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THE REVIEW OF COMMUNICATION
1 (2001): 234-242
© 2001 National Communication Association

Value Transformations in “Old” and “New” Social Movements

Carol J. Jablonski

Thomas R. Rochon. Culture Moves: Ideas, Activism, and Changing Values. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. 280 pages. $52.50 (cloth); $17.95 (paper).

The connection between social movements and cultural change is the focus of Thomas R. Rochon’s Culture Moves: Ideas, Activism and Changing Values. Because it begins with changes in value perspectives that result from movements rather than with social problems or grievances that lead to them, Culture Moves brings new insight to the study of collective action. Reflecting a growing interest in the cultural aspects of movements among social scientists (stimulated, in part, by the appearance of social movements that did not match the older model), the book offers ways of understanding how “old” and “new” movements influence and are influenced by value change. Its focus on value transformation makes Culture Moves a useful resource for communication scholars who find rhetorical approaches to movement studies too confining. 

Rochon opens with the story of the book’s genesis: while shopping in an antique store, he came across an issue of Life magazine from the week he was born. Skimming through the publication, he was struck by how much American social values and practices, as expressed and implied through the discourse of advertising, had changed since 1952. By today’s standards, the magazine reflected markedly “antiquated” assumptions about race relations, gender roles, and the environment. Rochon, a political scientist who had studied antinuclear movements in Western Europe, decided to extend his investigation of goal-oriented reform to explore the broader issue of social and cultural change. Technological and economic conditions, frequently cited by his colleagues as triggers of change, do not account for the dramatic alternations that have taken place in American society since the 1950s. Instead, he argues, such change can be traced to “critical communities” and the social movements that help to disseminate their value perspectives. Examples drawn from 150 years of American history help Rochon identify “factors that aid the development of new value perspectives, that encourage broad social and political movements to champion these new ideas, and that ultimately lead to a reorientation of culture” (xv).

Chapter 1 addresses a persistent question in the study of social change: what causes people and culture to change? A common argument is that adaptation is necessary for survival. Rochon points out, however, that, “adaptation does not occur automatically just because it is needed” (5). Another prevalent view links change to government action. Government and the political process can aid in bringing about needed change, but as Rochon reminds readers, political innovation is often the result of pressure from the electorate. Then there is the notion of unstoppable momentum or “force.” In both policy and social change research the image of “irresistible forces” is used to describe the impetus for and experience of cultural change. The concept of “crisis” is apt in describing the impetus for cultural change, Rochon observes, but what creates “crisis”? If one keeps “pushing the question one step back,” as he does, it becomes clear that crises are a “matter of interpretation.” Whether stimulated by material or symbolic change, Rochon argues, crises must become social constructions before they can have cultural impact. When crises lead to cultural change, “the conceptual categories with which we give meaning to reality” are altered. “It is a matter of how we think, not simply what we think” (15).

How might such cultural change be observed? Rochon cites public disagreement over the way events are framed (as in the Rodney King case), modifications in language and language use, and changes in everyday behavior. Many of these changes, he argues, are the result of value controversy that has made its way into public debate. “To raise a value to the status of controversy is a necessary first step in the process of cultural change, but it is just a first step. Cultural change is completed only when the new values are no longer highly controversial, when they have been accepted as a ‘normal’ part of thinking. . . . The end point of cultural change with respect to some value occurs when the value is diffused into the wider society to such a degree that it is no longer a matter of contention, or even necessarily of conscious awareness” (17-18). Popular advertisements provide a useful source for studying how movements create “cultural spillover” into popular discourse. Rochon illustrates his point with a study of images of women found in fragrance ads between 1955 and 1985. Even though it did not target perfume advertising, the feminist movement had left a “clear imprint” on portrayals of women in advertisements for these products. 

For Rochon, the key feature of cultural change is the “adoption of an altered language to express a newly developed discourse” (22) In chapter 2, Rochon introduces an “admittedly simplistic” but practical two-step model of change to describe how this process unfolds. First a “critical community” formulates a problem, then a movement coalesces around the definition and sets out to gain social and political allies to bring about change. Although the two steps are not as discrete or sequentially timed as the “two step” label implies, there is some utility in making the conceptual division between idea-generation and mobilization for change. In particular, communication scholars might find the concept of “critical community” useful in studying the process by which publics identify with and accept interpretations of social problems.   

Rochon defines critical communities as small, self-aware and “mutually interacting” groups that “seek acceptance of a new conceptualization of a problem” (22-23). Critical communities develop and use their own channels of communication, such as periodicals and books, through which they debate specific issues and problems. A certain level of unity within the critical community, whether achieved (through persuasion) or imposed (when a member’s interpretation gains prestige or popularity with outside sources) is necessary “to foster wider acceptance of a critical perspective” on a particular issue. Rochon cites Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Jonathan Schell’s The Fate of the Earth, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, and Catherine MacKinnon’s ideas about sexual harassment as examples of works that came out of or helped to spawn critical communities.

Critical communities can have a broad impact only when their ideas are taken forward and adapted for use by movements. “Movements are formed by the melding of a critical discourse to collective action” (32). In a move that allows him to discuss both “old” and “new” movements without belaboring the distinction, Rochon does not tie “movements” to agonistic conflict. Although they may use protest as a strategy, Rochon argues, movements are distinguished from other forms of collective action by their attempt to obtain change in both the political and social arenas. Movements, in other words, influence policy as well as social attitudes and practice. Separating the two arenas of movement activity allows one to analyze how action on behalf of regulatory or legislative change can affect cultural values and vice versa. While the distinction is not new, Rochon’s use of it in discussing Prohibition, Title VII (Equal Employment Opportunity), and the ERA underscores the narrowness of approaches that analyze movement “outcomes” in terms of specific issues or campaigns. Using this line of reasoning, communication scholars might probe how “success” or “failure” in persuasion in one arena of movement activity might “enhance” or “hinder” its efforts in the other.

In chapter 3, Rochon identifies three kinds of value change and shows how they are represented in and encouraged by movements. “‘Value conversion’ is the replacement of existing values with new ideas on the same topic about what is important, equitable, or legitimate. ‘Value creation’ is the development of new ideas, concepts, or categories of analysis that apply to situations that had not previously been the subject of explicit cultural values. Finally, ‘value connection’ is the development of a conceptual link between phenomena previously thought either to be unconnected with each other or to be connected in a different way” (54). Movements that target “value conversion” (for example, values that supported segregation, gender inequity, and the proliferation of nuclear arms) have been highly agonistic because they have required the replacement of core values. Movements that inspire “value creation” (for example, the idea of “conservation”) are less confrontational because they add to, rather than supplant, existing values. “Value connection,” on the other hand, involves value replacement as well as the linkage of previously unrelated ideas or concepts.

The typology of value change is not meant to distinguish the forms and types of movements (for as Rochon argues, movements frequently advocate more than one type of value change), but to aid the analyst in understanding how value innovation takes place. Rochon uses the southern desegregation and voting rights movement to illustrate value conversion, sexual harassment to exemplify value creation, and anti-alcohol abuse movements to demonstrate value connection. A final section teases out the relationship between value change, movements, and the political process. Research has linked ideological preference and partisan affiliation to individuals’ capacity for value change, but value change is not simply a matter of partisanship. How change is introduced (particularly, if it is defined by a critical community or movement as a matter of value creation or value connection) can affect its diffusion across party lines. Rochon’s typology and analysis of value transformation is useful not only for the study of social movements: it could be equally helpful in the analysis of political innovation and change.  

Sectioned together under title, “Microfoundations,” chapters 4 (“The Creation of Solidarity”) and 5 (“Political Engagement”) explore how critical ideas come into public discourse through the efforts of movements. Rochon sees movements as the primary means by which the ideas of a critical community can be brought before a public. Central to the success of movements in fueling value change is their ability to engender group identification and solidarity. Rochon defines group identity as “the extent to which group interests are taken to be identical with individual interests” (97). Solidarity “is the belief that the group is capable of unified action in pursuit of the group’s goals” (98); solidarity is central to movement mobilization. Rochon’s treatment of these terms is helpful for readers who have difficulty imagining why one would start or join a movement. He discusses rational choice models that weigh the “costs” and “rewards” of individual participation in movements from the perspective of the autonomous person. (Among the benefits he discusses in chapter 4 is the ability to make better sense of one’s position and circumstances and to share those understandings with others. Chapter 5 explores the skills that movement participants acquire as a result of their activism.) But he also makes it clear that movements do not follow an individual calculus: “The choices that are rational for an individual in an atomized environment are not necessarily the decisions reached by someone in an environment rich in organizational networks and group solidarities” (97).

Chapter 4 attempts to explain the logic of group solidarity and why it gives a movement persuasive leverage. Rochon describes the historically and culturally conditioned aspects of group identity and solidarity; shows why group identification, by itself, does not produce activism; explores how value change (conversion, connection, and creation) affects group solidarity; and explains how movement interaction and ideology shape solidarity. He makes the important observation that movement mobilization can be “limited by the kinds of identities that can be converted into solidarities” (128). Race, gender, sexual orientation, and linguistic origin are visible and ascriptive traits that facilitated group identity and solidarity (often as a reaction to and need to reverse stigmatization and discrimination based on those traits). Groups without such visible traits must connect themselves with some group interest. The abolition, temperance, and the right-to-life movements, for example, connected themselves with religious tenets. The environmental movement, on the other hand, has struggled to foster group identity and solidarity. Because the initiation and diffusion of new cultural values are so dependent on group solidarity, Rochon reasons that solidarity should be assessed as part of evaluating movement “success.” Rather than focusing on specific manifestations of movement mobilization (such as measuring turn-out at protest demonstrations), scholars should investigate whether and to what extent a movement is able to surmount “the disincentives of the individualist calculus against collective action” (129).

Chapter 5 continues the discussion of movement solidarity as a mechanism for broader social and cultural change. In addition to explaining how movements help participants acquire skill sets and a network of associations, Rochon describes the “ripples and tides” of cultural change that emanate from activism. Using the southern civil rights movement as an example, he argues that movement activists are likely to develop and sustain a high degree of political engagement. Similarly, a study of student protesters from the late 1960s and early 1970s shows that even slight movement experience affected participants’ later political interest, attitudes, and inclinations toward activism. The chapter also discusses the impact of movement activity on family members and other non-activist observers. These “ripple effects” include a continuing lack of political trust. More distant ripple effects of movement activity are examined using data from African Americans before, during, and after the southern civil rights movement. Data showing the influence of racial consciousness on political attitudes and participation suggest that the civil rights movement engendered long-term changes in voting behavior and feelings of political efficacy. The chapter concludes with an analysis of how movement strategists can optimize their impact on movement participants: keep the cost of entry low and encourage “both the desire and the capacity for more demanding forms of involvement” (158) which may well continue beyond the individual’s career with the movement.

The next three chapters make up the book’s third and final part, “Social and Political Structures.” Chapter 6 (“Diffusion of Change in Society”) describes the conditions that have facilitated the formation and influence of movements in the United States. Its discussion of cultural values, societal niches, and media routines that support cultural change is enriched by examples from nineteenth- and twentieth-century movements and by findings from a host of scholarly studies. Communication scholars will find Rochon’s discussion of agenda setting, agenda building, and continuing media coverage particularly useful. Rather than providing a movement-centered account as Todd Gitlin has done, Rochon identifies the complex system of relationships and routines that shape media coverage and treatment of new and controversial ideas. When discussing agenda building, for example, he suggests that the “balance norm” of journalism can help in the diffusion of change if a controversy extends beyond government circles to the social arena. “If there is public protest in the matter,” he writes, “then the balance norm is likely to send journalists beyond governmental circles to find commentary and explanation. The most likely beneficiaries of this decision are not leaders of the movement . . . but rather leaders of the critical community” (182). The ensuing discussion of how such “experts” are chosen and used lends new insight into the role of expertise in cultural change, even as it invites closer scrutiny into the choice and “credentialing” of critical “experts.”

In another useful section, Rochon shows how “chronic” or “acute” modes of coverage can affect the media’s treatment of controversial or changing values, and suggests how change agents might best utilize these routines. The strongest part of chapter 6, however, is Rochon’s analysis of what “cultural acceptance” of new values means: critical communities and movements must lose “exclusive ownership” of an issue. Rochon cites sexual harassment and the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings as a case-in-point. Acknowledging feminists’ criticism of the use of “non-feminist” commentary on behalf of Hill’s position, Rochon argues that it was precisely the broadening of “expertise” on the subject of sexual harassment that indicated the successful creation of a new cultural value. Critical communities will often find reason to dispute the terms and consequences of the newly accepted values, but that fact should not deflect attention from the realities of cultural change. In focusing on the conditions that facilitate and that follow from value change, Culture Moves provides a practical counterpoint to ideologically oriented scholarship that critiques media coverage and programming on the basis of what it fails to “get right.” However flawed from an ideological perspective, news, commentary, and entertainment are important contributors to and measures of cultural change, and should be recognized as such.

Having examined “societal opportunity structures” in chapter 6, Rochon turns to political arrangements that encourage or inhibit critical communities and movements. Chapter 7 (“Political and Social Alliances”) draws on recent movement scholarship on alignments between movements, institutions, and government. Three dimensions of “political opportunity” are examined. Institutional pluralism refers to the number of decision-making channels that exist within governing bodies; the more channels there are, the more likely it is that a movement can find one whose “demands fit [its] resource profile” (203). Institutional porousness refers to “the potential for a movement organization to become part of the decision-making system” (205). Political alliance opportunities refer to the willingness of political elites to align with a movement and thereby legitimate and advance its cause. Rochon’s analysis of political opportunity points up the rich possibilities of examining cultural change in the United States through the combined lenses of “political communication” and “movement studies,” for as he makes clear, the “exceptional flexibility of political alliances in American politics” creates unique opportunities for social movements (208). The remainder of the chapter explains how movement strategies take shape depending on a movement’s resources (resourceful or resourceless) and goal orientation (social or political). Rochon distinguishes four major strategies (Campaigns, Causes, Confrontations, and Critiques) but acknowledges that, “a social and political movement is a multifaceted phenomenon that is likely to employ all possible strategies at one time or another” (213). The chapter illustrates how the strategies have appeared in different circumstances, combinations, and sequences and how successful they have been in influencing social and political outcomes.

In the final chapter (“Advancing Our Understanding of Cultural Change), Rochon draws together the major themes and tensions that were raised in the course of the book and reiterates the advantages of identifying critical communities and movements as key influences in cultural change. Of particular interest in this chapter is his attempt to historicize the process of social and political change in the United States. Rochon’s description of the alterations that have taken place in American political and organizational life in the latter part of the twentieth century point up the importance networking and affiliation will have in future change efforts.

Culture Moves may convince social scientists who have not yet done so to recognize the importance of ideas and values in social change. Movement scholars who already embrace such a view will find Rochon’s broad synthesis of the literature accessible and enriching. An interesting mix of examples and a diverse set of data-points (including polling, surveys, focus groups, and content analysis) add to the book’s scholarly integrity and vitality, and bolster its argument for studying social change as an impetus for and consequence of critical communities and movements. Rhetorical scholars who wish to move beyond the situational and structural paradigms that grew out of the study of agonistic social movements will find Culture Moves a useful resource. Although it does not analyze public discourse to the extent that one might expect (given Rochon’s definition of value change), Culture Moves provides an excellent reference for communication scholars who want to investigate more thoroughly the relationship between public discourse, movements, and cultural change.