The Rhetoric of Social Movements Networks, Power, and New Media

This collection provides an accessible yet rigorous survey of the rhetorical study of historical and contemporary social movements and promotes the study of relations between strategy, symbolic action, and social assemblage.

Offering a comprehensive collection of the latest research in the field, The Rhetoric of Social Movements: Networks, Power, and New Media suggests a framework for the study of social movements grounded in a methodology of "slow inquiry" and the interconnectedness of these imminent phenomena. Chapters address the rhetorical tactics that social movements use to gain attention and challenge power; the centrality of traditional and new media in social movements; the operations of power in movement organization, leadership, and local and global networking; and emerging contents and environments for social movements in the twenty-first century. Each chapter is framed by case studies (drawn from movements across the world, ranging from Black Lives Matter and Occupy to Greek anarchism and indigenous land protests) that ground conceptual characteristics of social movements in their continuously unfolding reality, furnishing readers with both practical and theoretical insights.

The Rhetoric of Social Movements will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of rhetoric, communication, media studies, cultural studies, social protest and activism, and political science.

Introduction 1. From Cosmopolis to Cosmopolitics: The Rhetorical Study of Social Movements Section 1: Tactics of Rhetorical Advocacy 2. The Assembling of a March: Rhetorics of the Farm Workers’ 1966 Pilgrimage 3. Spatial Activism: The Democratization of Unruly Spaces 4. Video-Activism and Small-Scale Resistance: The Visual Rhetoric of Youtube Videos by the Greek Anarchist Group Rouvikonas 5.Strategic Storytelling: "Our Home" Narratives of Occupy Homes 6. Confrontational and Intersectional Rhetoric: Black Lives Matter and the Shutdown of the Hernando De Soto (I-40) Bridge 7. Intersectional Revisionist History: The Rhetoric of Ecuadorian Communist Feminist Nela Martínez Espinosa Section 2: Mobilizing New Media 8. Memes in Social Movement 2.0: #JeffCoSchoolBoardHistory and the Ouster of Conservative Education "Reformers" in Colorado 9. Affective Winds, De-Centered Knots of World-Making, and Tracing Force: Thinking Activism in Chinese Protests 10. Social Movements, Media, and Discourse: Using Social Media to Challenge Racist Policing Practices and Mainstream Media Representations 11. Fan-Based Social Movements: The Harry Potter Alliance and the Future of Online Activism Section 3: Power in Network 12. Performing Embodied Collectivity: Organizing LGBTQ Activists at Camp Courage 13. The Significance of the Radical Flank: The Role of GetEQUAL in the Marriage Equality Movement 14. Analogical Arguments: Bridging Trans Social Movements and the Civil Rights Movement 15. Voice Infrastructures and Alternative Imaginaries: Indigenous Social Movements Against Neocolonial Extraction Section 4: Emerging Contexts 16. Viral Mythologies: The Movement to Decriminalize HIV 17. Motherhood & Environmental Justice: Women’s Environmental Communication, Maternity, and the Water Crisis in Flint, Michigan 18. Food Justice Advocacy Tours: Remapping Rooted, Regenerative Relationships through Denver’s "Planting Just Seeds"

Nathan Crick is Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University. His publications include Dewey for a New Age of Fascism: Teaching Democratic Habits (2019), The Keys of Power: The Rhetoric and Politics of Transcendentalism (2017), Rhetorical Public Speaking: Civic Engagement in the Digital Age, 3rd edition (2019), Rhetoric and Power: The Drama of Classical Greece (2015), and Democracy and Rhetoric: John Dewey on the Arts of Becoming (2010).