have high visibility into what is happening across the network. Clusters: Groups of people interacting with each other. Connections: Lines drawn between elements (nodes) on the map, representing a linkage between the two points. Degree: The number of connections an element has. In general, elements with high degrees are the local connectors/hubs but aren't necessarily the best connected to the wider network. Elements (nodes): Individual points on the map, For this evaluation, elements either represent individuals or organisations. In-degree: The number of incoming connections for an element. In general, elements with high in-degree are the leaders, looked to by others as a source of advice, expertise, or information. Incoming connections: The people or organisations indicating that they know an individual/ organisation (regardless of whether or not they are likewise known by the individual/ organisation). Information spreaders: Individuals with high values of closeness centrality. Network density: The total number of connections divided by the total number of possible connections. In general, higher network density translates to overall higher connectivity of the network. Network leaders: Individuals with high in-degrees; individuals who are highly visible throughout the network. Network weaving: Creating new or strengthening relationships between members of a social network(s). Outgoing connections: The people or organisations an individual knows or interacts with. Sub-network connectors: Key actors who connect smaller networks to the larger network and have high levels of degree centrality (degree).
Modern social movement scholarship came of age during a time of mature modern societies and mass media. Early and mid-twentieth century social protest formations were typically embedded in institutional platforms such as parties, unions, churches, social clubs, and other civil society organizations from which they drew membership, resources, collective identities, and network bridges to other groups and institutions. A next generation of " new " identity-oriented movements formed around social groups with common concerns about rights, equality, and various forms of discrimination against women, ethnic and racial groups, or sexual preference. Also developing through the last half of the twentieth century were numerous cause movements that focussed on issues such as environmental protection, human rights, freedom for various oppressed peoples, economic justice in the global South, and hundreds of other issues. Both identity and cause movements created a demand for new kinds of organizations and political relationships that helped spur the rapid growth of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and an alphabet soup of other hybrids (INGOs, TSMOs, etc.) as the social platforms for public engagement and cause advocacy. The symbolic worlds of recognition, power, and legitimacy in which these organization-based movements operated were largely constructed through the mass media that enabled distant citizens to include or exclude one another in " imagined communities " (Anderson 2006). The era of modern, mass mediated societies spanning roughly the last half of the twentieth century helped scholars define the role of communication in movements largely in terms of how collective identity was framed and how well those frames traveled across coalitions of organizations and into mass media representations of their activities. Media coverage, in turn, was thought to affect levels of popular support or opposition to movements. Both movement and media landscapes have changed dramatically in the short period spanning the end of the twentieth century and the opening decades of the twenty-first. Joining the legacy movements noted above were a number of the largest protest
Researching Collective Action Through Networks: Taking Stock and Looking Forward
Guest editing a special issue on networks and collective action could be interpreted as a response to the ubiquitous use of these terms in both public and academic discourses. As others have noted, thinking that "networks are everywhere" has become a daily routine (Brandes, Robins, McCranie, and Wasserman 2013: 2). Underpinning such a motto, is the diffusion of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), the Internet and social media in particular. ICTs have become a primary global infrastructure for the construction of relations across individuals, organizations, institutions, contents, and information in all domains.
Global-net for global movements? A network of networks for a movement of movements
Journal of Public Policy, 2005
This article focuses on the use of Computer-Mediated Communication by the movement for global justice, with special attention to the organisations involved in the movement and its activists. We examined data collected during two supranational protest events: the anti-G protest in Genoa in July and the European Social Forum (ESF) in Florence in November . In both cases, we have complemented an analysis of the Genoa Social Forum and ESF websites with a survey of activists, including questions about their use of the Internet. We then examine hypotheses about changes new technologies introduce in collective action. The Internet empowers social movements in: (a) purely instrumental ways (an additional logistical resource for ' resource-poor' actors), (b) a protest function (direct expression of protest); (c) symbolically (as a medium favouring identification processes in collective actors) and (d) cognitively (informing and sensitising public opinion).