Lecture notes - Collective Behaviour, Social Movements, Social Change PDF

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Collective Behaviour, Social Movements, and Social Change

2014-11-27

Collective Behaviour - Voluntary, often spontaneous activity that is engaged in by a large number of people and typically violates dominant-group norms and values - Lacks an official division of labour, hierarchy of authority, established rules and procedures - Can take various forms, including crowds, mobs, riots, panics, fads, fashions, and public opinion - Collective behaviour occurs as a result of some common influence or stimulus that produces a response from society Conditions for Collective Behaviour: - Three major factors contribute to the likelihood that collective behaviour will occur: - Structural factors that increase the chances of people responding in a particular way - Timing - A breakdown in social control mechanisms and a corresponding feeling of normlessness Distinctions Regarding Collective Behaviour: - Crowds: - Relatively large number of people who are in one another immediate vicinity - Masses: - Large number of people who share an interest in a specific idea or issue but are not in one another’s immediate vicinity Classification of Crowds by Emotion Expressed: - According to John Lofland, the dominant emotion refers to the publicly expressed feeling perceived by participants and observers as the most prominent in an episode of collective behaviour - Five Categories of Crowds: - Casual - Conventional - Expressive - Acting - Protest Casual and Conventional Crowds: - Any interaction is brief - Made up of people who specifically come together for a scheduled event and thus share common focus Expressive Crowds: - Providing opportunities for the expression of some strong emotion, such as joy, excitement, or grief - People release their pent up emotions in conjunction with other persons experiencing similar emotions Acting Crowds: - Collectivities so intensely focused on a specific purpose or object that they may erupt into violent or destructive behaviour - Riots - Violent crowd behaviour that is fuelled by deep seated emotions but not directed at one specific target - Mobs - Highly emotional crowd whose members are engaged in, or are ready to engage in, violence against a specific target, which may be a person, category of people, or physical property - Panic

Collective Behaviour, Social Movements, and Social Change

2014-11-27

- Form of crowd behaviour that occurs when a large number of people react to a real or perceived threat with strong emotions and self-destructive behaviour Protest Crowds: - Engage in activities intended to achieve specific political goals - Some protests sometimes take the form of civil disobedience - Civil Disobedience: - Nonviolent action that seeks to change a policy or law by choosing not to comply with it. Explanations of Crowds Behaviour: Contagion: - People are more likely to engage in antisocial behaviour in a crowd because they are anonymous and feel invulnerable - Emotions, such as fear and hate, are contagious in crowds because people experience a decline in personal responsibility and do things that they would never do when acting alone Circular Reaction: - The interactive communication between persons such that the discontent of one person is communicated to another, who, in turn, reflects the discontent back to the first person Convergence Theory: - People with similar attributes find a collectivity of like-minded persons with whom they can express their underlying personal tendencies - People may reveal their true selves in crowds, so their behaviour is not irrational: it is highly predictable to those who share similar emotions or beliefs Emergent Norm Theory: - Emphasis on social norms in shaping crowd behaviour - Crowds develop their own definition of the situation and establishes norms for behaviour that fits the occasion - Emergent norms occur when people define a new situation as highly unusual or see a longstanding situation in a new light - Emergent norm theory points out that crowds are not irrational - Critics note that proponents of this perspective fail to specify exactly what constitutes a norm, how new one emerge, and how they are so quickly disseminated and accepted by a wide variety of participants. Mass Behaviour: - Collective behaviour that takes place when people respond to the same event in much the same way - The most frequent types of mass behaviour are rumours, gossip, mass hysteria, fads, fashions, and public opinion Mass Hysteria: - A form of dispersed collective behaviour that occurs when a large number of people react with strong emotions and self-destructive attitudes Fads and Fashion: - A temporary but widely copied activity enthusiastically followed by a large number of people - Currently valued style, behaviour, or way of thinking Public Opinion: - Consists of the political attitudes and beliefs communicated by ordinary citizens to decision makers Propaganda: - Information provided by individuals or groups that have a vested interest in furthering their own cause or damaging an opposing one Social Movements:

Collective Behaviour, Social Movements, and Social Change

2014-11-27

- an organized group that acts consciously to promote or resist change through collective action

- Elements: - more likely in industrial societies - offer “outsiders” an opportunity to have their voices heard - most likely to spring up when people come to see their personal troubles as public issues - Make democracy more available to excluded groups - Social movements provide people who otherwise would not have the resources to enter the game of politics to do so

- Types of Social Movements: - Reforms - Revolutionary - Religious - Alternative - Resistance Reform Movements: - Seek to improve society by changing specific aspects of the social structure - They usually work within the existing system to attempt to change existing public policy Revolutionary Movement: - Hopes to bring about a total change in society - Do not attempt to work within the existing system, rather they aim to remake the system by replacing existing institutions with new ones. Religious Movements: - Concerned with renovating or renewing people through “inner change” Alternative Movements: - Seek limited change in some aspects of peoples lives Resistance Movements: - Seek to prevent or undo change that has already occurred Stages in Social Movements: - Preliminary (incipiency stage) - Coalescence stage - Institutionalization (bureaucratization) - At this stage early supporters may become disillusioned and drop out and/or may join another movement Relative Deprivation Theory: - The discontent that people may feel when they compare their achievements with those of similar situated persons and find that they have less than they think they deserve Value-Added Theory: - Each step in the production process adds something to the finished product - Certain conditions are necessary for the development of social movements - 6 Conditions are necessary to produce social movements when they combine or interact in a particular situation - Structural conduciveness - Structural strain - Spread of generalized beliefs - Precipitating factors - Mobilization for action - Social control factors Resource Mobilization Theory:

Collective Behaviour, Social Movements, and Social Change

2014-11-27

- Focuses on the process through which the members of a social movement gather, trade, use, and occasionally waste resources as they seek to advance their cause

- Resources such as: - money - members time - access to the media - property - equipment Social Constructionist: Frame Analysis: - Investigates how problems are framed and what names they are given - In the context of social movements, framing refers to the interactive, collective ways that movement actors assign meanings to their activities in the conduct of social movement activism - A grievance needs to be present - 3 Ways of Framing: - Diagnostic - Prognostic - Motivational - The end result of successful framing is that people are compelled to join the movement in an effort to reduce or eliminate the grievances Social Constructiivist: - Illustrates how social movements emerge and grow when people are faced with problems where ambiguity exists New Social Movement Theory: - Incorporates: - Personal identity - race - class - gender - sexuality - Environmental Racism: - the belief that a disproportionate number of hazardous facilities are placed in low-income areas populated primarily by people of colour...