In the early days of HIV/AIDS in North America, those most directly affected by the crisis created a social movement to respond to the virus when no one else would. The legacy of activists’ efforts can be seen in the more than seventy-five AIDS service organizations (ASOs) that provide prevention, support, and education to communities across Ontario today. While these organizations were once an important site of advocacy and resistance for people living with HIV/AIDS (PHAs), ASOs are now often viewed as professionalized, bureaucratic and impersonal spaces. Linking theoretical understandings of public pedagogy and the pedagogical potential of space with HIV/AIDS scholarship, I offer a conception of ASOs as more than simply impersonal service providers, but vibrant spaces of community learning. Drawing on interviews with people who work, volunteer, and use services at a small ASO in Kingston, Ontario called HIV/AIDS Regional Services (HARS), I identify three pedagogical assets within the agency’s space that tend to go unrecognized as such. The agency’s drop-in space, artworks created by PHAs that decorate the walls of the office, and HARS’ storefront design are not usually counted as elements of the kind of formal “HIV/AIDS education” that ASOs provide. However, by exploring the learning experiences that are incited by these assets, I argue that we may broaden our understandings of what counts as HIV/AIDS education and of the value of ASOs in their communities. These unacknowledged assets not only enhance peoples’ understanding of issues related to HIV/AIDS, they also work to develop a sense of community and belonging for visitors to the space. In conclusion, I reiterate that while today’s ASOs are surely different than the organizations that activists created in the 1980s, the learning experiences that arise in agencies like HARS demonstrate that community-building and mutual support can remain as integral aspects of ASOs. / Thesis (Master, Cultural Studies) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-20 14:39:55.828

As the first comprehensive study of Western Australian forest protest the thesis analyses the protest movement's organisation, campaigns and strategies. Its central argument is that the contemporary Western Australian forest protest movement established a network of urban and south-west activist groups which encouraged broad public support, and that a diversity of protest strategies focused public attention on forest issues and pressured the state government to change its forest policies. The forest protest movement was characterised by its ability to continually adapt its organisation and strategies to changing social and political conditions. This flexible approach to protest not only led to victories in the Shannon River Basin, Lane-Poole Reserve and old growth forest campaigns, but also transformed forest protest into an influential social movement which contributed to the downfall of the Court Liberal Government in 2001.

The balance of the world has been built on various empires, kingdoms, civilizations and economic systems for centuries. This study is written in the belief that the center of the world rule started to change. The determiners are not the leaders or the systems anymore but the individuals themselves. People are aware of that their voice can easily reach to the rest of the world. For most of the people it is not onlysharing their ideas on various social networks but also playing an active role in the world order. Since every human being has different ways of expressing themselves, their active role will also differ from each other. This study focuses on the active role of Art, which is one of the important ways when it is about self-expression. By this research, it is aimed to find answers to the following questions: "How can art be effective in the change of the world?" and "In what point activist art differs from propaganda?"

The purpose of this study is to explore how conscious rap is used as a form of activism. Interviews of conscious rappers based in Atlanta, GA were used to understand this relationship. In order to complete this investigation, ten unsigned conscious rappers were given a series of questions to explore their involvement as activist; some of these artist were also recruited based on affiliations with political organizations based in Atlanta, GA. By gathering interviews from conscious rappers who consider their music as a form of activism, scholars of African American Studies may further understand the role of music and political activism when mobilizing the African American and minority communities.

This dissertation examines tribal-state relations in Alabama and Louisiana during the 1970s and 1980s. These relationships were the outcomes of the Southern Indian Movement, which emerged just as regional and national racial politics began shifting and southern states started to recognize Indian populations through the development of Indian Affairs Commissions. Through these state agencies, Indian groups forged strong networks with local, state, and national agencies while advocating for cultural preservation and revitalization, economic development, and the implementation of community services. Commissions also brought formerly isolated groups, each with different goals and needs, together for the first time, creating an assortment of alliances and divisions. These unique relationships between tribes and states additionally served state interests by giving legislators the opportunity to wage public relations campaigns, to make racialized critiques of the Black Civil Rights Movement, to emphasize the South's indigenous identity, and to assert states' rights by assuming federal responsibilities.

The State Hospital and Medical League was a broadly based organization founded in 1936 and dedicated to achieving State Medicine, a fully funded holistic preventative and curative system, for Saskatchewan. Its study allows us to fill in gaps in what has been a primarily policy level historiography of Canadian medicare. Using Ian McKay's reconnaissance model, we also look at it as a locus for challenges to the entrenched, liberal and individualistic political social and professional hegemony.

The State Hospital and Medical League was a broadly based organization founded in 1936 and dedicated to achieving State Medicine, a fully funded holistic preventative and curative system, for Saskatchewan. Its study allows us to fill in gaps in what has been a primarily policy level historiography of Canadian medicare. Using Ian McKay's reconnaissance model, we also look at it as a locus for challenges to the entrenched, liberal and individualistic political social and professional hegemony.

Grassroots activist groups have received limited attention in Australia and research-based examinations of their communication and relationship to social change are rare. My central research question asks: what changes are occurring in the approach of grassroots activists to contemporary communication, and, as a form of social relations, does this differ from the approach of state and business organisations? My thesis analyses the scope and significance of three grassroots activists’ campaigns in south-west Victoria, Australia, between 1995 and 2003 that are distinctive for their sustained vigour and inclusive, ethical and novel approaches to communication. They are: Werribee Residents Against Toxic Dump (WRATD), Batesford and Geelong Action Group (BAGAG) and Otway Ranges Environment Network (OREN). My thesis also focuses on the groups’ response to public relations issued by the state and business interests they opposed. To investigate the case study data – that is face to face interviews with case study participants, media transcripts and textual samples from the campaigns, such as flyers and newsletters – I use a double research methodology: discourse analysis and reception analysis. These methods reveal how meanings are created that influence power and control in society and any transformations in this. As an overarching framework for analysis, I apply Ulrich Beck’s theories of risk society, reflexive modernisation and individualisation. These theories discuss social conditions transforming the contemporary world. In particular, I use them to explain the growth of sub-political networks, what grassroots activists seek to promote and their capacity to create change in state and business sectors. I also draw on a range of other communicative and citizenship theories that shed light on some of the invisible effects of communication on society, particularly unethical practices. Lastly, my thesis sets out an alternative set of social relations to public relations that I call ‘public communication’. The principles of public communication are distilled from the case studies and are inclusive of all organisational types and seek to address the inherent problems and flawed coherences of public relations. The results of this research provide policy decision makers, educators, activists and other communication strategists with deep and unusual understanding of public communication and public relations and its relationship to social change. Overall, this thesis explores a rupture – a point of transformation in the relationship between contemporary civil, state and business sectors in Australia and the surfacing of a new discursive formation. In particular, it explores a transformation in texts, discursive practice and social practice (Fairclough 1999) and analyses its significance, within an emerging and distinct discursive formation, peculiar to late modernity.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis advisor: Usha Tummala-Narra / Women receive many contradictory messages about what their bodies should look like and how they should behave. These messages necessarily impact how women are socialized to use social media and how they engage with online platforms. Little attention has been paid to the impact of these mixed messages on women’s self-concept and social engagement online, or to the mental health and social consequences of these interactions. The present study, guided by Objectification Theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) and Relational Cultural Theory (Miller, 1976), intended to gain a deeper understanding of how emerging adult women understand the messages they receive about their bodies and what they should be used for and how these messages influence their relational behaviors online. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 women (ages 19-25), focusing on messages concerning expectations of women’s bodies and sexuality, performance of body and sexuality in social media spaces, social media activism, and social interactions online. Conventional content analysis was used to examine the interviews. Interview data revealed multiple themes, composing four broad domains: (1) expectations of women; (2) social media curation; (3) mental health and social effects of social media use; and (4) activism and advocacy. Notions about how women wanted to perform their identities online were shaped by several factors, including aspirational goals for self-love and body acceptance, an interest in portraying themselves authentically and in the best possible light, and a desire to be part of a movement of social change. The study underscores the impact of social media in individual functioning and wellbeing and reveals deep-seated conflict that women face in integrating messages about who they should be with performance of their own identities. This study highlights the need for situationally responsive clinical practice, intervention, and future research. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.