Social Movements

Social movements are notoriously difficult to define with any precision, at least for general purposes. Definitions are either too narrow, such that they appear to exclude certain obvious cases of what we take to be movements, or they are too wide and fail to exclude social forms that are not generally thought of as movements. In general terms, however, social movements emerge when social actors collectively oppose or resist some aspect of the status quo, seeking to bring about change, or alternatively, when they oppose change and seek either to preserve the status quo or restore the status qua ante. Social movements are networks of actors seeking either to bring about or oppose social change. Although social movements are not new to consumer culture, they ...