The Importance Of Collective Action

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Collective action of any form has long been besieged by a multitude of problems. Organizers must not only recruit individuals, motivate them, and find the correct way to direct these individuals in order to achieve goals. The resources needed to prompt collective action have varied throughout history as changes in technology have allowed organizers to tackle challenges to collective action in ever easier ways. This proposal seeks to examine two widely publicized movements that achieved varying levels of success in order to determine how effective traditional responses to challenges in collective action have been when organizers can utilize new technology. The issue that many groups face is one of motivating individuals. Social Identity Theory …show more content…

The first is by reducing communication costs. The use of social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, in addition to E-mail have made contacting politicians and institutions much cheaper. This also allows intragroup communication to be streamlined, allowing information to flow from organizers to group members seemingly instantaneously. Social media platforms also allow members to gain and disperse information while reinforcing their own commitment to the group. Social media platforms, in this sense alter the organizational structure and can reduce the impact of SITs three key variables. Finally, mass media become less important due to the relative ease of reaching a mass audience through social media. The information abundance in mass media also tends to level the playing field, as mass media have become so fractured that their reach is …show more content…

Members have been credited as being extreme liberals, Independents and Libertarians. Income inequality was the issue that triggered the initial protests that began on Wall Street in New York City. The Occupy movement offered few clear goals, instead focusing on messages and demands that were extremely broad and ill-defined (Kavada, 2015). Though the larger issue of income inequality has become an increasingly popular talking point for a number of politicians, few policy outcomes have emerged that can be linked to Occupy. Occupy has largely fallen out of political favor, as politicians initially supportive of the movement have long since ceased to mention the movement publicly (Smith, Gavin, & Sharp,

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