Social Movement Theory

Charles J. Stewart, Craig Allen Smith, and Robert E. Denton, Jr. (1994) referred to the second half of the 20th century as “the age of the social movement in America” (p. 1). Though many definitions of social movements exist, Stewart et al. defined a social movement as “an organized, uninstitutionalized, and large collectivity that emerges to bring about or to resist a program of change in societal norms and values, operates primarily through persuasive strategies, and encounters opposition in a moral struggle” (1994, p. 17). They further defined persuasion as a “pervasive element” in a social movement. The focus on study of persuasive techniques and strategies has dominated the study of social movements and collectives by communication scholars.

Stewart et al. suggested that social movements, although not referred to by that name, were present in the American experience from the colonies forward. They argued that the American Revolution began as a social movement. Beginning public relations students learn from the history of public relations that public relations activities existed far before the naming of the discipline. Michael Pfau and Roxanne Parrott (1993) cited Cotton Mather's 1721–1722 efforts to persuade Boston citizens to [Page 786]inoculate against smallpox as one of the first social action campaigns in America. Public relations textbooks often cite examples from the American Revolution, such as Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the publication of The Federalist Papers. Scott M. Cutlip, Allen H. Center, and Glen M. Broom (1994) noted that “the tools and techniques of public relations have long been an important part of political weaponry. Sustained campaigns to move and manipulate political opinion go back to the Revolutionary War and the work of Samuel Adams and his cohorts” (p. 91). In 2001, Gabriel M. Vasquez and Maureen Taylor described the foundations stage of public relations and noted the work of J.A.R. Pimlott and Cutlip when making reference to the use of public relations efforts by American colonists who sparked the American Revolution. Cutlip et al. (1994) noted,

Other social movements in American history included the temperance movement, the abolitionist movement and the women's rights movement. Just as the development of the mass media aided the emerging practice of public relations, so it aided the leaders of the social movements.

A discussion of social movements in a public relations encyclopedia must naturally turn to the influence of the research findings of other disciplines on public relations. In other words, what can public relations learn from research on social movements that has been done in communication, sociology, and other fields of study? Furthermore, what does that knowledge on social movements add to the body of knowledge in public relations?

Social movement study as a discipline is generally recognized as an outgrowth of collective behavior theory of the 1940s and 1950s. Sociologist Herbert Blumer published his “Outline of Collective Behavior” in 1934. In this work, he provided guidelines for studying the formation of new forms of collective identity and for classifying crowd behavior. Blumer outlined a new way of classifying social movements as collective behavior.

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