Blog #9

In the textbook, the author provides us with ways in which institutions prevent social movements from achieving its desired change in society. These strategies are referred to as evasion, counter-persuasion, coercive persuasion and adjustment. One of the most prominent of these strategies in preventing a social movement from making a desirable change in society is the strategy of evasion.

The strategy of evasion can be defined as pretending that the existing social movement in motion is actually nonexistent. In this strategy, institutions ignore protestors and the movement in general and hope that in the near future the movement will slowly but surely disappear and become nonexistent in society. Ways in which this strategy is conducted is through the media. The media is the most common way society is informed about what is going on in the world. With this being said, when the media intentionally does not publicize a social movement in the media, society is not exposed to it therefore making it die down and eventually disappear. Furthermore, denying members of a particular social movement with a meeting location lowers the chances of society being exposed to the movement.

One example of a social movement pertaining to evasion is "Occupy Wall Street." This social movement met in Zuccotti Park in attempt to end economic corruption, greed and corruption. Zuccotti Park served as grounds for protestors to pitch tents and tarps to keep the protest in action at all times. As the social movement progressed, the protestors attempted on various attempts to meet back in their original meeting location of Zuccotti Park, but failed miserably when the police put a ban on the meeting location,  leaving protestors without a meeting location. As members of the movement began to disobey the law and camp in the park anyways in protest, hundreds of arrests occurred declining social movement progress. The loss of Zuccotti Park is an example of the evasion strategy, which ultimately puts decline on a social movement and its progress in society.