Chapters 1-3, 5-6 constitute a theory of social movements. You should read this as, more or less, an account of how social movements operate and an outline of the categories a researcher must master to understand social movements from SSD's perspective.
Chapters 4, 7-13 are contextualist probes which outline techniques or approaches that can yield insight into the discourse of movements. Each is illustrated with application to important movements. You should be familiar with these various notions that can help to illuminate a movement that you are examining.
Chapter 14 is a very important chapter on resistance to social movements. Movements are sexy, resistance oppressive. So, we pay too little attention to strategies of resistance. This chapter begins that task, although it hardly completes it.
Prepare an agenda item for our discussion of definitional issues in movement study.
Before the break
Introduction to the study of movements. (Klumpp in charge)
Some additional methods strategies (Klumpp in charge)
At this point, I would offer three cautions in reading DeLuca. First, he can, at times, engage in pedagogical exaggeration. For example, his characterization of Simon as the "dean" of social movement studies would make Simon glow as well as glower, but it is an exaggeration of the relative followers of Simon and the critical school that DeLuca posits as his adversaries. Read his conclusions and the reasoning for them carefully, and be a bit skeptical of places where he creates oppositions. The best critics in DeLuca's vein have tended to be contextualists who privilege the shadings and transformations of interpretation rather than mechanists given to the dichotomies and battles of categories. DeLuca is at his best when he adopts contextualist moves.
Second, be cautious of where DeLuca takes the call for rhetorical interpretations of movements. He is correct that many have started down this path and then reified such notions as organization, but DeLuca himself comes close to reifying consciousness, another fleeing of rhetoric as definitional. See if you can maintain the assertion that social movements are rhetorical that is at the heart of DeLuca's call if not his criticism.
Third, before you become a thoroughgoing DeLucian you need to read the research he refers to that says the image is stronger than the words. I am not as convinced by that research as he is. I do not doubt the strength of images, but to me the encountering of the image is an incomplete rhetorical event -- comparable to encountering any experience in the world -- and the question is what happens next. The answer must be interpretation. Yet, this research, in my reading, assumes that the test of strength is what is remembered. I do not buy that assumption. I believe that messages -- imagistic or discursive -- are sublimated to interpretation as a part of the interpretive process. Thus, what is remembered is not a measure of the process. Alternatively, some research focuses on what is attended to in the moment of reception of the image. Neither is this the critical question because the meaning process is not complete when the viewing "event" is complete. I do not believe that we have a good empirical answer to which contributes the most to the meaning of an event: image or discourse. But the forced choice implied by the question is, in my judgement, a mistake. Both are necessary components: we have an image from experience and we call upon discourse to frame it, to interpret it, to give it meaning. Is the font of that discourse in the news report or in our rhetorical experience? I don't know. I suspect both, and I think that is a more interesting question. In the end, the assumption that the image overpowers the words is a key assumption to where DeLuca winds up, and it is an assumption that deserves far more attention that the quick treatment without support that he gives it.
Reading
Note that the preparation this week is divided up among severnal different subgroups of the seminar. Your assignment is below:
Discourse: ( Elizabeth , Heather, and Abbe) Consider WSF discursive constructions. What language does the forum use to describe itself, its membership, goals, etc. Is opposition (an enemy/enemies) described? And if so, how? How does WSF create a vision of and for its stakeholders? Can we identify a WSF narrative? Can we analyze these discursive formations to interrogate the assumptions and ideologies of the WSF?
Additional Reading :
• Harter, Lynn, Ami Sengupta, and Arvind Singhal. " (De)centering and (Re)envisioning Gender and Development Organizing Through Feminist and Participatory Standpoints." Paper prepared for the International Communication Association Annual Meeting, New York , NY , 2005
• Mumby, Dennis. "The Political Function of Narrative in Organizations" Communication Monographs 54 (June 1987): 113-127. [How can we read this article against the grain in light of our study of an international movement with grassroots organization?]
Leadership : (Karen and Jeannette) Through the “leadership” lens we will continue our class discussion on leadership functions and the agent-agency dialectic, specific to the World Social Forum. Through discussion, we hope to explore how the World Social Forum perpetuates its web-based presence and gains new affiliates; the influence of identity constructs such as gender and ethnicity in the forum's organization and corporate identity; and how organization structures and affiliations support or detract from its effectiveness as a leaderless resistance movement.
Additional Reading :
Media : (Shayna, Terri, and Hillary) Last week we spent some time talking about how the World Social Forum harnesses the rhetorical energy pregnant in “new media,” chiefly through their web-centric, forum approach. This lens begs questions regarding how the “old” or “traditional” media (print and broadcast journalism) represents or frames social movements. Though the one of the reading focuses on a case study of non-web-based movements, we desire, through discussion, to transfer these implications to our consideration of the WSF's interactions with “old” media.
Additional Reading :
Public Sphere: (Ben and Jim) Your task is to approach the study of the World Social Forum through the theoretical lens of the public sphere. As Dahlgren (2005) argues, the public sphere consists of structural, representational, and interactional elements that influence the conduct of public deliberations. How are each of these elements reflected in the types of deliberation and political action encouraged by the World Social Forum? Second, examine Dahlberg's (2007) argument that the internet serves to radicalize the public sphere. How does the World Social Forum fit into this framework?
Additional Reading :
Visuality : (Tim and Gina ) Our class discussion about the WSF has focused on the nature of new media and its usage by social movements. A lens of visuality is predicated on how a social movement mediates itself spatially and communicates through images, performance, and symbolic interactions. In terms of the WSF, we are particularly interested in two senses of visuality: 1) how the design and layout of the WSF web site marshals images and spatiality to symbolize its vision of "a movement of movements" and 2) how the WSF uses artistic media such as performance art, video, painting, and other non-discursive communication to transmit its messages. By using these two senses, we would like to interrogate how WSF's brand of internationalism is represented visually. Questions to consider: How does the WSF create a sense of authenticity among its constituent groups through web techniques and other media? What role does "interaction" play visually in the WSF's use of technology? How is community created through images?
Additional Reading :
Before the break
Plan for the Seminar Meeting
SSD has an excellent bibliography on movements. Let me point to the classic works in movements. For those whose specialty is discourse in social movements, these seminal essays should be read: