Strain

Strain refers to the feelings of some publics that a gap exists between what they believe exists and what they believe should exist. Awareness of such conditions can lead people to believe that problems exist. Strain was introduced into discussions of social movement and activism in 1963 by sociologist Neil Smelser to explain the motives that give individuals the incentive to engage in that kind of collective behavior. Strain, in this sense, results from a comparison of what is versus what should [Page 818]be, a perceived impairment. If, for instance, people recognize that homelessness exists and believe that it should not, they are experiencing strain. Robert L. Heath called strain “a product of problem recognition and outrage” (1997, p. 169).

Strain can also be viewed as problem recognition. It presses public relations practitioners to ask whether publics recognize that some problem exists that they believe needs correction or solution. Problem recognition is a key variable in situational theory. Heath wrote, “[Any] given day, hundreds of people—a potential constituent audience of public—feel discomfort about various aspects of their lives” (1997, p. 165). Examples of such problems may be loss of a job, product defects, sexual harassment, chronic illness caused by toxic chemicals, or corporate accounting scandals. “Awareness of such conditions,” Heath noted, “can lead people to believe that problems exist” (1997, p. 165).

Interest in concepts such as strain increased during the 1960s in the United States, when social movements were pressing for change in every aspect of American life. That pressure led scholars and public relations practitioners to think more deeply about the dynamics that lead individuals to take collective action. Such collective action could change the power dynamics of society. It could lead to changes in public policy. These new forces against industrial autonomy led to the formation of issues management.

For public relations practitioners, awareness of activist organizations and the issues they address is necessary. A history of corporate and organization activity in the United States is sufficient to remind us that corporations have often suffered severe financial losses and challenges to their legitimacy when their boards were not responsive to or aware of the needs of stakeholder publics.

One of the leaders in understanding the dynamics of social movements, Hans Toch, (1965) defined a social movement as “an effort by a large number of people to solve collectively a problem they feel they have in common” (p. 5). Concern with the motives of change is the typical focal point addressed by students of social movement. They work to unlock the secret of the motivation people need to foster and lead a social movement. In this vein, Smelser (1968) defined collective behavior as being purposive, not random. It is socially oriented activity. Together, people attempt to reconstitute their sociocultural environment.

One of the functions of the activist group or activist organization is to frame the issue or problem in a new way so it is perceived as urgent by key publics. Often this reframing process results in a sustained social movement that is able to form alliances with like-minded organizations and to garner the funds needed to achieve policy formation or change. Heath (1997) noted that an activist group “takes a vital step toward the establishment of strain once it creates a perspective that, like a new pair of glasses, allows a key public to see its world in a different way” (p. 168).

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