Adding Time to Social Movement Diffusion

• In Event: 325 - Regular Session. Social Movements III

Abstract

There is now a substantial literature on the diffusion of protest events, tactics, identities, and frames between locations and among movements. This paper asks how the patterns identified in this literature may change as the time scale of diffusion extends across single cycles of protest and beyond the life spans of individual activists. I focus especially on the changing weight of relational and non-relational channels of diffusion and how, over longer stretches of time, the mediation of diffusion by formal organizations, institutions, and public history work to filter the influence of past activism.There is now a substantial literature on the diffusion of protest events, tactics, identities, and frames between locations and among movements. This paper asks how the patterns identified in this literature may change as the time scale of diffusion extends across single cycles of protest and beyond the life spans of individual activists. I focus especially on the changing weight of relational and non-relational channels of diffusion and how, over longer stretches of time, the mediation of diffusion by formal organizations, institutions, and public history work to filter the influence of past activism.

Author

• Jeffrey Haydu, Univ of California-San Diego