The resources mobilization theory - Essay Example

?Revolution The relative deprivation theory explains the experience felt by individuals or groups of people when their possessions are taken away from them. The resources mobilization theory is based on resources, according to theory, resources are more important and lead to emergences of social movements. A person gets support from resources and forms movements. The rational choice theory explains that the action take by a person is based on the outcome of the event. The theory clearly explains the action taken to make more profits or to benefit from the action taken. Finally, the framing theory is a process by which people change their ideas based on issues (Shepard 543). The resources mobilization theory is compelling because it directly points out that it is the resource which determines the rise of social movements. According to the theory, resources can be used by individuals to criticise the organisation or government. The resources in few are money, knowledge, internal or external support. Such resources help in supporting the social movements because their availability facilitates groups of individual to organise themselves. According to Shepard (543), resources such as money, power and leadership skills helped the civil rights movements in 1960 to stage wide spread protest. The author further shows that it is the resources at the centre of any uprising. In cases where resources are limited or not available, revolutions would not happen. This can be explained from one of the gay rights movements which failed because of unavailable resources. The other theories are close to the resources mobilization theory; the theory of relative deprivation shows the comparison done by persons thinking that they do not have enough or equal resources as others. The decision is made on the theory of resources mobilization because it is an instant way of rise in political revolution which can be facilitated by available resources. Some theories apply better on social movements, while others apply on political revolutions. This can be well understood by the definition of the two movements; social movements are a coalition of people with certain interests they would want to achieve. Social movement individuals can team together to oppose or support certain social changes which could be supported or be opposed by other people. Social movement based on the definition shows that there are different conflicting groups engaging in a conflict to achieve certain objectives. Social movement is characterised by a number of features such as leadership, organization of the group and the activity the social movement group want to solve. The resources mobilization theory applies to social movement because social movement uses non-violent ways to inform the public and thereby making them aware of their goals. Achievements of the goals would happen because most of the pursuant know more about the community and the problems they are facing. Because of this, they pursue them to demonstrate peacefully and solve their grievances such as unemployment. Small community facing problems are acted upon by small networks, after that, more networks are created which would be strong to pursue the governing body such as federal government. Some of the social movements that work together to achieve their goals include the gay and lesbian rights movement. Gay and lesbian rights movements have been demonstrative to express their rights and to be recognised by others. The groups have achieved their goals using available resources such as the formation of strong organizations (Costain and McFarland 59). Political revolutions arise when there is poor governance, which could be because of the changes the government made or the situation of governance is worse than the previous government. Political revolutions use both non-violent and violent ways to express their grievances to the governing body. The theory of relative deprivation relates well to political revolution; this can be shown by one of the political revolution which took place in US. The American Revolution was the war between the British and the American colonies. The Americans revolution took place due to some factors forced to the Americans by the British such as tax collection, stamp requirements and the massacre which took place in Boston because of the taxes imposed on the Bostonians on imported products. Additionally, the American Revolution brought many changes to the Americans, for example, declaration of independence took place after the revolution. This saw America declared independent from British rule. The theory of relative deprivation applies to this political revolution. This is evident from what the British did to the Americans. The Americans saw that they were being deprived of their rights from the taxes imposed on them right from imported items to the stamp duty they had to pay. I agree with Gladwell’ assertion that social media constitutes “slacktivism”. This is because some of the revolution is seen not to have started with the help of social media but with the help of organizational groups who come up together to demand their rights. Gladwell’s argument can be evidenced from what has been happening to the people of China or the fall of the Berlin wall. The use of social media such as twitter by the people of western countries to mobilize the people of republic of China has never made any changes. The Berlin wall was brought down long time ago by demonstrators who organised themselves without the use of social platforms like Facebook or YouTube. This shows that social media cannot be used to make any changes. With regard of the people of China, they would have to organize themselves to talk their way through to achieve change. Digital media is beneficial to any social or political revolution. This evident from what happened in the Middle East and North African countries such as Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. The Arab countries experienced political revolution which succeeded with the use of digital media such Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The social media mentioned above have been used by the people wanting revolution to start, organise, and speedup revolution in their countries. Take the case of Egypt whose population used the Facebook platform to start, coordinate and speedup the revolution. This happened in January 2011 and was deemed as the Facebook revolution. The revolution succeeded and saw the president of Egypt who had served for 30 years removed from power despite the president ordering Internet service providers to block the social platforms. The Political revolution in Tunisia also succeeded with the use of digital media Twitter. The population demonstrated and rioted while each of them armed with phone used to communicate with the use Twitter. From the two revolution it is evident that digital media is beneficial to the population engaging in social or political movements. The population is able to pass messages to the world to show the human right violations they are going through. The information will also assist them in toppling the revolution with the help of other nations who come to their rescue just like in the case of the Libyan revolution. Despite the high expectation of digital media, the platform has some pitfalls to social and political revolutions. Not all political movements have succeeded with the use of digital media. Digital media can be controlled by the government making the citizens unable to access it. For example, the Iranian government closed down one of the social media sides for fear that the population will use it to further organize protests. Because of the shutdown of social media by the government, the political movement which had started failed. Additionally, there is no privacy in digital media since most of the information presented or exchanged by bloggers in the digital media is not secure from hackers. In addition, the government can obtain search warrants to access the information in the social media in cases where there is a security breach to the country or organization of revolution (El-Nawawy and Khamis 1). References Costain, N. Anne & McFarland, S. Andrew. Social Movements and American Political Institutions, USA: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998. Print. El-Nawawy Mohammed and Khamis Sahar, “Political Activism 2.0: Comparing the Role of Social Media in Egypt’s “Facebook Revolution” and Iran’s “Twitter Uprising” online journal of the virtual Middle East, CyberOrient, Vol. 6, Iss. 1, 2012 Shepard, M. Jon. Cengage Advantage Books: Sociology, USA: Cengage Learning, 2009. Print. Read More