Lecture 01 | Management Defined

First of all, we must keep in mind that there is no agreed upon definition of management. Various scholars have defined management in their own terms. Many people may take this variety of definition in negative ways but for me it is good. Indeed very good. Such a variety of definitions and explanations provides our brain food for thought and gives option to think about a topic in different ways. 

Management is not and should not be a new word for any human being living on this planet. In our everyday lives we keep managing. We manage our relations, relationships, friends, time. We learn to manage our priorities in order to accomplish the most necessary tasks. We manage our financial as well as non-financial resources, like time, in order to take maximum benefits from our resources.

Van Fleet and Peterson define management as "Management is a set of activities directed at the efficient and effective utilisation of resources in the pursuit of one or more goals". Megginson, Mosley and Pietri define management as "working with human, financial and physical resources to achieve organisational objectives by performing the planning, organising, leading and controlling function". 

Now, when we look closely at those definitions, we will come to know that ‘set of activities’, effective and efficient utlisation’, ‘resources’ and ‘organizational goals’ are common component used in both definitions. We will discus each of these components separately in detail below.

Firstly, we must keep in mind that management is a ‘set of activities’. It is not an activity but a set of activities where all the available and necessary resources work together and act according to the goals of organisation. They put maximum efforts to achieve goals of their organization.

Secondly, in order to achieve organisational goals, it is imperative to utilise the available and necessary resources. But only availability of resource will not work here. The word ‘utilisation’ is of utmost importance. The management has a crucial responsibility to utilise all those resources effectively and efficiently. Only than a good manager will be able to achieve organizational goals.

Resources are mandatory for every organization. There are three types of resources. Human, physical and financial resources. Human resources refer to the work force employed by an organization. Physical resources refer to the machinery and infrastructure purchased by an organization to facilitate their work force.

Any/every organization has got its goals and objectives to achieve. The goals/objectives can be divided into three categories: short-term; medium-term and; long term. Short-term goals refer to the goals which are to be achieved in a short period of time lets say four or six months. Medium term goals are set to be accomplished in or within a couple of years. And long-term goals may take more than 4 years. Management utilises all its human, physical and financial resources to achieve these goals.

Our next lecture will focus on four function of management which are planning, organising, leading and controlling.

Lecture 06 | Production of Autonomous Information

As already defined repeatedly that social movements are not organisations, yet they need somehow an organisational structure. It enables them to mobilise their limited resources productively and effectively. In this sense organisational structure is an unavoidable and vital necessity for social movements. Most of the social movement and communication scholars have also focused on the social movement organisations and have defined them as "those that gather resources from surrounding environment and allocate the same to achieve social movements goals. 

simultaneously, communication scholars have also focused on the media produced by social movements and movement actors themselves. The media which are supportive toward social movements has also been focal point of research. This refers to the media which is produced by some other organisations but they do support social movements. 

this type of media are given many names such as alternative, radical, autonomous and independent media. these are the most common labels for them. This type of media are “generally small scale and [take] many different forms, that express an alternative vision to hegemonic policies, priorities and perspectives” (Downing, 2001).

The research on alternative media often focuses on the agency of social movement, their communicative practices, integration and overlapping of different actors and fields of action. Those studies also stress on the content, differences in content and the ways in which those media are produced. 

The literature on the content of alternative media shows that their content is often radical and alternative. That is presented in different experimental forms. Moreover, it also shows that alternative media produced by social movements is often rest on social relations and in  social relations in alternative media are less horizontal as compared to the traditional news room.

As there is no doubt that alternative media produces critical and counter-hegemonic. Alternative media is famously known for devoting space to non-media people in their news production and opinion programmes.  This act provides non-media people an opportunity to elaborate their world view. 

In the least but not the last, alternative media are usually distributed via underground channels. They are not part of the commercial distribution system of mass media. Therefore, it constitutes a social counter-sphere for public to nurture and mirror social movement discourse.

Lecture 05 | The cost of Adopting Media Logics

In our last blogpost, we discussed the strategies of movement actors in overcoming asymmetry between the relationship between media and social movement. Social movement actors usually adopt four strategies to overcome  this asymmetry. This lecture continues the same topic and extends it by focusing on impacts when social movement actors adopt media logics. 

After getting frustrated, when movement actors adopt media logics, they always have to pay a cost for it. Adoption to media logics (creating stunts, timing and drama) may most likely succeed movement actors in gaining media coverage, yet it also bears negative consequences for social movements.     

Since we know that social movements are not organisations, they are launched by small groups of people without any substantial resources. Movements have lesser human and nun-human resources. Firstly, too much focus on positive media attention is most likely to drain movement actors' limited resources. At the start and even at the zenith, movement actors do not afford to waste resources on anything else but their objectives. This is the first impact.

Secondly, when movement actors are concentrating more on gaining media attention, they are striving to reach distant audiences. This action is good in the sense they get a better opportunity to reach distant audiences. However, it has a downside for near audiences. Increased concentration on distant audiences is likely to put a shadow on the efforts and activities which movement actors are supposed to take for near audiences. Thus simply we can say that movement direct outreach activities to near audiences are likely to be greatly affected. 

Finally and the most importantly, there is a possibility of greater risk that while focusing too much on media attention, movement actors might get engaged in measuring their movement success in terms of amount of media coverage instead of the outcomes just like changes at policy level or legislation. It is very dangerous. The risk is most likely to divert attention of movement actors from their real objectives to media attention.      

In summary, mainstream media is highly capable of influencing various aspects of social movement. Sometimes, mainstream media leave those influence without letting movement actors to notice it. Most permanently, media influences movement actors' leadership, performances, strategies, framing activities and discourses as well. 

Lecture 04 | Strategies of Movement Actors to Overcome Asymmetry

Here we have seen and discussed that the relationship between mainstream media and social movements is asymmetric one. We have also discussed the possible reasons who cause this asymmetry. In such situation, it becomes a great challenge for movement actors to overcome this imbalance. For it is necessary to do so if movement actors want themselves heard among public and policy-makers. According to Dieter Rucht (2004), a German sociologist, in such circumstances social movement actors usually adapt following different strategies to overcome such asymmetry: 

First, when movement actors see that they are not getting enough media attention they become frustrated with it and in order to overcome that asymmetry, they find new ways of communication. social movement actors abstain from interaction with mainstream media and focus instead on micro-communication. This communication is mainly aimed at the inner circles of social movement such as activists, supporters, and allies. In other words, the audience of such communication is near audience who are part of social movement. 

Second, when movement actors do not get media attention as desired by them, they start attacking mainstream media. Those attacks are not violent or physical but verbal and discursive. Hence mainstream media becomes protest target and is blamed for not paying enough attention to social movement. Major disadvantage of this action is diversion of movement actors from movement to media coverage.

Third, in above-mentioned situation, movement actors create alternative channels of communication in order to bypass mainstream media and reach their audiences.  Via these alternative channels movement actors strive to the reach their near as well as distant audiences, supporters, sympathisers and potential members. Thus they bypass mainstream media and those alternative channels are based on a different types of media logic such as blogs, facebook pages, twitter accounts etc. 

Finally, movement actors get frustrated with media attitude toward their movement and in order to get mainstream media coverage they adapt mainstream media requirements in terms of newsworthiness, timing and drama. This may result in increasing the possibility or likelihood of obtaining media coverage. 

The final strategy has many negative consequences for social movements and movement actors as well. We shall discuss those repercussions in the next lecture. 

Rucht, D. (2004).The quadruple “A”: Media strategies of protest movements since the 1960s. In W. B. H. J. van deDonk, B.D. Loader, P.G.Nixon, &D. Rucht (Eds.), Cyberprotest: Newmedia, citizens and social movements (pp. 25–48). London, UK: Routledge.

Lecture 03 | Relationship between Media and Social Movements

Since protest events are not in resonance with certain amount of newsworthiness in the eyes of media workers and organisations, they do not come with a certain amount of predetermined  newsworthiness. This is how attitude of media towards social movements is often justified by news workers. Studies on social movements show that only one feature is successful in gaining media coverage and that is size of demonstration. More the number of demonstrators/protestors, more coverage is obtained by social movements. Apart from this no other features of help social movements in obtaining media attention.  

Studies throughout the world have indicated towards limited capacity of social movements to influence mass media and gaining coverage. The main reasons behind this attitude of mainstream media towards social movement are: (1) media's selection and descriptive bias while covering protest; (2) news-making routines and journalistic news values; (3) news workers' reliance on dramatic and visible events and ; (4) journalists' reliance on authoritative sources. 

Now we are going to discuss these aspects individually.

Firstly, in the past media was considered to be the mirror of society, however a considerable number of studies showed that media presents news selectively. Descriptive bias refers to media organisation's differing definitions of news in terms of their ideology, political and social leanings. In summary, we can say that media organisation decide what is and what not a news. 

Secondly, news-making routines and journalistic news values play a greater role in determining newsworthiness of a protest event. Firstly, news workers have a set routine which can only be disturbed in case of emergency or a great disaster in a country. If a journalist comes to know another important incident has happened while covering the protest, he will most likely leave protest and cover another event/incident. Secondly, journalistic news values often focus on authoritarian sources for information, magnitude of an incident/event etc. A greater body of studies also show that under-privileged sources are often ignored or given less space and time in the mass media. 

Thirdly, news workers invariably rely on visible or dramatic events and authoritative sources. Since social movements are serious phenomenon, very rarely they produce any dramatic event which may succeed in gaining media attention. 

Finally, as already stated, social movements present an alternative world view which is why movement actors are always against the authorities and no authorities are found in their support or with them. These two are also main reasons behind lack of coverage of social movement by mainstream media. In line with this, an amount of competition between different media organisations also play a greater role in ignoring social movements. 

In summary, the connection or relationship between mainstream media and social movements is often called and considered asymmetrical by media as well as social movements scholars. Activists need to be visible in the mass media and, quite contrarily, mass media do not rely on social movements for production of news. 

Lecture 02 | Media, social Movements & Politics

Being a media student, we are fully aware that every one needs a forum for getting heard and reaching to the desired audience. Mass media invariably provide a platform for discursive opportunity structure to social movement actors. It also constitutes essential opportunities and constraints for social movements. It may always be kept in mind that social movement actors always act in what Ferree et al. (2002) have aptly described “media master forum” which highly receives greater influence from political actors. Politicians always have a greater sway on mass media. For instance, trivial activities or misspellings of political actors succeed in making news on media channels. If citizens of an area launch a movement in any areas of Sindh for provision of safe drinking water, proper medical facilities etc, they will be considered to be a competitor by local political actors.

Political organizations succeed in organizing their voters and party workers in any event. On the other hand movement actors propose their discourses and put forth their demands to gain attention, support and sympathy from a wide range of publics on “media master forum”. Social movement actors need as greater support as possible because they movements are not based on any organizational level. In this way, political spectrum and public opinion is the target of attention of movement actors.

When movement actors in gaining attention of media, public and politicians, they come in direct competition with more institutionalized political actors. When movement actors propose their discourses on local environmental, economic, cultural issues of community and movement finally come to a logical conclusion, they become competitors of mainstream political actors. Political actors feel threatened by the movement actors. This competition is not violent but based on discourses.

At this stage it becomes utmost important for movement actors to frame their beliefs, demands and objectives which is in resonance with greatly and widely held societal beliefs. This framing helps movements to get greater support from a wide range of public. Moreover, such framing of discourses in such a way will also be essential for gaining symbolic power which eventually becomes fundamental for political mobilization. If the discourse is framed otherwise, it will directly affect the movement itself. 

In this context we may take example of recent Women Movement in Pakistan which started in 2018. Indeed those movement actors were strongly criticized for forming slogans like “Khana mein garam kar lun gi, bistar khud garam kar lena”, “Agar dupatta itna pasand hai to aankhon per baandh lo” and few other slogans on sanitary pads etc. Such slogans did not expand scope of the movement and turned it subject to criticism. On the other hand, in 2019 the slogans were much better like “Mere jahez ki naheen meri taleem ki fikr karo”. No portion of society will go against this demand because in a traditional society like ours such slogans are more acceptable.

In these circumstances of discursive competition between movement actors and political actors, focus of both the actors remain at gaining ability to affect mass media for obtaining symbolic power for two purposes: (1) mobilising masses politically and; (2) becoming and establish themselves autonomous sources of conflict. 

 

Lecture 01 | Social Movements Defined

Social movements are (a) mostly informal networks of interaction, based on (b) shared beliefs and solidarity, mobilized around (c) contentious themes through (d) the frequent use of various forms of protest (Dellaporta & Mattoni, 2016).

(a)   Informal Network of Interaction

When one reads this definition deeply, he/she can realise that factor of communication holds a vital and central role in all those four definitional aspects of social movements. Let's see how. 

Social movements are informal networks of relations. Participants, sympathisers, supporters of movements are composed of heterogeneous population. They belong to various class, race, gender, lingual group, nationality and ethnicity. Participants are scattered and most often weakly connected because social movements are not organisations. Although they are some times organized by organisations but most of the time they are not organisations. They are networks of relation of diverse actors. However, movements are more or less structured from an organizational point of view. Social movements are composed of weekly connected and scattered individuals who feel they are part of a collective effort.

Thus, in this situation communication becomes vital and equally significant. Movement actors are engaged in the flux of information and exchange of ideas which must be structured and restructured in accordance with changing characteristics of the network. The narrative of movement must be intensified in times of visibility and fragmented in times of abeyance.

(b)   Shared Beliefs and Solidarity

Collective ideologies are constantly constructed and reconstructed within a social movement and, again, communication is of utmost importance in this process. Above mentioned networks of relations constitute a social movement when their members share a common belief and solidarity. Shared belief nourishes solidarity and collective awareness. Collectively social movements produce an alternative world vision or narrative which challenges the already existing dominant vision or narrative.

Social movements are considered as an agent of social change; therefore, they can not afford to limit their vision within movement. They have to spread their vision to outside: protest targets, public, sympathizers, supporters, potential allies, bystanders, spectators and even opponents. Their primary should be to reach and influence public opinion as well as policy decision-makers. In this regard, communication strategies become essential to address strategic dilemmas in order to gain visibility as well as support from concerned quarters.

(c) Contentious Themes

Movement actors are mobilized around the definition of conflict. Many scholars of social movements have defined them as actors in new conflicts. Communication within social movements has an essential role in shaping and framing contentious issues on which movement is based. Those issues are called contentious because of participation of heterogeneous population ranging from diverse backgrounds, cultures and indoctrinations.

That communication becomes more important while mobilising a population which is based on diverse actors belonging to different languages, culture, racial groups, social positions, political culture and economic conditions. Here we feel a dire need of communicating effectively for elaborating common frames around the definition of conflict. Movement actors are responsible for framing issues in a way which keep all movement participants intact. When movement actors start considering media platforms – freedom of information and communication rights –as a relevant field for discursive struggle, communication becomes essential.

(d) Protest

The fourth and final definitional aspect of social movements is frequent use of protests by social movements. Indeed this one aspect characterises social movements and makes movement actors distinct from other political actors in terms of exercising pressure over authorities, so view many social movement scholars. Protest is defined as a non-conventional form of action that interrupts daily routine. Everyday routine is an instrument of communication and by disrupting it social movement actors attract attention of the public. Such performances always provide a platform to protest organisers and protest targets. The interaction between organisers and targets facilitates passage of information and holds strong communicative elements which are targeted at opening various channels of communication with diverse public, decision-makers, sympathisers and supporters.

For instance, public concern do not reach decision-makers until public perform some protests order to get heard. Authorities notice concern of public when protests are held. Here again communication becomes essential in terms of choosing an appropriate form of communication for propagation of message of the social movement.