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This article proposes a theory of how interaction in groups influences differential participation in political activism and interrogates this theory through an empirical analysis of online Facebook group interaction. We study the refugee solidarity movement in a mixed methods design employing online ethnography, survey, and "big" social media data. Instead of conceptualizing the group as a social network or social movement organization (SMO), we argue that the group's culture emerges as patterns of interaction that have implications for what kind of activities in which group members participate. Based on observations from our online ethnography, we suggest that group interaction influences differential individual participation through processes of (1) encoding different habits and (2) attuning the activist to different aspects of situations. We support our theoretical propositions with six statistical tests of the relationship between the group-level variable of contentious group style and the individual-level variable of participation in political protest. The dependent variable, political protest , and a comprehensive set of controls stem from an original survey of the Danish refugee solidarity movement with 2,283 respondents. We link the survey data with "big" social media data used to estimate the focal explanatory variable, contentious group style , generated from content analysis of online interaction in 119 Facebook groups quantified with supervised machine learning. The results show that group style has a consistently positive relationship with the individual's degree of participation independent of networks, SMO framing, and individual attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper compares political activists from four community protest organizations, formed in response to the March 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. Using survey data, newsletters, and fieldwork, we document the existence of two separate paths to protest involvement. In two communities, recruitment was less likely to occur along the lines of established social networks. Instead, utilitarian alliances grounded on shared grievances were constructed. A second distinct path accounted for activism in two larger communities where many of the activists reported previous protest experience. In these communities, existing friendship networks were utilized. Two years after the accident, significant network and ideological differences between the groups persisted. We suggest that analysts work to specify the conditions for different paths to activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gaining attention in the mass media is a key goal of many social movement organizations (SMOs). The dominant explanation of media attention to SMOs is that the media act like a filter, selecting some types of SMOs and events for attention, and ignoring others based on characteristics of these SMOs, events, and their political environment. In contrast to this "bias model," I argue that some media attention to SMOs is characterized by positive feedback, or rich-get-richer processes: past media attention increases the likelihood of future media attention through its effect on the SMO and on other media outlets. Like other positive feedback systems, media attention can be path dependent, is routinely punctuated by large cascades of attention to previously obscure SMOs, and can be contingent on "accidents" of history: at critical junctures, individuals, organizations, and events have the potential to radically impact the extent of media attention to their movements and organizations. Media attention to SMOs can also become decoupled from the types of events that initially sparked their media attention, becoming spokes-organizations for their movements and receiving media attention for events and stories that they themselves are not involved. In support of this theory, I first show that media attention is, similar to other positive feedback processes, power-law distributed across SMOs using two national (US) data sets. I then illustrate the process of positive feedback in media attention through a case study of the Black Panther Party's rise to prominence in media attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employs a resource mobilization model to explain racial differences in congregation based political activism. The fewer resources (i.e., members, income, clergy leadership, civic ties) that black congregations possess relative to white congregations largely accounts for racial differences in congregation-based lobbying and protest politics -- forms of political activism that exact relatively high resource costs upon political activists. That is, black congregations become more heavily involved than white congregations in lobbying and protest politics when they have a resource capacity similar to that of white congregations. Despite their relatively few resources, black congregations are, on average, more likely than are white congregations to involve themselves in voter registration efforts. This finding has much to do with the heightened socialpolitical expectations of African American congregants concomitant with the relatively low resource cost of voter registration programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the consequences of social movement participation for late 1960s and early 1970s activists, most of whom participated in the antiwar, student, and civil rights protests. After providing an explanatory framework for understanding how social movement participation might have continuing influence across a number of social realms, the article tests whether run-of-the-mill participation in the antiwar and student protests of the late 1960s had an impact. Social movement organizations recruit adherents who are, to some degree, ideologically aligned with the goals of the movement. However, the relationship between constituents' orientations and movement participation is not unidirectional. Social movements attempt to attract like-minded individuals, while trying to change the preferences of adherents and bystanders to more closely conform with those of the organization. A considerable body of literature has developed around the consequences of participation in social movements. After proposing a framework for explaining the consequences of activism, the article focus on four areas of social life that might be influenced by protest participation: politics, status attainment, religion, and family.

This study reports on long-range consequences of student political activism. Three groups were selected: (1) former civil rights activists, (2) student government members, and (3) apolitical undergraduates. It was hypothesized that variation in political activism would be linked with differing occupations and political orientations. Former civil rights activists are heavily concentrated in the knowledge and human service occupations and are politically radical to liberal in their attitudes and behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]