Narrative Capacity, Resistance Performance, and the “Shape” of New Social Movement Networks

Abstract

The current research explored two new social movement networks in the United States in order to demonstrate the impact of narrative capacity on the “shape” of an activist network. In particular, we found that activists in a network that demonstrated efficient narrative capacity described the hub organization in positive terms, while activists in a network that demonstrated poor narrative capacity held mixed perceptions about the hub. Some activists in the second network held positive perceptions about the organization, while others held negative perceptions. The observations from these two research sites led us to conceptualize activists' differing perceptions about their respective hub organizations as “distance” that they experienced from that hub. Therefore, two different star shapes emerged from our research: a symmetrical star and elongated star. Such findings demonstrate the importance for narrative capacity in the construction and maintenance of effective activist networks.

Keywords:

• Alternative Media
• Narrative Capacity
• New Social Movement Networks
• Resistance Performance

Notes

Names of people or organizations have been changed to protect the anonymity of participants. Mystical City has a population of 90,000; the population of the metropolitan area is 150,000. Erie City has a population of 150,000; the population of the metropolitan area is 500,000.

See Denzin (1997) for a complete discussion on participatory and lay audiences.

Atkinson and Dougherty (2006) claim that the radical lay audiences' use of alternative media was like that of a mass audience as described by Abercrombie and Longhurst (1998), in that media content was mere background noise. Therefore, they termed the radical lay space of performance a café rather than a theatre.

For a complete description of the four theatres, see Atkinson and Dougherty (2006) and Atkinson (2010).

Activist X, the Web site and listserv coordinator, was contacted in order to find more information about the nature of the OBA listserv. Activist X revealed that there were in fact multiple listservs, most of which were all-channel in function. Activist X refused to take part in an interview.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joshua D. Atkinson

Joshua D. Atkinson (PhD, University of Missouri-Columbia) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Media & Communication at Bowling Green State University.

Laura Cooley

Laura Cooley is a PhD student in the School of Media & Communication at BGSU.