Social movement forms a platform where ordinary people make collective claims on others. So it is better to call it a mass movement. Mass movement is an organized effort by a large number of people, especially those not forming part of the elite of a given society, to bring about pervasive changes in existing social, economic, or political institutions, frequently characterized by charismatic leadership. A mass movement denotes a political party or movement which is supported by large segments of a population who share a set of beliefs. Political movements that typically advocate the creation of a mass movement include the ideologies of communism and fascism. Both communists and fascists typically support the creation of mass movements as a means to overthrow a government and create their own government, the mass movement then being used afterwards to protect the government from being overthrown …show more content…
Most of the oldest recognized movements, dating to late 18th and 19th centuries, fought for specific social groups, such as the working class, peasants, whites, aristocrats, Protestants etc. They were usually centered on some materialistic goals like improving the standard of living or, for example, the political autonomy of the working class. But movements which became dominant from the second half of the 20th century are known as new social movements, such as, feminist movement, pro-choice movement, civil rights movement, environmental movement, free software movement, gay rights movement, anti nuclear movement etc. The focus of this paper is on the old