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This thesis covers the methods and the goals of organizations located in Costa Rica working for the good of Nicaraguan citizens. Through a thematic analysis of 10 Facebook posts per 8 civil society organizations, four different themes within the posts were found: active action, cooperation, informing, and political speech. These themes as well as different extracts from the posts have together given a picture of the methods and goals of the organizations. Active action, cooperation and informing are used to see the methods of the organizations, while political speech and some cases of informing show the goals of the organizations. Through the extracts there are examples of what they do and why they do it. What has been found is that the organizations are different from each other in some respects. The organizations with a focus on Nicaraguans who are in Costa Rica have a higher count of posts using active action while those focusing on the situation in Nicaragua use more political speech. It has also been found that theories regarding the development of social movements, activism and peaceful disobedience can be used to understand the actions and the goals of the organizations.

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In November 2006, award-winning novelist, Bebe Moore Campbell died at the age of 56 after a short battle with brain cancer. Although the author was widely-known and acclaimed for her first novel, Your Blues Ain't Like Mine (1992) there had been no serious study of her life, nor her literary and activist work. This dissertation examines Campbell's activism in two periods: as a student at the University of Pittsburgh during the 1960s Black Student Movement, and later as a mental health advocate near the end of her life in 2006. It also analyzes Campbell's first and final novels, Your Blues Ain't Like Mine and 72 Hour Hold (2005) and the direct relationship between her novels and her activist work. Oral history interview, primary source document analysis, and textual analysis of the two novels, were employed to examine and reconstruct Campbell's activist activities, approaches, intentions and impact in both her work as a student activist at the University of Pittsburgh and her work as a mental health advocate and spokesperson for the National Alliance for Mental Illness. A key idea considered is the impact of her early activism and consciousness on her later activism, writing, and advocacy. I describe the subject's activism within the Black Action Society from 1967-1971 and her negotiation of the black nationalist ideologies espoused during the 1960s. Campbell's first novel Your Blues Ain't Like Mine and is correlated to her emerging political consciousness (specific to race and gender) and the concern for racial violence during the Black Liberation period. The examination of recurrent themes in Your Blues reveals a direct relationship to Campbell's activism at the University of Pittsburgh. I also document Campbell's later involvement in the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), her role as a national spokesperson, and the local activism that sparked the birth of the NAMI Urban-Los Angeles chapter, serving black and Latino communities (1999-2006). Campbell's final novel, 72 Hour Hold, is examined closely for its socio-political commentary and emphasis on mental health disparities, coping with mental illness, and advocacy in black communities. Campbell utilized recurring signature themes within each novel to theorize and connect popular audiences with African American historical memory and current sociopolitical issues. Drawing from social movement theories, I contend that Campbell's activism, writing, and intellectual development reflect the process of frame alignment. That is, through writing and other activist practices she effectively amplifies, extends, and transforms sociopolitical concerns specific to African American communities, effectively engaging a broad range of readers and constituents. By elucidating Campbell's formal and informal leadership roles within two social movement organizations and her deliberate use of writing as an activist tool, I conclude that in both activist periods Campbell's effective use of resources, personal charisma, and mobilizing strategies aided in grassroots/local and institutional change. This biographical and critical study of the sociopolitical activism of Bebe Moore Campbell establishes the necessity for scholarly examination of African American women writers marketed to popular audiences and expands the study of African American women's contemporary activism, health activism, and black student activism. / African American Studies

This thesis explores how online gaming has become a central tool for networked social movements to participate in consumer activism. I look at the case study of MapleStory: a Korean MMORPG game and their consumer activism efforts started by the players. Migrating from different social media channels to organize, coordinate and strategize ways to create change within their group, through using consumeractivism techniques such as boycotting, protesting and spreading information. I framed this group as an early example of a networked social movements and analyzed their usage of social groups to spread activism messages. Through the internet and new technologies members were able to find their own political voices and teach others how to protest for social change. I also concentrated on the social aspect of these communities and how they fostered social bonds through collective action and participation. I argue that online gaming has become a platform that enables consumers to protest against a company’smal practices by utilizing their positions as consumers of a product.

The aim of this paper is to show that there is an important distinction between political radicalism and the previously more salient categories of political activism: activism and terrorism. More precisely, the question asked is the following: Is there any support for the need of radicalism as a way of classifying political activist groups? The distinction has not been entirely clear in previous research on political participation among activist groups, and this study intends to show why the distinction is vital to attain a more nuanced perception of the field.  It means to do so through analysing methods of political participation among Swedish extra-parliamentary groups with revolutionary agendas. The result will show a deficiency in the way political actions has so far been defined, and suggest a stronger emphasis on radicalism as its own subcategory to political participation in the future.

This thesis presents an analysis of the political discourse and strategies of the MHP (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi-Nationalist Movement Party) between 1965 and 1980. It particularly focuses on the role of young militants in the development of the nationalist movement in Turkey during this period. The 1960s and 1970s in Turkey saw military coups, street clashes, violence perpetrated by university students, and the rapid proliferation of civil organizations. Yet this turbulent period in modern Turkish history has received no systematic historical investigation. The MHP was one of the principal actors of this period. The study argues that the change in the profile of the CKMP-MHP leadership and the recruitment of young nationalist students, who became increasingly involved in physical confrontations with the socialists, had multiple effects on nationalist discourse and strategies. Retired soldiers involved in the 27 May 1960 military coup sought to develop a nationalist party based on secular-Kemalist principles, but those people who held conservative views of nationalism started to join the CKMP-MHP. The anti-Republican discourse of this current of thought involved the re-appropriation of Ottoman history and culture and certain religious themes into nationalist discourse. This ideological orientation appealed to most of young nationalists organized around the ülkü ocakları. However, the thesis demonstrates that there were various channels of ideological indoctrination in the nationalist movement, a diversity of positions that sometimes stirred conflicts among the nationalists themselves. The question of political strategy involved paradoxical aspects as well. Young nationalists were willing to take on the mission of becoming the future elites of the country yet were simultaneously involved in violent confrontations with socialists. Most of the party leadership, on the other hand, was preoccupied with parliamentarian goals and the long-term administrative success of nationalist activists in the state apparatus. The thesis shows that viewing the party activities and paramilitary operations in the same framework gave rise to serious tensions within the nationalist movement. The findings of this study also shed light on the institutional and ideological evolution of the nationalist movement after 1980.

This paper is about the communication of bullying, and its aim is to shift the focus from the individual’s problem to the collective mind. Scientists have concluded that bullying is the result of a group behaviour, where the individual aims to be a part of the group, or control its peers. Despite this, it is mainly the image of the individual that is communicated as a representation of the subject. This leads to the people that aren’t directly involved with the subject to become distansed and uninterested in any real change. This project has taken inspiration from the people rights movements, where the individual problem (alcoholism, unemployment, etcetera) became a problem of society. What would happen if bullying became as urgent? With illustration as a tool, the project aims to involve and engage the audience at Konstfack Spring Degree Exhibition 2016 towards a larger movement that is anti-bullying. This paper will first deal with the topic of bullying, and then move towards how bullying is presented and communicated, and then end up with an artistic piece that aims to change the traditional way of speaking of bullying.

This study addresses the problem of explaining the emergence and viability of coalitions among shareholder activists. The formation of coalitions for purposes of shareholder activism is generally unexpected from a theoretical perspective. Potential shareholder activists typically rely on the exit mechanism rather than becoming actively involved in the governance of corporations, and they tend to be in a prisoner’s dilemma type of situation, which has a non-co-operative outcome. Moreover, unless co-operation can be expected from others, no individual shareholder will make costly contributions to a coalition. Still, minority shareholder coalitions exist. The purpose of this study is to develop a model that accounts for the emergence and viability of minority shareholder coalitions. Two ideal-typical minority shareholder coalitions are developed: the offensive minority shareholder coalition, and the defensive minority shareholder coalition. These are based primarily on contractual theory (transaction cost economics, agency theory and property rights theory) and take form under the assumption that economic ends alone motivate actors. The offensive minority shareholder coalition emerges to seize an opportunity to increase share price by means of voice; it is led by a coalitional entrepreneur who carries all costs, thereby inducing co-operation from passive shareholders. The defensive minority shareholder coalition emerges to safeguard the members’ investments from risks of expropriation, which arise from increasing costs of using the exit mechanism; it is characterised by widespread active participation, since free riding further increases the risk of being expropriated. The model integrates the ideal types with results from three case studies of minority shareholder coalitions. These case studies show that under certain conditions, coalition members act as if they consider the effects of their actions on their reputation within networks of shareholders; this has implications for a coalition’s emergence and viability. The case studies further show that controlling shareholders, under certain circumstances, will tend to act as if they consider the effects of their actions on their public image as perceived by relevant (present or future) stakeholders; this places a shareholder coalition in a different bargaining position.

Much of the extant higher education literature examining student activism and social movements in college is limited by both chronological time and physical space. In addition, very little is known about the ways in which technology generally and social media specifically are embraced in contemporary student organizing practices. Accordingly, my multi-sited ethnographic study focuses on the Dream Defenders, a Florida-based, racially and ethnically-diverse multi-campus social movement organization "developing the next generation of radical leaders to realize and exercise [their] independent, collective power; building alternative systems; and organizing to disrupt the structures that oppress [their]communities" (Dream Defenders, 2014). More specifically, my study is intended to contemporize research on student activism in college by using robust, real-time ethnographic data to examine off-campus organizing undertaken by Dream Defenders' organization and their use of new and social media technologies. Drawing from and modifying resource dependency/resource mobilization perspectives and new social movement theories, I conceptualize the interactive use of the aforementioned technologies as mobilizing structures and in the construction movement frames–parts of the social movement repertoire (Tilly, 2004) of contemporary student organizers. The findings from my study indicate the use of alternative and activist new media in contemporary student organizing is part of a larger, dynamic interactive process of traditional organizing practices to include four primary domains: occupation and agitation, power building, political participation, and civic demonstration. More specifically, findings further indicate the use of 1) mediated mobilization, and 2) culture jamming (Lievrouw, 2011) as alternative and activist new media practices within the Dream Defenders' social movement repertoire. The former harnesses the power of social media to leverage new and existing networks of college student organizers in on-the-ground mobilization. The latter, however, utilizes the production of digital art for purposes of social and political critique, which also serve as a diagnostic frame by which contemporary student organizers are able to identify problems/issues of concern and attribute of blame to key political targets. Overall, my study makes scholarly contributions to the empirical, theoretical/conceptual, and methodological domains of higher education research generally and student activism scholarship in particular. First, the findings from my study challenge higher education scholars to consider the importance of moving beyond campus contexts to investigate students' lives, which are increasingly occurring off- and away from campus. Second, my findings expand understandings of the ways in which contemporary college students relate to technology and social media beyond social uses, entertainment purposes, and utility for the delivery of instructional content to include harnessing alternative and activist new media for creating social change. Lastly, my findings strongly counter the prevailing narrative regarding millennials' lack of awareness of their history. Through drawing from communities of memory, invoking traditions of non-violent civil disobedience, and leveraging relationships with historical civil rights icons to increase legitimacy, contemporary student organizers draw upon history as a non-material resource as part of their social movement repertoire.