But social media have provided – in addition to tools for protesters – valuable data that are helping researchers gain insights into how people come together, and how networks facilitate or hinder the emergence of protests. The study of online networks is still in its infancy, and the implications for the study of protest mobilizations in the digital age are yet to be fully understood. The Web and social media have altered the way in which people interact and come together, making formal organizations less necessary and audiences potentially wider but at the core of the process there are still motivations and chains of influence that transcend the technical capabilities of those tools: the main action still depends on people's willingness to act. But answering why and how new media facilitate self-organization and information diffusion requires a careful approach to the networks they help forge, and to both the successes and the (more abundant) failures. The protest movements that have emerged in the last two decades provide evidence that Internet technologies are helping users bypass traditional modes of mobilization. Sandra González-Bailón, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition), 2015 Future Lines of Research ![]() Many of the membership-specific organizations of the 1980s, such LAW, JAW, and MEND, have all been wound up, while WILPF, MAPW, and IPPNW have survived financial problems. Therefore peace organizations have periodic crises, with staff being laid-off because of the downturn in the organizations' membership. They do not make sufficient plans for a downturn in media interest, membership, and revenue. They do not realize that protest movements go in cycles they assume that their organization will continue to flourish indefinitely. Ironically, there is often a lack of historical perspective undergirding many newcomers to the peace organizations. They are the movement's institutional memory. ![]() They keep the torch alight until there is a fresh era for peace activism. These are often the foundations upon which a later generation of peace activism is based. The middle category-those organizations which temporarily run out of steam-are important to note. Others have been overtaken by the long sweep of history such as the UK Women's Peace Crusade which opposed World War I. They are later revived in response to fresh political crises. Others do not win and temporarily run out of steam as people despair of ever winning (such as the campaign for ending of war as an instrument of national policy). Some campaigns win and so are wound up (such as the campaign of the 1980s to stop the deployment of INFs in Europe). The same pattern is found in nongovernmental peace organizations. Finally others are simply overtaken by the long sweep of history and so become irrelevant, such as the Luddite movement which opposed the introduction of technology into 19th century British factories. They may not disappear entirely, but they have periods of few members and little activism. Others do not win and run out of steam (sometimes only temporarily) as people despair of ever winning (such as the temperance groups which wish to stop the sale of alcohol). Some campaigns win and so are wound up (such as the campaign of the 1980s to stop the proposed mining in Antarctica and which was successful in 1991) ( Suter, 1991). ![]() Keith Suter, in Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict (Third Edition), 2022 Common PatternsĪll protest movements rise and fall over time.
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