Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. Unlike those who promote more-consensual “community building,” community organizers generally assume that social change necessarily involves conflict and social struggle in order to generate collective power for the powerless. A
Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is research that is conducted as an equal partnership between traditionally trained “experts” and members of a community. In CBPR projects, the community participates fully in all aspects of the research process. CBPR projects start with the community. Community is often self-defined, but general categories of community include geographic community, community
Community mobilization is an attempt to bring both human and non-human resources together to undertake developmental activities in order to achieve sustainable development. Process Community mobilization is a process through which action is stimulated by a community itself, or by others, that is planned, carried out, and evaluated by a community’s individuals, groups, and
Community media is any form of media that is created and controlled by a community, either a geographic community or a community of identity or interest. Community media is separate from commercial media, state run media, or public broadcasting. The fundamental premise is to engage those groups that are categorically excluded and marginalized from the
Community Film is a variety of practices and approaches which emerged in the 1970s that claim to interrogate and challenge the dominant use of “film” and “cinema” in association with a global, big budget “industry”. DeeDee Halleck noted in her 2002 book “It’s one thing to critique the mass media and rail against their abuses.
Project evaluation is a systematic method for collecting, analyzing, and using information to answer questions about projects, policies and programs, particularly about their effectiveness and efficiency. In both the public and private sectors, stakeholders will want to know if the programs they are funding, implementing, voting for, receiving or objecting to are actually having the
Photovoice is a methodology mostly used in the field of community development, public health, and education which combines photography with grassroots social action. Participants are asked to represent their community or point of view by taking photographs, discussing them together, developing narratives to go with their photos, and conducting outreach or other action. It is
Ethnography is “the science of contextualization” often used in the field of social sciences—particularly in anthropology, in some branches of sociology, and in historical science—that studies people, ethnic groups and other ethnic formations, their ethnogenesis, composition, resettlement, social welfare characteristics, as well as their material and spiritual culture. It is often employed for gathering empirical
An online community is a virtual community that exists online and whose members enable its existence through taking part in membership ritual. An online community can take the form of an information system where anyone can post content, such as a Bulletin board system or one where only a restricted number of people can initiate
A virtual community is a social network of individuals who interact through specific media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. One of the most pervasive types of virtual community include social networking services, which consist of various online communities. The term virtual community is attributed to the
The social Web is a set of social relations that link people through the World Wide Web. The Social web encompasses how websites and software are designed and developed in order to support and foster social interaction.:5 These online social interactions form the basis of much online activity including online shopping, education, gaming and social
Social change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society. It may refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by dialectical or evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic structure, for instance a shift away from feudalism
In the Trotskyist movement, the term “social revolution” refers to an upheaval in which existing property relations are smashed. Examples include the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and the Cuban Revolution, as both caused capitalist (and in some cases pre-capitalist) property relations to turn into post-capitalist property relations as they operated by plan rather
Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals and/or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change. Modern Western social movements became possible through education (the wider dissemination of literature), and increased mobility of labor due
In sociology, a group action is a situation in which a large number of agents take action simultaneously in order to achieve a common goal; their actions are usually coordinated. Group action will often take place when social agents realise they are more likely to achieve their goal when acting together rather than individually. Group
In most discussions, the global citizens movement is a socio-political process rather than a political organization or party structure. The term is often used synonymously with the anti-globalization movement or the global justice movement. Colloquially the term is also used in this imprecise manner. Global citizens movement has been used by activists to refer to
A reform movement is a kind of social movement that aims to make gradual change, or change in certain aspects of society, rather than rapid or fundamental changes. A reform movement is distinguished from more radical social movements such as revolutionary movements. Reformists’ ideas are often grounded in liberalism, although they may be rooted in
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is
Singularitarianism is a technocentric ideology and social movement defined by the belief that a technological singularity—the creation of a superintelligence—will likely happen in the medium future, and that deliberate action ought to be taken to ensure that the Singularity benefits humans. Singularitarians are distinguished from other futurists who speculate on a technological singularity by their
The sociologist Max Weber defined charismatic authority as “resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him.” Charismatic authority is one of three forms of authority laid out in Weber’s tripartite classification of authority, the other two
The term “collective behavior” was first used by Robert E. Park, and employed definitively by Herbert Blumer, to refer to social processes and events which do not reflect existing social structure (laws, conventions, and institutions), but which emerge in a “spontaneous” way. Collective behavior might also be defined as action which is neither conforming (in
Collective action is the pursuit of a goal or set of goals by more than one person. It is a term which has formulations and theories in many areas of the social sciences. In sociology As an explanation of social movements, an inquiry into collective action involves examining those factors that cause the setting
Relative deprivation is the experience of being deprived of something to which one believes oneself to be entitled to have. It refers to the discontent people feel when they compare their positions to others and realize that they have less than them. Schaefer defines it as “the conscious experience of a negative discrepancy between legitimate
Value-added theory (also known as social strain theory) was first proposed by Neil Smelser and is based on the assumption that certain conditions are needed for the development of a social movement. Smelser saw social movements as side-effects of rapid social change. Smelser argued that six things were necessary and sufficient for collective behavior to