Assignment 3, Text Based

Emotions are a key feature of social life. Emotions are a human element that affects personal feelings as well as interactions on an interpersonal societal level. Social Movement Organizations are part of a societal process… and hopefully run by humans so emotions are a critical part of SMOs and also critical to their functionality. In the context of Globalization SMO organizers seek to capitalize on emotions that are beneficial to the organization and downplay those that would be considered bad, as explained by Jasper in “Emotions of Protest.” Jasper classifies emotions into two separate categories one called “primary affective” meaning these are the ones that are in line with the basic ideals of the SMO. There are also the “primary reactive” emotions which are brought on by outside influences.

Basic human rights are a key point of contention in the Globalization debate. Interestingly enough human rights are a basic foundation of the movement and they also serve as a means to excite reactive emotions as well on a case by case basis. As jobs and investment are moved overseas to lesser developed countries working conditions (largely) become worse and workers are compensated far less than workers who would have produced the same product domestically. This creates outrage among many activists who are fighting against the global economic machine. Going hand-in-hand with the outrage is compassion for the workers who are negatively affected by globalization. The basic ideal is that all workers should be guaranteed a basic set of human rights. However when a case of extreme rights violation is brought to international attention by watchdog groups reactive emotions take control and likely spur swift and immediate action.

Nationalism and patriotism also factor into the overall anti-globalization movement. Given a choice most people want their money to stay in their home country and help the domestic economy. They feel a deep loyalty to their nation and feel that it is part of their civic duty to help preserve that solidarity. These ideals are almost exclusively primary affective emotions. They are relatively unaffected and unchanged by events, with the exception of something as catastrophic as 9/11. After 9/11 the Unites States as a whole saw a great resurgence of patriotism but like most reactive aspects of emotions that sentiment faded.

Using these emotions to an organization’s advantage is key to executing and sustaining an effective movement. Globalization emotions are quite public as whole, referring once again to publications like Ad Busters and internet resources. With the exception of some extremists groups like Greenpeace and other organizations who participate in forms of Eco/economic terrorism and sabotage most anti-globalization SMOs do not rely on sensationalism but rather on information and education. For example in visiting CorpWatch’s website today all of the key cover stories are written in informed articles which serve to call attention to the issue rather than sensationalism it as “evil.” This face of informed and educated is used as a tool to recruit people into the SMO give a means of perpetuating the movement and its ideals.

As stated previously there seems to be no insidious hidden emotional agenda behind these SMOs, they are quite matter-of-fact in their operation and execution. On a tactical level Ad Busters uses tools like their shoe campaign which I have mentioned in earlier posts to call attention to an issue in that matter-of-fact manner. They outline all expenses and practices employed in manufacturing these shoes in order to show what a true living wage is. Actions like these are able to bring out primary reactive emotions like shame and indignation, even amongst seasoned activists at the decisions they have made on how and where to spend their dollar.

This type of “emotional marketing” works in the sense of the anti-globalization movement since the demographic that is largely trying to be reached are the “educated majority” which as I stated in previous posts are sadly a homogenous group of college educated white folks. These are usually the type of people who do not easily buy into sensationalism and marketing of that sort. They would likely tend to discount that sensationalism as absurdity and fail to recognize the SMO or perhaps even the ideal behind it as legitimate. They are much more apt to information digestion, followed by synthesis of that information and then making informed decisions based on their conclusions.

So essentially, the anti-globalization movement is composed of a strong primary affective ideal base and feeds off of emotions generated by primary reactive sentiments to sustain its efforts by providing non-sensational informed threads which feed public and organizational knowledge.