Activism
Activism (or advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good.
Forms of activism range from mandate building in a community (including writing letters to newspapers), petitioning elected officials, running or contributing to a political campaign, preferential patronage (or boycott) of businesses, and demonstrative forms of activism like rallies, street marches, strikes, sit-ins, or hunger strikes.
However, the term commonly refers to a form of collective action, in which numerous individuals coordinate an act of protest together.
[2] Historically, activists have used literature, including pamphlets, tracts, and books to disseminate or propagate their messages and attempt to persuade their readers of the justice of their cause.
Research has now begun to explore how contemporary activist groups use social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action combining politics with technology.
[9] The Online Etymology Dictionary records the English words "activism" and "activist" as in use in the political sense from the year 1920[10] or 1915[11] respectively.
The history of the word activism traces back to earlier understandings of collective behavior[12][13][14] and social action.
Following the surge of "new social movements" in the United States during the 1960s, activism came to be understood as a rational and legitimate democratic form of protest or appeal.
[19] In English history, the Peasants' Revolt erupted in response to the imposition of a poll tax,[20] and has been paralleled by other rebellions and revolutions in Hungary, Russia, and more recently, for example, Hong Kong.
In nations throughout Asia, Africa and South America, the prominence of activism organized by social movements and especially under the leadership of civil activists or social revolutionaries has pushed for increasing national self-reliance or, in some parts of the developing world, collectivist communist or socialist organization and affiliation.
[28] The foundations of the global human rights movement involve resistance to colonialism, imperialism, slavery, racism, segregation, patriarchy, and oppression of indigenous peoples.
Charles Tilly developed the concept of a "repertoire of contention", which describes the full range of tactics available to activists at a given time and place.
These may be entirely novel, such as Douglas Schuler's idea of an "activist road trip",[34][35] or may occur in response to police oppression or countermovement resistance.
Political activism does not depend on a specific ideology or national history, as can be seen, for example, in the importance of conservative British women in the 1920s on issues of tariffs.
[6] While people's motivations for political activism may vary, one model examined activism in the British Conservative party and found three primary motivations: (1) "incentives, such as ambitions for elective office", (2) "a desire for the party to achieve policy goals" and (3) "expressive concerns, as measured by the strength of the respondent's partisanship".
People living in the Middle East and North African countries that were experiencing revolutions used social networking to communicate information about protests, including videos recorded on smart phones, which put the issues in front of an international audience.
[45] This was one of the first occasions in which social networking technology was used by citizen-activists to circumvent state-controlled media and communicate directly with the rest of the world.
These types of practices of Internet activism were later picked up and used by other activists in subsequent mass mobilizations, such as the 15-M Movement in Spain in 2011, Occupy Gezi in Turkey in 2013, and more.
[56] Both conservative and liberal groups use economic activism as a form of pressure to influence companies and organizations to oppose or support particular political, religious, or social values and behaviors.
Kotler and Sarkar defined the phenomenon as an attempt by firms to solve the global problems its future customers and employees care about.
Other examples of consumer activism include simple living, a minimalist lifestyle intended to reduce materialism and conspicuous consumption, and tax resistance, a form of direct action and civil disobedience in opposition to the government that is imposing the tax, to government policy, or as opposition to taxation in itself.
Alternatively, literary activism may also seek to reform perceived corruption or entrenched systems of power within the publishing industry.
Most activist organizations do not manufacture goods,[citation needed] but rather mobilize personnel to recruit funds and gain media coverage.
