Social Movements and Interest Groups

rEFLECTION

Instructor: Clyde Wilcox

This course mainly focused on understanding social movements and Interest Groups that exist in the U.S. One of the biggest outcomes of the course was that it provided the fundamentals of how these interest groups and movements are born, governed, and maintained through the various readings discussion and movies.

The class provided a step-by-step understanding of how interest groups and social movements start and continue. We looked into the elements that are required to start an organization such as but not limited to a dedicated cause, leadership and finances through real life examples. Within one of my papers, I chose to look into the movement Never Again which is a student-led movement that advocates for tighter regulation to help reduce mass shootings and to prevent gun violence. The paper was not easy to write since there weren't many academic articles that discussed and analyzed the movement at the time, and this meant I had to rely on the news for most of my information. I aimed to create an informative paper that looked at how the movement originated, grew and is being sustained. I also aimed to look at different perspectives on the issue such as looking at the National Rifle’s Association arguments and views. This paper helped me gain a more comprehensive understanding of the working of social movements.

In this class, I developed a better understanding of the importance of interest groups and social movements in creating a change and affecting laws. For example, Brenda Howard lobbied successfully for gay rights and was the chair of the Gay Activist Alliance (Schwartz & Sanchez, 2016). Another example is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) who led to several changes within organizations and laws to help ensure that animals are receiving a better treatment. Some examples are that PETA led to the first animal experimentation case ever heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on Silver Spring Monkeys in 1991 and even succeeded it's getting Taiwan to pass animal anti-cruelty laws ( ("PETA'S Milestones," n.d.). An optional movie that I watched for the class is I am an Animal which focuses on the creator of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) . Ingrid was extremely dedicated to the cause and led to the growth of one of the biggest anti-animal cruelty groups. When a group of individuals are mobilized and dedicated towards a certain cause, there is always a possibility for change.

Within the class I developed an understanding on how different interest groups lobby for their cause. Due to the popularity of social media, we discussed in class the various strategies that interest groups use to attract attention and disseminate their message. The coursework included writing a paper that compares the social media of two interest groups. Within my paper, I focused on comparing the twitter accounts of two abortion focused interest groups during the negotiation of the 20 week abortion ban. The two groups I chose to compare were the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) and The National Right to Life (NRLC), which had two different positions on the same topic. This was an insightful paper, as it allowed us to understand how these interest groups use their social media accounts to mobilize the population. The accounts usually aim through their messages, images and language mainly to encourage their audience to take some sort of action and side with them.

Works Cited

PETA'S Milestones. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.peta.org/about-peta/milestones/

Schwartz, M., & Sanchez, E. S. (2016). Social Movements That Changed Our World For The Better.Retrieved from https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/movements-social-change-apartheid-civil-rights-suf/

Class outcomes

#neveragain

Me too movement