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Whenever social injustice tackled by social movements receives heightened media attention, charitable crowdfunding platforms offer an opportunity to proactively advocate for equality by donating money to affected people. This research examines how the Black Lives Matter movement and the associated social protest cycle after the death of George Floyd have influenced donation behavior for campaigns with a personal goal and those with a societal goal supporting the black community.

This paper follows a quantitative research approach by applying a quasi-experimental research design on a GoFundMe dataset. In total, 67,905 campaigns and 1,362,499 individual donations were analyzed.

We uncover a rise in donations for campaigns supporting the black community, which lasts substantially longer for campaigns with a societal than with a personal funding goal. Informed by construal level theory, we attribute this heterogeneity to changes in the level of abstractness of the problems that social movements aim to tackle.

This research advances the knowledge of individual donation behavior in charitable crowdfunding. Our results highlight the important role that charitable crowdfunding campaigns play in promoting social justice and anti-discrimination as part of social protest cycles.

The slow food movement has become increasingly widespread globally in recent years. This paper focuses on explaining how Turkish cuisine, which has a deep-rooted history, meshes with the slow food movement and how this movement affects consumer behavior.

Based on expert opinion analysis with academics knowledgeable about the food industry and gastronomy, this paper explores how the slow food movement in Turkiye is evolving and how consumers perceive it. Content analysis was applied to the data obtained from the personal interviews.

The authors find that the slow food movement creates a strong brand image for businesses that rely on emphasizing the responsibility to the ecological system while appealing to the five senses of consumers. It already shows great potential even in emerging markets where typical household discretionary income is modest.

Based on key theories regarding all sales activism cases, the authors have offered insights into the dynamics, motivations and techniques of the case. Ensuring the preservation of the slow food movement, framing and creating associations need to be examined.

Slow food is a movement that emerged against the standard, fast, tasty, but unhealthy products of the fast-food industry. It entails product variety, local flavors and preference for the single-flavor focus embedded in the fast-food movement. The movement started with considerations of gastronomy and later was institutionalized as a social movement phenomenon. Later, it expanded its base to activism, targeting various social issues.

This study examines the transformation of labour non-governmental organisations (NGOs) operating in Mainland China since the enactment of the 2017 Overseas NGO Management Law, which aims to regulate foreign concerns functioning outside the direct control of the state. It focuses on the extent to which these organisations have responded to the rapidly changing political and social environment by altering their goals and strategies in support of migrant workers. It also considers the relevance of Western social movement theories (SMTs) to China's grassroots labour movement in the 2020s. 

The research is based on case studies of ten labour NGOs operating in Beijing, Tianjin and Yunnan. It draws upon fifteen semi-structured interviews with the founders, leaders and activists affiliated with those organisations, as well as records and documented information of each of those organisations.

While the power and influence of labour NGOs markedly diminished, most have been able to adapt their goals and the strategies remain sustainable amidst both China's changing political and social climates and the global pandemic. It suggests that conventional SMTs can still offer valuable insights into understanding the development of labour NGOs in China, although they might not fully interpret the specific conditions and challenges faced by these organisations.

This study stands out as one of very few to offer empirical evidence on the inner workings of China's labour NGOs over the last six years. It also contributes to our understanding of social movements in a non-Western context.

This study explores citizen activism in the articulation of a politicised counter-account of Aboriginal rights. It aims to uncover the enabling factors for a successful challenge to established political norms and the obstacles to the fullest expression of a radical imagining.

Laclau and Mouffe's theory of hegemony and discourse is used to frame the movement's success in challenging the prevailing system of urbanised healthcare delivery. Empirical materials were collected through extensive ethnographic fieldwork.

The findings from this longitudinal study identify the factors that predominantly influence the transformational success of an Yaṉangu social movement, such as the institutionalisation of group identity, articulation of a discourse connected to Aboriginal rights to self-determination, demonstration of an alternative imaginary and creation of strong external alliances.

This study offers a rich empirical analysis of counter-accounting in action, drawing on Aboriginal governance traditions of non-confrontational discourse and collective accountability to conceptualise agonistic engagement. These findings contribute to the practical and theoretical construction of democratic accounting and successful citizen activism.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of social movements engendered by the Arab Spring crisis on the relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) and corporate governance attributes, particularly board composition, considering the importance of governance after the Arab Spring event.

Content analysis was used to examine the extent and nature of CSRD in annual reports of Jordanian companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange covering the period 2009–2016. A dynamic regression model using panel data is then undertaken for a sample of 114 listed companies over the period to analyse the potential impact of board composition on the level of CSRD.

The results reveal that there was a significant increase in the level of CSRD post-the Arab Spring crisis; and that governance appears to be a key driver. Specifically, board age, directors educated in business and/or accounting-related fields and foreign members are found to have a significant positive relationship with CSRD.

Looking at the Arab region pre- and after the Arab Spring helps to complete the global picture of how company governance can lead to improved CSR performance. Specifically, this region has been behind in developing rules and codes that include CSR. The results show that having a diverse board, with directors with expertise specific to the context, increases the effectiveness of stakeholder management through CSRD. The results, therefore, offer valuable insights for companies, policymakers and for the development of regulations.

This study aims to explore how key stakeholders and recipients of local food access programs operate strategically to meet individual and community food needs, enhance experiences of dignity and promote social justice. The study of a fragmented community food system highlights the connections between micro and meso dimensions of food access, illustrating how people work around food system limitations to access food.

Using qualitative in-depth interviews with food assistance managers, workers, volunteers and recipients, this study examines the period before the implementation of a centralized community-based food access initiative in a mid-sized, rural Oklahoma college town with a high rate of food insecurity. This study asks: What are community members’ experiences in a fragmented food assistance system? In what ways do individuals use everyday resistance and workarounds to actively promote experiences of dignity and social justice in food access spaces?

Those involved in sites of community food access build important networks to share information and engage in negotiation and trade to gain access to useful food resources. As forms of everyday resistance, such practices encourage co-construction of dignity and social justice in stigmatized spaces.

This research contributes to literature examining micro- and meso-level community dynamics that inform agency, dignity and social justice in community food access approaches.

This paper offers a unique perspective on the urbanisation process in developing cities, with a particular focus on the region of the Gulf States. Beyond economic considerations, the analysis sheds light on the complex interplay of socio-cultural factors, gender dynamics and urban development. Based on the calls for human-centred approaches to rethinking urban design and management of cities require the integration of these cities’ inhabitants’ lived experiences, that impact residents’ daily lives. The focus is on the importance of women’s perspectives in the development process.

The paper uses a systematic literature review that builds on existing knowledge relating to urbanisation, modernisation, sustainable cities, gender and the Arabian Gulf. It uses Lefebvre’s 'right to the city' theory to understand the evolution of the Gulf Cities which is a novel approach. This adaptation offers a unique perspective on the transformations and challenges that these urban spaces face. Furthermore, it offers a firm foundation for developing advanced knowledge on the interdisciplinary nature of the topic discussed and assists in integrating empirical findings and perspectives from different resources.

The extreme levels of transformation in urbanisation in the Gulf States built cities that are no longer solely places for settlement, production and services but operate as significant influencers on the social, economic and political relations that produced design and cultural challenges. These cities became epicentres of power and politics that shaped the national visions and influenced policy. The process of inclusive and considerate urban development that the Arabian Gulf region is aiming to embark on is not a new exclusive strategy. But a process that has been implemented and tested in other urbanised areas globally.

Very little historical urban research on the Arabian Gulf countries exists, hence, the difficulty in researching the Gulf urbanisation process or providing historical encounters of the change.

This paper delves into the gendered aspects of urban planning, an aspect that is frequently overlooked. It contributes to the discourse on gender inclusivity in urban spaces by focussing on Khaleeji women’s experiences, offering insights that go beyond economic considerations. The use of Lefebvre’s “right to the city” theory to understand the evolution of the Gulf Cities is a unique approach. It investigates the interaction of various factors such as economic, cultural and political influences on Gulf urban development. This adaptation offers a distinctive perspective on the transformations and challenges that these urban spaces face.

Conversations around diversity, race and science fiction and fantasy films/television have sparked in response to recent casting decisions made in the upcoming live-action The Little Mermaid, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and Star Wars' Obi-Wan Kenobi (Deggans, 2022; Romano, 2022). Backlash against casting of actors of Color in these genres highlights racial projects where a cultural memory of whiteness comes up against multicultural change. The authors of this paper feel that there is great potential in using current-day racial issues around fantasy films/television to explore these racial projects with students in social studies classes (Omi and Winant, 2014).

Using a qualitative textual analysis (Peräkylä, 2005), the authors examined online news media outlets addressing the casting of actors of Color in the aforementioned media pieces. After reviewing over twenty articles, the authors determined two major themes that would serve as the findings.

In this paper, themes of nostalgia for an imagined ‘way things were’ and future-based fears of how things will become emerged from the analysis, revealing a need for engaging students in the history of sci-fi and fantasy media, and the existing, diverse histories of storytelling featuring multiple races.

The authors argue that examining racial projects found in contemporary sci-fi and fantasy casting are chances for students to understand complex racial histories and how they blend into current-day cultural landscapes, and are opportunities to practice analysis of real-life racial histories and richly-imagined fantasy worlds, noticing how and why the two often collide when it comes to race.

This study aims to explore the conflicting issues of carbon accounting and trading practices in China through the lens of agonistic democracy.

Based on a framework of three interrelated levels, this study explores emitting entity carbon accounting debates and discussions in mitigating climate change. Interview data were collected from 20 emitting entity participants and external auditors.

This study identifies irreconcilable conflicts between emitting entities and the government in carbon accounting and trading activities. Under the strong influence of government power, emitting entities portray themselves as “responsible” and “legitimate” state-owned enterprises. This study further identifies possible democratic spaces and reveals the potential for agonistic discourse and a fallacy of “consensus” and monologues in institutional space. If the emitting entity and government can overcome their participation challenges, this would significantly facilitate vibrant and agonistic discourse in carbon activities and pave the way for democratic spaces.

This study demonstrates the potential and limitations of applying agonistic democracy and the significance of participation in institutional spaces in government-led carbon accounting and trading issues. It enriches prior research on promoting democratic participation in carbon accounting from the agonistic democracy perspective.

In today's volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, organizations deal with fragmented publics in contested public spheres. At the core, public opinion is not so much divided by issues per se but by deeply rooted moral concerns. Hence, while normative perspectives on morality prevail in strategic communication research, understanding the moral motives of stakeholders and publics from a descriptive standpoint becomes vital. In this light, the present conceptual paper discusses the implications of moral foundations theory (MFT), as an influential evolutionary-anthropological approach to morality, for strategic communication research and practice.

Adopting micro-, meso- and macro-perspectives, MFT's potential contribution to strategic communication research is explored regarding three foci: (1) moral framing, (2) narratives and (3) public discourse dynamics.

The paper concludes that frames and more complex narratives in strategic communication allude to MFT's five foundations – care, fairness, loyalty, authority and purity – in diverse ways and are given different readings by stakeholders and publics. Building on MFT, novel empirical tools are available to access and understand the complex web of moral meaning infused in public discourses.

For the first time, MFT is discussed systematically and in detail in the context of strategic communication research. The theory contributes to deepening the understanding of the conditions, e.g. for issues management and strategic mobilization. On broader view, this paper adds to the discussion on evolutionary perspectives in strategic communication research.