Media and Social Change

These extracts from Wikipedia will be familiar territory to many readers of this blog, but I thought they could be a useful reminder of the connection between ‘new social movements’ theory and the pursuit of social change.

The term new social movements (NSMs) is a theory of social movements that attempts to explain the plethora of new movements that have come up in various western societies roughly since the mid-1960s (i.e. in a post-industrial economy) which are claimed to depart significantly from the conventional social movement paradigm.  [...]

Numerous social movements from mid-1960s differed from their precursors, such as the labor movement, which had previously been seen as focused on economic concerns.^[1][2] The new movements instead of pushing for specific changes in public policy emphasize social changes in identity, lifestyle and culture.^[1]

Thus the social aspect is seen by the NSM as more important than the economic or political aspects.^[1] Some NSM theorists, like F. Parkin (Middle Class Radicalism, 1968), argue that the key actors in these movements are different as well, as they are more likely to come from the “new middle class” rather than the lower classes.^[1] Unlike pressure groups that have a formal organisation and ‘members’, NSMs consist of an informal, loosely organised social network of ‘supporters’ rather than members. Paul Byrne (’97) described New Social Movements as ‘relatively disorganised’ [...]

The most noticeable feature of new social movements is that they are primarily social and cultural and only secondarily, if [at all], political^[4]. Departing from the worker’s movement, which was central to the political aim of gaining access for the working class with the extension of citizenship and representation, new social movements such as youth culture movement concentrate on bringing about social mobilization through cultural innovations, development of new life-styles and transformation of identities. It is clearly elaborated by Habermas that new social movements are the ‘new politics’ which is about quality of life, individual self-realisation and human rights whereas the ‘old politics’ focus on economic, political, and military security^[5]. This can be exemplified in the gay liberation, the focus of which broadens out from political issue to social and cultural realization and acceptance in life-styles of homosexuality. Hence, new social movements are understood as new because they are first and foremost social.

More in Wikipedia entry New social movements.