Journey Into Social Activism

Front matter

Journey into Social Activism:

Qualitative Approaches

Journey into Social Activism

Part II Research Sites

4. Activist Organizations Activist Networks Activist Events Alternative Media

N A

Concluding Remarks References

Index ix

The study of activism in many ways fits into the long view of humanity presented by “big history” scholars such as David Christian (2004) and Cynthia Brown (2007). Both have presented a vision of history that is marked by transitions across levels of complexity; this includes the big history of the entire universe, as well as the history of humanity. For instance, in the beginning of the universe, there were only scattered subatomic particles with little in the way of complexity. These particles eventually formed into simple hydrogen and helium atoms, and after three hundred million years the first stars were ignited. In this view, aspects of the universe were becoming increasingly complex. According to Christian (2004, 252), the same holds true for human civilization:

Transitions to new levels of complexity often depend on positive feedback mechanisms—cycles in which one change encourages another, which stimulates a third, which magnifies the first, and so on around the circle. One of these causal chains played a fundamental role in the transition to larger and more complex social structures. It links population growth, collective learning, and technological innovation. Increasing the size and density of human communities stimulated the processes of collective learning by increasing the size and variety of the networks within which information and goods could be exchanged. The intellectual synergies possible within these larger networks encouraged the development of new and more intensive technologies, which made it possible to support even larger human communities.

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In the previous excerpt, Christian refers to the transitions from tribal communities to organized states. The same claims can also be applied to historical changes to activism over the course of human history: increase in the numbers of activists leads to greater knowledge, which can be intensified by technologies. As all of these things increase and intertwine, structures of activism become more complex.

Research by nineteenth-century scholars described activism as a contagious mob mentality (see chapter 1); according to this view, activists were overly emotional people engaged in collective behavior. Although there were significant problems with such early works, these conceptualizations were not entirely wrong. Activism, as observed by these nineteenth-century scholars, did not involve the tools available to activists in the 1960s, let alone today. Early forms of activism witnessed during this time entailed small numbers of people, crude communication technologies, and rudimentary tactics for protest. It is not surprising, then, that observers would find such activist endeavors to be brutish or hysterical. This is not to diminish the causes or endeavors of those earlier activists, but a reminder that much has changed over the past century and a half. The observations of early scholars should not be dismissed as elitist snobbery; their observations provide insight into activism that was less complex than it is today. Over the years, as the number of activists grew across different movements, more sophisticated organizations emerged. As activists developed and employed technologies for communication, they were able to build and link networks. As the tools for the publication of alternative media became more readily available, activism continued to change. Large-scale activist communities have emerged that have constructed alternative visions of the world; the activists in those communities have built structures of knowledge that shape their interactions with the world. These communities are the product of overlapping, networked activists and activist organizations that are engaged in various events and have taken part in the production of mediated texts. Activism has become incredibly complex over the years, to say the least. This increased complexity has given rise to the need for smart approaches to the study of social activism. In an article concerning the connections between activism and dialogue, Shiv Ganesh and Heather Zoller (2012) demonstrate that scholars have often conceptualized activism as tactics, activity, or principles; they note, “across perspectives and disciplines, however, one finds an emphasis, on contestation as a core aspect of activist communication, and key concepts such as advocacy, conflict, and transgression to be central to activism” (69). For the purpose of this book, activism, in a general sense, is defined as collaborations by people in order to advocate for a position, nurture conflicts in society, or violate or transgress laws or norms in society.

My own experiences demonstrate the need for developed approaches in such academic endeavors. I remember the first time I conducted qualitative research on social activism. I was a graduate student at the University of Missouri and had enrolled in a qualitative methods course in the Department of Communication. One of our research assignments was supposed to include data from at least eight interviews. Based on my interest in activism and social movements, I chose to focus on an activist community in Columbia, Missouri. Initially, I did not think that it would be very hard, as I had written papers for other classes on the subject of activism and alternative media that were well received. For example, I had written a paper for my quantitative methods course on the effects of activist messages in alternative media by conducting surveys of students enrolled in the basic public speaking course; that particular paper garnered a top paper distinction at a conference. I had also written a paper for a (quantitative) content analysis course that explored how highly visible protest activities were often followed by significant changes to terminology used in alternative media content; that paper was later published in an edited volume. As I embarked on this new qualitative enterprise in 2002, I felt confident about my abilities as a researcher. I couldn't have been more wrong. I had to gain access to the activist community, and that was no small task. The chief organizer of one of the central groups within the community would not grant me an interview, and several of the other members of the organization seemed to take his lead and turn down my invitations to participate in the research. As I looked to other activists in the larger community, I learned quickly that many of the more radical activists did not trust outsiders and preferred to not get involved in such academic pursuits; they did not feel as if they could entrust a researcher with sensitive details about their militant activist tactics. Finally, one of my fellow graduate students introduced me to a few of his activist friends, and this, in turn, led to a significant breakthrough for recruiting participants. Those initial contacts snowballed into the eight participants I needed to complete the project; they also served as initial contacts for future research.

To be sure, the difficulties discussed here only scratch the surface of all of the problems that I faced within that initial project. These problems, however, demonstrate the need for a well-developed agenda and approach to the research. My early endeavors were really akin to groping in the dark. I only focused on my interests and blindly sought out participants for interviews. Without a disciplined approach, I was left floundering. Despite these trials and tribulations, I became firmly entrenched in qualitative research methods for my future pursuits concerning social activism. Essentially, qualitative methods enabled me to explore the lived experiences and perceptions of activists as they engaged in actions and campaigns to effect social change; such information was xi xii integral for answering the research questions that I found to be important in my own corner of academia. That first project, however, was not the end to my learning process and growth as a qualitative researcher of social activism. In subsequent projects I struggled with moral dilemmas, difficulties with transcriptions, participant hostility and misinformation, shifts in technology, and the basic human needs for food and sleep. Even today I struggle at times with very crucial problems in the process of conducting research concerning this complex issue. As recently as 2011, I conducted research with conservative Tea Party activists and ran into the same problem of gaining access to organizations and the overarching activist community.

This time, however, there was no evident fix to the problem, as boundary maintenance and the adherence to thematic purity among the activists in the community were significant obstacles to my research. In the end, I abandoned my plans for interviews and focus groups with Tea Party activists in favor of a qualitative content analysis of the dominant alternative media they produced and used. Ultimately, I have learned that qualitative research concerning this complex topic is a lifelong process. The longer that I engage in such research, the more I need to work on my methods and approaches to the different sites where activism can be found. Qualitative research is often systematic, but it is also malleable enough so that it can conform to a variety of contexts and situations; qualitative research methods are rarely, if ever, so general that they fit into all research sites. Because of such flexibility associated with these methods, as well as the variety and complexity of sites in which activism takes place, I must constantly work to adjust and hone my own approaches to the study of this important topic. With my experiences and knowledge about the complexity of activism in mind, I found it quite surprising that no one had written a book that made some attempt to cover or demonstrate qualitative methods in the study of social activism. Such a book would be invaluable to students and veteran researchers who strive to employ various qualitative methods across increasingly complex research sites.

Given my experience and background, I decided to take the initiative and write Journey into Social Activism. I began by reviewing articles published over the past ten years in communication, media, and journalism journals so as to get a sense of the number of projects that used qualitative methods. A review of articles in the Communication and Mass Media database of Ebscohost revealed two things: First, the vast majority of those articles focused on Western-based activism or were written by Western academics, a fact that is reflected in this book. Second, I found that most of the articles published over the past ten years had employed qualitative methods of some sort (e.g., interviews, ethnography, or qualitative content analysis). Essentially, over 55 percent of the communication, journalism, and media journal sources citing activism in that database were qualitative in nature, while the rest were split between quantitative approaches and articles devoted to theoretical discussions. Apparently, qualitative methods are the dominant tool for communication and media research concerning activism, protest, and alternative media. For my book project, I created an inventory of these articles, as well as numerous books and monographs, and began to comb through each source to identify the methods used by the authors. My goal was to explore not only the methods that were used but also the specific processes by which those methods were utilized. I set out to explore the ways in which the authors applied their methods to their research sites and catalog good qualitative approaches to the examination of organizations, networks, events, and alternative media.

Although I managed to accomplish my task, my efforts were met with a huge problem: many of the articles, I found, had little (if any) description of the qualitative methods used by the researchers. In many cases, the researchers did not even note the method that they used to collect data; they merely stated that qualitative methods were the primary source of data. Although some monographs, such as Nick Couldry’s (2000) monograph on media pilgrimages and activism, do a fine job explicating the qualitative methods used, most provide only scant information. At best, discussions concerning qualitative methods in the study of social activism are sporadic and often lack detail or depth. A case in point is an analysis of videos posted to interactive media platforms. In the article, the researchers note that they made use of a “qualitative tool” to aid them in their analysis. “Excellent!” I thought. This was exactly the kind of information I was looking for. The article, however, only included a note that stated that information regarding the tool could be found in a previous article by the researchers. Undeterred, I searched until I found the older article, only to discover a reference that information regarding the tool could be found in yet another cited source. “Fine,” I thought, “I will simply follow the breadcrumbs until I find this tool.” Sadly, I was defeated at this point, as the reference section of the article showed that the source was a conference presentation; I could find no record of this presentation anywhere else. The point is that many researchers did not provide much in the way of documentation about their methods in the articles and manuscripts that I examined, which made writing this book difficult at times. Nevertheless, my examination of these articles enabled me to find nuggets of information and practice that became the basis for the qualitative approaches to the study of social activism featured here. Using these nuggets and my own experiences, I summarized a series of qualitative approaches associated with different research sites that can be used in the study of social activism. For the most part, these approaches have been used in studies of organized activism oriented toward global or national issues, such as civil rights or war; studies of

PREFACE xiii that type constitute the vast majority of articles and monographs published over the years. This means that formally bounded examples of activism, such as organizations and prepared protests, are the primary focus of these approaches. Decentralized or less bounded forms of activism, such as lifestyle activism or subcultures, are not dealt with in great detail here. Such forms of activism are important and definitely worthy of study, but wind up conceptualized within the major research sites that are the foundation for this book. Ultimately, Journey into Social Activism provides scholars and students with exceptional insight into the use of methods within formally bounded sites of activism, with less discernment concerning those that are more decentralized. Intrepid scholars will hopefully remedy such a limitation through future works with greater awareness of those important sites.

The book is split up into two parts. Part I deals with the philosophical foundations in activist research; part II describes approaches to the study of social activism that have emerged from research conducted by qualitative scholars. As social activism becomes increasingly complex, it is important that researchers engage in their use of qualitative methods in thoughtful ways. Journey into Social Activism provides researchers with ideas on how to refine their research approaches and methodologies, if not blueprints for building their own research projects. Given that qualitative methods are flexible and malleable, I have no intention of presenting these approaches as one size fits all. What I present here are ways to think about dealing with the complex topic of social activism: How does a researcher formulate research questions? How are interviews conducted? Who should the researcher interview? How are texts collected for qualitative content analysis? How are qualitative content analyses conducted? Journey into Social Activism can help scholars to find answers to these questions, or it can provide tips for developing altogether different questions. How the book is used is entirely up to the reader.

Xiv PREFACE

PART I

Part I explores the building blocks that are at the heart of good qualitative inquiry concerning social activism: history, methodology, and methods.

Chapter 1 introduces the history of research on social activism and explicates different scholarly views of social movements. This history lesson is vital for any research project as researchers should be aware of the accomplishments of those who came before them—not only to make meaningful contributions in the present but also to avoid “reinventing the wheel” by exploring concepts and topics that have already been thoroughly researched. Only by comprehending past (qualitative or quantitative) endeavors can researchers effectively situate their own pursuits and begin to construct new projects.

Chapter 2 explains the different methodological positions that researchers can adopt for the study of social activism; that is, the different ontological and epistemological frameworks through which they approach their topics. This is important as the methodological framework influences not only how researchers engage with the world but also how they conceptualize activism. Only by fully grasping their methodological positions can researchers begin to approach the topic of social activism and formulate ideas about research projects.

Chapter 3 introduces a variety of different qualitative methods that have been used in the study of social activism. These methods were culled from a review of qualitative studies conducted over the past decade. The goal of collecting this information is to identify the most commonly used methods (or those that proved to be the most useful), uncover the valuable lessons learned from those research projects, and provide information about how these different methods can be used in the study of activism today.

Chapter One

(1) Justifications for studying social activism, including the role of activism in democracy and social discourse, the importance of activism for the formation of political identity, and resistance to the forces of political economy and media power.

(2) A condensed history of the study of social movements, including the early stages of research which established a view of social movements as phenomena in society, subsequent research which understood social movements as shifts in meaning across society, and contemporary research which describes social movements as networks of organizations and activists.

After graduate school I worked feverishly to get different sections of my dissertation published in well-respected academic journals. I eventually managed to publish a theory piece and a content analysis piece in two interdisciplinary journals and collaborated with my dissertation advisor to publish the central findings of my project in a regional communication journal. However, every time I submitted a manuscript to the journals published by the most influential organizations in the discipline (e.g., International Communication Association,

Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication), I found that I was running into a wall. At first I thought that it might have something to do with my writing style. However, even though my writing improved, rejection letters continued to pile up. It wasn’t until I received a scathing review from a journal editor that I came to realize the problem: I had failed to position myself clearly within the larger body of literature concerning activism and social movements. To be sure, I knew the theories and concepts, but I did not discuss how my own research fit within the existing literature. I presented my research to the editors and reviewers of these journals as something floating in a vacuum. In response to the editors comments, I spent the following months rereading the literature on activism and social movements and finding the places where my research overlapped. Only then was I able to connect with the influencers in the field.

Years later I was asked by some graduate students about what I felt was the most important thing to keep in mind when conducting research. I started to spout something about diligence and process, but then I stopped and told them to disregard what I had just said. To be sure, diligence and process are important, but connecting your ideas and your research to a larger body of literature is integral. I think I went so far as to claim that 75 percent of academic research is organization. I told them the research that came before are building blocks and that researchers have to be able to organize those blocks into a coherent structure onto which they can build. “The truth is,” I said, “I know a lot of folks in the discipline who are a lot smarter than me, but never seem to be able to publish their research.” The difference, I told them, was that I had figured out how to effectively organize those building blocks around my research.

This chapter provides a justification for studying social activism in contemporary society, as well as a brief introduction to the body of literature on social movements. Over the years, I have come to recognize that qualitative researchers must fully grasp all of these important points before they engage in any projects. Understanding the literature on social movements and activism—as well as the importance of such studies to academic conceptualizations of democracy and social change—will enable qualitative researchers to form strong foundations for any queries and pursuits. As I mentioned, research concerning activism does not exist in a vacuum. I understood that there was a large, intertwined body of literature concerning activism and social movements. However, I did not use that literature when designing my research; understanding that body of literature aided me tremendously in my own endeavors. Such knowledge also aids in the formulation of research questions, the construction of research tools, and the selection of research sites. Ultimately, we must thoroughly understand our topic of inquiry before we can commit to any project, whether those endeavors are single exploratory studies or long-term research projects meant to span an entire career. When approaching the topic of social activism, researchers should ask themselves: What research projects and inquires have preceded my interests? What are the important concepts or theories that have emerged from those projects? How do my own research interests fit into those emergent concepts or theories?

WHY STUDY SOCIAL ACTIVISM?

Over the years, scholars have developed different perspectives through which to view and understand the concept of social activism. My focus here is on the rationales for the study of such endeavors. The question often arises as to why someone should study the actions, protests, organizations, or media of social activists. What is the point? For instance, the British philosophical group Comedia (1984) critiqued alternative media, as well as the academic study of alternative media, as irrelevant. The journalism scholar Chris Atton (2002, 34) responded to the Comedia critique by stating: “Success can only be judged against increased circulation and increased market penetration . . . the alternative press is by its very nature in a subordinate position to that of the mainstream press.” Essentially, because of the low circulation and poor quality of alternative media, this form of activism has limited impact on society. Alternative media may motivate some activists to stage protests or develop an identity, but those results make little significant contribution to social issues or political discourse. Indeed, many scholars have argued that social protest serves more of an ego function to build up the self-esteem of individuals and that many people primarily engage in activism because of their self-pity and sense of victimhood (Gregg 1971; Stewart 1999).

Despite such critiques the study of social activism has persisted, due in large part to the understanding that activism plays an important role in democratic discourse. According to Stephen Lucas (1980), social movements and activism are integral to the different social and political discourses that effectively shape communities and culture. Lucas notes that scholars must be aware that social movements are essential to “explicating the cumulative metamorphosis of discourse in response to emerging exigencies imposed from within and without of the movement” (263). Within this context, social movements and activism do not so much influence politics in a direct manner, but constitute much of the discourse that constitutes and shapes a society. Consequently, the research of many scholars (past and contemporary) has extended our knowledge about three overlapping topics: democracy and social discourse, the formation of political identity, and the political economy of communication and media power.

DEMOCRACY AND SOCIAL DISCOURSE

Many scholars have worked to demonstrate the important role that social activism can have in the democratic process and social discourse about problematic issues. For example, the rhetorician Leland Griffin (1980) demonstrates how activist groups often serve a dialectical function in society as they debate issues, policies, and more. For Griffin, activism is an important component for a vibrant democracy, as the debates between activists who sought change and their counterparts who sought to protect the status quo often brought a plethora of information to the citizenry. Lucas (1980) took a similar approach to activism and social movements; in his view, such human endeavors are a collection of discourses that have developed over time. For instance, information about the horrors of segregation, apartheid, and other such institutions only became visible to the mainstream news media—and subsequently to the citizenry—whenever activists who crusaded against those problems engaged in efforts to win over support. The actions and protests of activists drew the attention of media, and their oppositional perspectives were often incorporated within news articles and reports. At the same time, activists who associated with the status quo ultimately sought to preserve those institutions and injected different information into the debate. In this way, citizens were provided with important information about such subjects as they went to the ballot box and engaged with one another in their local communities.

A good example of this view of activism can be seen in the SlutWalks described by Bonnie Dow and Julia Wood (2014). SlutWalks were organized by feminist activists in response to advice from a police constable in Canada that women should avoid dressing like “sluts” to best protect themselves from sexual assault. Feminist activists noted that such advice simply placed blame for assault onto women and shielded perpetrators from guilt; they used social media to invite women to come together for a “slut walk” in which they could reclaim women’s sexuality. As feminist activists involved in these protests often donned sexualized clothing such as lingerie and stiletto shoes, the walks drew the attention of the news media and thus enabled the feminist activists to bring alternative information and perspectives into social dialogue concerning rape and sexual assault. Other scholars have explored the tactics and strategies used by activists to contribute information and competing perspectives on social discourse without the aid of mainstream news media. For instance, Lynn Owens and Kendall Palmer (2003) demonstrate how anarchists utilized the Internet to tell alternative narratives about free trade and globalization. Owens and Palmer note that much of the mainstream media coverage of anarchists and their protests was quite negative. Nevertheless, the anarchists engaged in a process of “funneling,” in which they linked their own websites to other peripheral activist websites; those peripheral sites were often linked to more mainstream websites. In the case of the protests against the World Trade Organization, for example, people became interested in anarchists because of the negative portrayals of those activists that emerged in news reports at the time. However, when those people began to look up information about the anarchists online, they found links in mainstream Internet sources to “liberal” activist groups that led them to the anarchist websites; there the anarchists were able to tell their story unabated by the negative mainstream media coverage. In another example, Phaedra Pezzullo (2003; 2007) explored the ways in which collective memory can be constructed through various activities like activist “tours.” Pezzullo studied tours promoted by the Sierra Club, in which people were driven by bus around environmentally damaged areas throughout the United States. These tours gave activists and members of the environmentally ravaged communities opportunities to weave stories and engage in performances, thus building a shared memory about areas of the country that had been ignored if not forgotten. This process was particularly important as it allowed the activists to shed light onto issues that were not covered by or portrayed in the mainstream media.

Many other scholars have demonstrated the important role that activism plays in our political parties and campaign politics. The rhetorician Charles Stewart has published multiple studies about the role of the John Birch Society in the politics of the Republican Party. Analyzing the rhetorical strategies of the John Birch Society, Stewart and his coauthors Craig Smith and Robert Denton (2001) argue that the John Birch Society—established by Robert Welch in 1958 and named for the first American soldier killed by communists—functioned as a monolithic authoritarian structure for teaching conservative American principles and values. This structure was perceived to be necessary by conservatives so that they may combat equally monolithic and authoritarian forces commanded from Moscow. The John Birch Society stood as a watchdog group that scrutinized the activities of various groups in the United States, particularly politicians. Stewart (2002) further explicated his rhetorical view of the John Birch Society by noting that the group (at the time) was organized around a worldview based on communist conspiracy theories. Essentially, this worldview dictated that there were communists around every corner, working to disrupt the United States in any meaningful way. This conspiracy was further complicated by the fact that everybody was involved: the media, celebrities, and politicians. For this reason, nobody could be trusted, which ultimately led the John Birch Society to engage in boundary maintenance and scrutiny of outsiders. All of this is important to the notion of democracy, as the John Birch Society used to play an important role in the campaign politics of the Republican Party from the late 1960s until the 1980s. Along similar lines, Suzanne

Berg and I (Atkinson and Berg 2012a; 2012b) studied the alternative media of Tea Party activist groups around the time of the 2010 midterm elections. Our research demonstrates that the central theme found in alternative media utilized by Tea Party activists is “purity.” In addition, the content of various Tea Party blogs and websites focuses on conservative heroes and villains (liberals, Muslims, unions, etc.); the content also focuses on the biblical roots of the Constitution and the threats that the aforementioned villains pose to those roots. This theme of purity serves as a frame that is important for Tea Party activists in their appraisal of Republican Party candidates, which led to the sudden fall of many candidates who were labeled RINOs (Republicans in Name Only).

THE FORMATION OF POLITICAL IDENTITY

Other scholars have studied the role of activism in the formation of political identity. Essentially, according to these scholars, activist communities or groups not only generate information for use in discourse and debates but also shape the worldviews and interpretive frameworks that people use to understand political issues and events. For instance, Robert Huesca (2001) writes about the notion of participatory civic communication within the networked society. The notion of the networked society has become particularly important as asynchronous interactive media and technology allow for the emergence of global networks that can bypass the power and influence of traditional institutions such as the Catholic Church or the Democratic Party. Traditional institutions are nodes grounded in space and time which does not fit well within a world increasingly networked through asynchronous interactive media; to be involved in those traditional institutions, one must go to specific places at specific times (e.g., sermons, masses, conventions). Institutions constructed through interactive media enable people to be involved from anywhere, whenever they have the time. Huesca claims that activist networks often utilize interactive media and have become more attractive to people than the traditional institutions of the Republican and Democratic Parties. People can engage with organizations such as Indymedia or Focus on the Family through websites and social media much more effectively than they can with those traditional political institutions. Taking part in online discussions, blogging, or even watching videos can shape the worldviews of Internet users. As a result, social movement networks are becoming an integral site for the shaping of political identity.