The Importance Of A Social Movement

Introduction Authors Smith, Gavin, & Sharp (2015) argue that a social movement is when a group of people protest for the same cause. For a social movement to be a social movement it needs to have an identity or a cause for what is driving the social movement (Smith, Gavin, and Sharp 2015). Smith et al. (2015) argue that the social issue must be desired by a large enough group of people to then start to protest. Further, once a shared sense of identity is formed then activists can start their protest (Smith et al. 2015). The occupy movement was a social movement. Further, the occupy movement was about exposing a corrupt system that made the vast majority of the world’s wealth to go to the vast minority of people which then led to the vast …show more content…
So, in this first article Potentials, Networks, Motivations, and Barriers: steps towards participations in social networks, authors Klandermans and Oegema (1987) believe that social movements have mobilization potential, and the ability to recruit people to participate in the social movement. Furthermore, in order for a social movement to be classified as a social movement, it needs to have support. Klandermans and Oegema (1987), argue that mobilization potential is a part of society within a social movement that can be mobilized. If a social movement has a high mobilization potential than the social movement can succeed. However, Klandermans and Oegema (2015), argue that mobilization depends on the population of the area and how successful the movement is within that population. Social movements need to evolve and the only way a social movement can evolve is if it can attract new members. So, in other words, a social movement must have a strong recruitment network so new participants can be attracted and thus evolve the …show more content…
Smith et al. (2015), argues that the main idea behind the occupy movement was that the majority of the worlds wealth is held by a small minority of people. Further, this inequality was brought to light after the 2008 global economic crisis. The media, specifically Twitter, played a role in the occupy movement. Further, an online journal called Ad Buster based in Vancouver established the hashtag #occupywallstreet. #occupywallstreet, Smith et al. (2015), was used as a claims maker to recruit people to these protests. The occupy movement had no manifesto or any sets of demands associated with the movement. The people who would attend these protests came from all walks of life, identities, sexual orientations, and from all different political ideologies. Smith et al. (2015) argue that the protesters in the United States of America were trying to protest corporate personhood which is the idea where corporations have the same constitutional rights as do people, and it also implies that under the constitution corporations are seen as individuals or people under the constitution. This benefits the corporations because then they get a lower tax rate, however, it hurts regular middle-class Americas because their tax rates go up to make up for the