In the 2013 election, Kshama Sawant defeated a corporate Democrat for a Seattle city council seat, running as a member of the Socialist Alternative party on a platform which heavily featured the $15 per hour minimum wage. Due in part to a progressive city council and mayors office, her debates with opponents of the campaign, and the mobilization of 15 Now both virtually on social media and the streets, she was able to fulfill her campaign promises in just five months. The story of Seattle proves that this type of change is indeed possible in the United States, and corporate money and power can be defeated by the popular will of the people. While some business groups are suing Seattle, and the victory is scheduled to be a gradual increase, it is still a significant achievement, especially in relation to other cities where movements are fighting for the same goals. For instance, can this measure be passed in New York City, where the movement started a year and a half ago with Fast Food Forward?
sociology
Reflections on the First Ten Days
There are few processes in human life that are more fascinating to explore than the expansion of ideas and concepts over time as a result of research and brainstorming. We are gifted as animals with the innate ability to recognize the patterns that exist around us and it’s refreshing to witness this process occur, especially from a first-person perspective.
Since initiating an academic exploration into our current networked social movements only ten days ago, many ideas have bloomed and evolved, including a wide range of theories, research plans, and expectations of what will be found. I have been collecting a plethora of academic research which will be useful for analyzing the current mobilizations for social and economic justice in America, including frame alignment processes studied by Snow, Benford, and other colleagues, the networked theory of power presented in “Communication Power”, and “Networks of Hope and Outrage” by Manuel Castells, the resource mobilization perspective popularized by Gamson in “The Strategy of Social Protest”, and the theory of networked publics formulated in the research of danah boyd. While resource mobilization theory and frame alignment provide two completely different methods for studying the processes of new social movements, their interrelations must be understood for better analyzing how offline and online action coexist to build movements like 15 Now in Seattle.
What’s In a Tweet?
What is in a tweet? Certainly, we see twitter elements featured on ads in subways and bus shelters, linking our digital and material worlds as if the hashtag symbol itself were a QR code. These hashtags and handles are symbols referencing meanings associated with the digital environment of twitter, whose content is itself comprised of references to the events of our physical world. This interconnectivity between different environments is only increasing as we move into a generation of smart electronics and Google Glass. As we witness this process of singularity occurring before our eyes, we must ask ourselves the question: What is the impact of these technologies on our social world? What I want to explore in particular is how these social networks impact the mobilization and radicalization processes of social movements, and how they can use these tools to build the political power needed to work toward either moderate reform or substantial systemic change in American politics.
As this exploration into the new social movements of the digital age begins, one method for ascertaining the role of social media would be to study current movements against the backdrop of similar mobilizations working toward comparable change in the pre-digital era. How do the protests, rallies, and sit-ins of today differ from past struggles for productive change? What portion of this difference can be attributed to communication via social media? For example, what distinguishes the current fight for a $15 per hour minimum wage from past movements of poor, disenfranchised workers in the United States?
The Only Constant Is Change
The only constant is change.
How often have you heard these words spoken by your peers who were trying to give you advice on how to renew your perspective on life, looking toward the changes of the future rather than the issues of the present?
In my short years on this earth, I have finally come to the conclusion that this mantra is indeed true, at least on a personal level.
Sure, this advice might be great to hear in you were attending an appointment with your life coach or therapist, but what about when we apply this to the political system and society as a whole?
We have seen the language of change used in speeches, pamphlets, and opinion columns alike since the American Revolution but how often do these words translate into action? How often is change really possible and if these political power shifts actually occur, are they truly systemic or just moderate reform? Like most sociological concepts, the answer depends on the situation.
In recent years, we have heard about change in political discourse quite often, especially after America lived through the bank bailout, foreclosure crisis, widespread dissatisfaction of the Bush administration, and the passage of laws which equate money with free speech as the sini coefficient continues to rise.
Would Obama have won if he didn’t frame his mission with buzzwords like ‘hope’ and ‘change? There is no doubt that Barack appealed to the masses, the disenfranchised war-fatigued public who had seen a great deal of their savings and jobs disappear in just a few years.
When thousands of people celebrated his inauguration, with an energy for change not seen since the beginning of the 1970s, they might not have fathomed how disappointed they would be in a few years as the status quo remained, Obama’s promises never came to fruition and the economic conditions for many became even more dire.
Many soon realized that true systemic change was not possible by simply electing a candidate who said all the right slogans. Some of these disenfranchised people, especially the young underemployed college graduates of modern American society, decided to take the next step three years later. Occupy Wall Street was born.
As the tents were erected in public squares in cities and small towns throughout the US and the rest of the world, it became obvious that the dissent wasn’t aimed solely at Wall Street. Very soon, the protests bloomed into a large, diverse movement pushing for the change that couldn’t be acquired through a ballot box.
The Occupy movement grew largely through social media, blogs, and other websites, subverting the mainstream media which were largely ignoring the protest, except to stereotype and minimize the discourse for change promoted by the protesters. Soon enough, the police moved in and broke up the camps in a coordinated, synchronized attack throughout the country. Occupy was over…. Or was it?
Many critics of the movement would point out that there were their lack of clear demands and focus, which in certain ways was a fair assessment as Ron Paul supporters who wanted to end the federal Reserve camped out next to socialists who were looking for universal health care, who shared meals with activists focusing on ending stop and frisk and police brutality.
Of course, the reason for the diversity of these protests was the widespread interconnected failures of the corporatist structure, but still, it is challenging to achieve significant systemic change, especially in such a short time period. While the ability of people of different beliefs to come together to resist the system is quite a beautiful thing, the question still remains: How can a decentralized movement in the information age influence even force the enactment of tangible political gains.
There is no doubt that the first wave of occupy is indeed over, as protesters are no longer trying to hold space in public parks like Zuccotti in Lower Manhattan. Occupy has now been defined as a tactic, much like it was before it became the label for a historical flashpoint. People have continued to push for change and what was once occupy has dispersed and spawned a multitude of new movements holding protests, more focused with a greater ability to mobilize, educate, and agitate, since they have a more clear message,comprised of specific goals and aims.
Included in this second wave of dissent are groups like Strike Debt, 350.org, and Fight for the Future. A portion of these diverse activist groups might have existed independently of Occupy Wall Street, but I contend that the energy of Fall 2011 has led activist groups to become larger and more confident that they otherwise would have been. We are still living in this wave at this very moment, and the change people hope for is beginning to be realized, even if in a less radical, reform-based way.
To return to the earlier question: Can these movements really create change in America’s plutocratic two-party environment? If so, how?
Recently, I have been falling into the black hole of depression: perpetually unsatisfied as an IT associate at a company I hate, even though I am being paid enough to survive and am in the lucky group of Americans with health insurance. After speaking for weeks with my worried friends, I realized that the quote I started this post with is indeed true. change is constant and I needed to work on a passion that could bring me happiness even if it meant struggling to meet basic financial needs.
No, I didn’t quit on the spot and decide to travel the globe and drain my savings, but I did decide to work toward a career in studying social protests and the movements which are working to shape our world each day.
My goal in life is to make an impact by studying those who struggle and fight for change.. By examining the few successful cases of groups which spawned out of the energy burst of 2011 and actually won concrete reforms, I hope to create meaningful research which can be used as a guide for individuals and groups who are currently pushing for change in the same cities and towns that had occupy encampments back in 2011.
The starting point of this exploration is Seattle, the city which recently passed a $15 an hour minimum wage, by far the highest in the nation, in large part due to the organizing efforts of socialist city council member Kshama Sawant and her group 15 Now. How did the groups fighting for $15 an hour in Seattle win political gains so quickly? How did the sociopolitical environment of Seattle play a role in facilitating this change, and how can workers in other areas of the United States apply their example to fight for a living wage?
An early comparison in this study will be California, which also swiftly passed a state-wide $13/hr minimum wage. What are the similarities between the organizing efforts in California and Seattle and why are some cities and states with strong movements unable to obtain the same victories, for instance, New York City or Chicago?
Just like that, my exploration into change begins. Now I leave you with this quote by Margaret Mead:
‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.’
DavidRobinSociology 