Category: Social Movements / Social Change

Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology Compass Issues / Sociology of Media & Communication

Whistleblowing in the Wind: Channeling and Harnessing Collective Outrage

News continues to break revealing more incidents of U.S. government spying. Based on documents provided by Edward Snowden, we learn that targets of the NSA now include the phone calls, emails, and text messages of the presidents of Brazil and Mexico, and the internal communications system of news broadcaster Al Jazeera. The leaks have also brought to light that the U.S. has been hacking into foreign networks in order to place them under covert control through an effort dubbed “GENIE.”

Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture

Does the Web call time on our traditional ethical arrangements?

  Ethnography is a “particular method or sets of methods” which in its “characteristic form it involves the ethnographer participating, overtly or covertly, in people’s lives for an extended period of time; watching what happens, listening to what is said, asking questions — in fact, collecting whatever data are available to throw light on the issues that are the focus of the research” (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983: 1). Ethnography therefore allows insight into the knowledge and meanings behind the composition...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change

Social Movements This Summer: Listen to the Echoes

Scholars of political protest continue to attempt translation of social movements that ostensibly took a new turn in the past few years. Inspired by the Arab Spring, this current wave of contention can be traced through the Indignados and other anti-austerity uprisings, and eventually into efforts to Occupy everywhere. These movements share some characteristics: they are less leader-led than many previous movements, and participants often call for democratization but lack a clear, unified set of demands. A common tactic is...

Race & Ethnicity Studies / Social Movements / Social Change

Dream Defenders Stand THEIR Ground

  On July 13th, George Zimmerman was found not guilty in the shooting of 17 year old Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman shot Martin during a scuffle—the details of which we will never truly know—and claimed that he had done so only in self-defense. The jury believed him; much of the viewing public did not. In the weeks since the verdict, the nation has been reeling. The shooting itself, the failure of the police department, the vigilantism encouraged by “Stand Your Ground”...

Class & Stratification / Gender & Sexuality / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance

Boundaries, Power, and Self Expression

Sociologists frequently note that individuals – in effort to understand the social world – construct boundaries and make distinctions (Zerubavel, 1991). That is, in efforts to make sense of the world and its reality, individuals cut up, carve out, and make meaningful distinctions. Distinguishing one from another, that is “masculine” from “feminine”, “affluent” from “deprived”, “strong” from “weak”, and “right” from “wrong” provides an avenue for meaning and reality materialize. However, the same boundaries that construct a reality for individuals,...

Books and arts / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Economies of Review on Amazon.com

Amazon.com provides a number of feedback spaces. These kinds of spaces are the communicative loops that situate digital consumption. Recently we have seen a number of variations in the form of these reviews. Critically, these reviews include ones that take the form of explicit social commentary and go beyond the particularity of a simple product review. This practice drew me to the thinking about economies of review, as parables for digital communication and consumption. Can such reviews challenge spaces of...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change

Cannabis Legalization on the Ballot: Framing the Debate in Three States

There is something curious happening this election season, and it has nothing to do with 47% or Obamacare. Voters in three states – Washington, Oregon, and Colorado – will be casting ballots on whether or not to legalize cannabis. Whether or not these measures ultimately pass, they amount to the most direct challenge to the legitimacy of US drug policy since the War on Drugs began over 40 years ago. Of particular interest here are the similarities between the proposed...

Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

The Database Economy and Anonymous Friends

In his 2011 article New Media, Web 2.0 and Surveillance Christian Fuchs argues that our life on the Internet, specifically as embodied in the practices and ideology of Web 2.0, is being expropriated as a “form of personal mass dataveillance.”[1] For Fuchs, social networking sites, such as Facebook, are prime sites to explore this shift. The ‘dataveillance’ of these digital social spaces present us with a complex matrix of motivations, communication logics, and economic interests – represented in individual users...

Books and arts / Gender & Sexuality / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture

Book Review: Latina Activists across Borders Women’s Grassroots Organizing in Mexico and Texas by Milagros Pena

The start of a new academic year is upon us and we are back to hectic days and endless nights. This year will be more busy than usual for me as I plan to defend my M.A. thesis in Sociology.  Anyone who has ever written a thesis knows how much work goes into it. As part of my venture through this exciting (yet very difficult) time I will be using some of my bi-weekly posts to highlight some of the sociological studies that proved...

Class & Stratification / Political & Economic Sociology / Science & Technology / Social Movements / Social Change

Sustainability, social progress, environmental protection, economic growth and energy

Sustainability, social progress, environmental protection, economic growth and energy are discussed using the sustainability framework in Figure 1, where sustainability is at the confluence of social progress, environmental protection and economic growth. Figure 1 Sustainability framework (Source: IUCN 2006) There are designs being made toward Ecological Civilization and welcome moves to address the shortcomings of GDP in Completing the picture – environmental accounting in practice by the Australian Bureau of Statistics .  Extending the national accounts to include degradation of natural resources makes a measurable target...

Race & Ethnicity Studies / Research Brief / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture

Recent Trends in Latino Immigration: A Look at Current Research on Contemporary Latino Immigrants and “Mixed Status” Families.

A lot has changed since the U.S. government signed the IRCA Act of 1986, a policy that changed the face of immigration reform and affected many immigrants. In many ways, this policy coincides with my own personal history of immigration, subsequently influencing the research trajectory I have taken as a sociologist. Among other provisions, the IRCA Act of 1986 gave undocumented individuals who resided in the U.S. since 1982 the opportunity to become legalized. Due to the IRCA Act of 1986,...

Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture

Woody Guthrie Turns 100: The Folk Icon, His Music, and Social Movements

Two days ago marked what would have been the centennial birthday of iconic folk artist Woody Guthrie (1912-1967), perhaps best known today for his classic “This Land is Your Land.” His biography is a fascinating (and short) read and provides some context for the scathing social commentary in many of his 100+ songs. Much of his music is raw, simple, and emotionally charged – just a man and his guitar. But it was also forged in his own contentious politics...

Social Movements / Social Change

Clipping Colorism at the Knees

“Mr. Leighton, Mr. Leighton! So-and-So said a bad word.” This is how my day has stared for the past two weeks.  Like many sociology graduate students, my department does not offer summer funding so I’m forced to find it on my own.  This summer, I am a Summer PALS (Play and Learn Sessions) Director in Maui. The work is hard, the hours are long, and the children are challenging, but through this experience I am able to hear the stories...