Social Change and Movements

1. Social Change and Movements John A. Cagle

2. Dana Cloud: Key questions • How does social change happen? • What has worked for social movements in the past? • Are those strategies still valid in the present? • What is the balance among rhetorical and other (economic, cultural, political) factors in determining opportunities for and outcomes of movements for social change? • What are the usual stages of social movements and what are the rhetorical tasks of each stage? • How have movements interacted with, built upon, and/or challenged other movements?

3. What various ideological camps are present in each movement and what rhetorical markers distinguish these positions? • How do we know when a social movement has succeeded? • What have been the relationships between social movements and mass consciousness, popular culture, and political and legal reform? • What should be the role of scholars in evaluating and participating in social movements?

4. Bowers & Ochs’ Rhetoric of Agitation and Control • Rhetoric is the rationale of instrumental symbolic behavior. • Agitation exists when • people outside the normal decision-making establishment • advocate significant social change and • encounter a degree of resistance within the establishment such as to require more than the normal discursive means of persuasion. • Control refers to the response of the decision-making establishment.

5. Two kinds of agitation • Agitation based on vertical deviance occurs when the agitators subscribe to the value system of the establishment, but dispute the distribution of benefits or power with that value system. • Agitation based on lateral deviance occurs when the agitators dispute the value system itself.

6. French & Raven’s Bases of Social Power • Reward • Coercive • Legitimate • Referent • Expert

9. Critical variables • Agitation • Actual membership • Potential membership • Rhetorical sophistication • Control • Power • Strength of ideology • Rhetorical sophistication

11. Generalization A An agitative group low in rhetorical sophistication uses the strategies of nonviolent resistance, escalation/confrontation, Gandhi and guerrilla, or guerrilla prematurely, before the possibilities of petition, promulgation, solidification, and polarization have been exhausted.

12. Contributors to Intergroup Conflict • Perceptual Differences resulting from • Different Goal, Time, and/or Social Orientations • Different Attitudinal Sets - competitive vs. cooperative and cosmopolitan vs. local • Status Differences - rank and standing relative to others • The Nature of Task Relationships • Task Interaction - similar to interdependence • Task Ambiguity - not understanding responsibilities and requirements • Power Differences • Lower power if group is considered substitutable • How able a group can adapt to changes impact on that group’s power • Controlling and having access to resources gives a group power

13. An Overview of Intergroup Conflict Conflict Resolution Techniques Dysfunctional Consequences Changes between groups Distorted perceptions Negative Stereotyping Decrease in Communica- tions Changes within group Increases in cohesiveness Rise in autocratic leadership Focus on activity Emphasis on loyalty Problem solving Superordinate goals Expansion of resources Avoidance Forcing Smoothing Compromise Altering human variable Altering structural variables Identifying common enemy Causes of Intergroup Conflict either Interdependence Differences in goals -Limited resources -Reward structures Differences in perceptions -Different goals -Different time horizons -Status incongruency -Inaccurate perceptions Increased demand for specialists Functional Consequences Awareness of Problem results in Positive movement toward organizational goals Search for solutions or results in results in Change and adaptation results in Survival of organization Intergroup Conflict Action lines Influence lines

14. Managing Conflict Strategies Intervention Styles Assertive Forcing Collaborating Party’s Desire to Satisfy Own Concerns Compromising Unassertive Avoiding Accomodating Uncooperatives Cooperative Party’s Desire to Satisfy Others’ Concerns

17. Conflict Management: Strategies & Tactics • Avoidance Behaviors • Direct denial • Implicit denial • Evasive remark • Topic shifts • Topic Avoidance • Abstract remarks • Noncommital statements • Noncommital questions • Procedural remarks

18. Cooperative behaviors • Description • Qualification • Disclosure • Soliciting disclosure • Soliciting criticism • Empathy or support • Concessions • Accepting responsibility

19. Competitive behaviors • Personal criticism • Rejection • Hostile imperatives • Hostile questioning • Hostile joking or sarcasm • Presumptive attribution • Denial of responsibility

20. Managing Conflict Strategies • Confrontation Meeting - subgroups meet to identify conflicts and develop action plans to eliminate them. • Third-Party Interventions - third party acts as mediator, arbitrator, or fact finder - generally done in union/management situations.

21. Focus on Structural Mechanisms • Hierarchy - senior individual coordinates the activities of two interacting groups, e.g., Executive VP. • Plans and Goals - that interacting groups understand and agree to. • Linking Roles - person placed in a lateral position to act a conduit between groups, generally temporary function. • Task Forces - groups generally made up of one representative from each group.

22. Integrating Roles or Units - e.g., a project manager who permanently links groups. • Project or Product Structure - have people from different teams comprise groups to service a specific customer base. • Matrix Organization - having people report to more than one boss, e.g., project manager and VP of R&D.

23. Kenneth Burke’s Dramatism • The range of rhetoric is wide. • All life is drama. • Drama features human motives. • Hierarchy is fundamental to human symbolism. • Rhetoric promises transcendence. • Rhetoric is fueled by the negative.

24. Burke’s Dramatism • The Act is the basic concept of dramatism. • Action consists of purposeful voluntary acts; motions are nonpurposeful, nonmeaningful acts.

25. Symbolism • The individual is a biological and neurological being, distinguished by symbol-using behavior, the ability to act. • People are symbol-creating, symbol-using, and symbol-misusing animals. • Burke’s view of symbols is broad, including an array of linguistic and nonverbal elements. • People filter reality through a symbolic screen.

26. Rhetorical Analysis • Kenneth Burke’s Pentad: act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose • Pentadic ratios can be used to define the central relationship of any communication: scene-act, scene-agency, scene-purpose, act-purpose, act-agent, act-agency, agent-purpose, agent-agency, and agency-purpose.