ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about the relation of social movements to social change and about how different frameworks for studying movements have different implications in history. It discusses two perspectives, the linear and the fluid and argues that the latter has not been sufficiently used in sociology and that its adoption will help in studying some phenomena of change better than the former. Sociologists have often recognized the large ambits within which particular organized movements occur. Blumer, in his classic paper, distinguished between general and specific movements and referred to "cultural drifts", such as the Labor Movement or the Women's Movement, which constitute the background for general movements. The fluid conception of movements is especially important in understanding the contemporary society and the ways in which change occurs as a consequence of movements. The chapter describes the role of the mass media in the construction of movements and the occurrence of movements of self-transformation and interpersonal relations.
