Persuasion+and+Social+Movements

Stewart, Charles J., Craig Allen Smith, and Robert E. Denton. Persuasion and Social Movements, 4th ed. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc., 2001.
Chapt 1: "A social movement, then, is an organized, uninstitutionalized, and significantly large collectivity that is created to bring about or to resist a program for change in societal norms and values, operates primarily through persuasive strategies, and is countered by an established order" (14).

Chapter 2: Pulls from Rossiter's Political Spectrum: Revolutionary Radicalism, Radicalism, Liberalism, Conservativism, Standpattism, Raction, Revolutionary Reaction. Makes into pie chart with levels of apathy, ambiguity, and indecision in center. Types of Political Argument: Insurgent, Innovational, Progressive, Retentive, Reversive, Restorative, and Revolutionary.

Chapter 3: Life Cycle of Social Movements: Genesis, Social Unrest, Enthusiastic Mobilization, Maintenance, Termination.

Chapter 4: Rather than using a mechanical-systems approach, authors encourage an organic systems approach in which organisms must only adapt to their environment, and in which conflict can be creative, productive, and evolutionary. Organic critic can pursue the question: "Which individuals, conceiving themselves to be what 'people' in what environment, use what relational patterns and what adaptive strategies with what evolutionary results?"

Chapter 5: A Functional Approach: "one that views persuasion as the primary //agency// through which social movements perform necessary //functions// that enable them to come into existence, to meet opposition, and, perhaps, to succeed in bringing about (or resisting) change" (73).

1. Transforming perceptions of history 2. Altering perceptions of society 3. Prescribing courses of Action 4. Mobilizing for action 5. Sustaining the social movement
 * Altering perceptions of the past
 * Altering perceptions of the present
 * Altering perceptions of the future
 * Altering perceptions of the opposition
 * Altering self-perceptions
 * Prescribing what must be done
 * Prescribing who must accomplish the task
 * Prescribing how the task must be accomplished
 * Organizing and uniting hte discontented
 * Gaining sympathy and support from opinion leaders or legitimizers
 * Pressuring the opposition
 * Justifying setbacks and delays
 * Maintaining viability of the movement
 * Maintain visibility of the movement

Stewart stresses the importance of "we-they" distinctions in the creation and sustenance of social movements. In Chapter 5, he claims that "Social movements often hope that self-discovery may result in a new 'personal identity' and in the realization of 'a people.' Self-discovery is an important means of creating 'we-they' distinctions and a basis of group identification through a sense of shared fate." This reminds me of the Sewards article on new forms of feminist activism as self identification and discovery. I suppose that if you are willing to grant Stewart's point, one could argue that self-identifying with a movement is a form of activism because it is building and sustaining a movement, at least in terms of member identification. But, Stewart takes for granted that in order to have even the beginning of a social movement there must already be those who identify with the cause and it becomes a movement when they actively attempt to change the perceptions of //others,// not just the perceptions of selves. It's that "social" bit. This leaves me with questions, also, about the relationship between //activism// and the building of social movements. Is activism alive simply in identifying with a social movement, or does activism require a more action-oriented view? I would say that it does, but requires more thinking....