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Social movement research often focusses on phases of success and large protest events. By contrast, taking an interest in the question of how organizational change occurs within social movements, this study points out the importance of phases of low protest activity. The organizational structure of the Portuguese anti-austerity protests provides a thought-provoking case, as large protests organized by civil society actors other than the trade unions were a novelty in 2011. Furthermore, there are long periods of absence of large protests, and the organizational structure of the protests has undergone significant changes. Based on fieldwork in Portugal between September 2011 and March 2013, I differentiate between four phases in the organization of protests against austerity. I argue that it is mainly times of low degrees of activism – times that are rarely taken into account by social movement research – that lead to radical changes in the organizational structure of a social movement. The impact of the following factors on the direction of change is analyzed: (a) strategic choice; (b) values and normative commitments; (c) (potential) alliances and participants; (d) inspiration from other cases of social movement activism; and (e) learning processes, the history of social movements and the impact of memory.

This study compares the strategies and impact of six British activist groups, as documented in 1997, with data gathered on the same groups in 2000. These groups, Voice of the Listener and Viewer, Campaign for Quality Television, Deaf Broadcasting Council, Consumers Association, National Consumers Council and National Listeners and Viewers Association, attempted to build a public sphere for generating debate around and catalysing changes to broadcasting policies and programming. They were tracked in 2000 in order to identify those issues, relationships and groups that had endured. The research design provided a telescopic look at their interactions with their targets and with each other during a period of rapid technological and industry change. In a multichannel broadcasting environment where convergence and globalisation are buzzwords, activists used public relations to create a broader public forum for a wide range of significant issues with which to engage demographically, psychographically and geographically diverse publics. The ensuing media education, media advocacy and relationship building, although elite in origins, strengthened democratic discourse, thus reaffirming broadcasting’s invaluable role in civil society.

While non-profit organization (NPO)-corporate alliances have proliferated in recent years, study has yet to examine on the perception of corporations toward NPOs. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that shape corporate perceptions of NPOs. What does the corporation consider when evaluating the activities of an NPO? Which factors are accorded the most importance when the corporate sector observes the NPO sector?

Corporate respondents generally held negative attitudes toward NPOs in terms of general activism functions. In contrast, they held neutral perceptions on trustworthiness. In factor analysis, the four factors that directed how corporate executives perceived activist groups were “positive functions of activists,” “negative aspects of organizational culture,” “trustworthy characteristics,” and “expected ethical management practices.”

While the participating corporate executives expressed positive attitudes toward activists and the role that they play in society, they showed negative attitudes toward their management style and their organizational culture. In particular, they expressed negative perceptions of the activists’ perceived elitism in their management style and internally oriented approach to the decision-making process.

Empirical evidence gathered in this study could shed light on how public relations professionals at NPOs build and maintain relationships with corporate sector, which has resources to support organization financially as well as emotionally.

This paper develops an argument about how contentious changes unfold in organizational fields, focusing on the role of uncertainty – and the networks people use to address uncertainty. We propose that as controversial practice gains traction and spreads, the nature of uncertainty facing organizational decision makers also evolves. This dynamic has important implications for how different actors and networks can influence change. We illustrate our argument with a mixed-methods case study on the diffusion of domestic partner benefits across US Fortune 500 companies. Our findings shed light on how – and when – social activists, corporate elites, and middle managers can influence the corporate decision-making process.

The “Battle in Seattle” has been credited with giving birth to a new, more radical phase in transnational social movement organizing; yet evidence suggests it may be misleading to speak of “global” social movements. In Seattle in 1999, the contribution of transnational movement organizations was quite modest compared with that of conventional, nationally based interest groups that focused on local resource mobilization and ideational preparation. This suggests that the basis of the new “global” social movements may be the well-established process of resource mobilization by which organized interest groups provide support for local activist communities.

Social movement scholarship convincingly highlights the importance of sharing the same risks for building solidarity, but it often unintentionally conceals the reality that certain risks cannot be fully shared. Using interviews with activists involved in Combatants for Peace (CFP), a joint Palestinian–Israeli anti-occupation organization, this article illustrates how radically risks can differ for activists in relation to their nationality, as well as make clear the tremendous impact asymmetrical risks can have for movement organizations and their efforts to build solidarity. I argue that for movement organizations and joint partnerships working across fields of asymmetrical risk, solidarity is not about sharing the same risks; rather, it is about trust and mutual recognition of the risk asymmetries. Moreover, that solidarity building across risk asymmetries involves three general measures: a clear commitment to shared goals, a willingness to defend and support one another, and a respect of each other’s boundaries. In the discussion, this argument, which was developed through an in-depth analysis of CFP, is applied to the joint struggle in the Palestinian village of Bil’in to indicate generalizability.

Large‐scale street protests such as the demonstration against the World Trade Organization (WTO) intergovernmental conference in Seattle in November 1999 have pushed issue activism to a new level of political consciousness. They have also drawn attention to a new consequence of the Internet, which appears to enable activist groups to become more effective and more powerful than ever before. This paper tests this assumption by analysing how the Internet is actually being used by activist groups. It concludes that while it has greatly increased the effectiveness of activist groups in many ways, the Internet is also changing the political basis of activism by stimulating the emergence of a new kind of activist. As such groups proliferate and influence the media’s view of activism, the centre of gravity of the non‐governmental organisation (NGO) movement as a whole is being shifted to a more radical and more overtly anti‐capitalist position.

This study uses the concept of standing, or legitimacy, to bridge the disciplinary divide between social movement and communication scholarship on activism. Here, the authors examine whether activist standing in 269 broadcast news stories sampled between 1970 and 2012 across five social movements – Women’s Rights, Gay Rights, Immigrant Rights, Occupy Wall Street, and Tea Party – is undermined by (1) the mix of visuals included in media coverage and (2) activists’ social statuses at the intersection of gender, race, and age. The authors find that broadcast media undercut the standing of activists in some social movements more than others. Occupy activists faced the most challenges to their standing because they were more likely to be shown as angry, young protestors wearing anti-government costumes and engaged in nonnormative protest behavior than activists associated with other movements. In contrast, Tea Party movement activists, who also made anti-government claims during the same relative time frame, were not cast in a similarly negative light. The authors also find that activist standing is diminished and enhanced at the intersection of gender, race, and age. For example, the social movements with the most racial diversity – the immigrant rights and Occupy movements – were also shown as the most deviant and deserving violent repression in coverage. The authors conclude the study with a discussion of the importance of interdisciplinary research and a call for additional research on the movement–media relationship.

On 18 March 2015, the transnational anti-austerity Blockupy coalition protested the inauguration of the new European Central Bank premises in Frankfurt. The purpose of this paper is to analyse this mass protest event by highlighting the organizational differences, possibilities, and conflicts that was involved.

The paper is based on participant observation of the Blockupy event and interviews with a group of Danish activists who also participated.

The paper constructs sociospatial narrative that unfolds through three different scales of organization: the Blockupy coalition, the participating formal and informal organizations, and the activist subject. This narrative explicates the mode of organization as a “convergence space” (cf. Routledge, 2003), with different “roots” and “routes” of organization (cf. Davies, 2012).

Thus, through an analysis of the modes of organization constituting this mass protest event, this paper restates the relevance of the concept of organization, which have recently been ignored or understated in favour of master-narratives of networks or the dichotomy of horizontalism and verticality. It concludes by posing a set of questions for further discussion among both activists and sociologists.