Activism and Riots

Activism and rioting has become a huge talking point over the past decade and lots of research has been conducted in this area. Due to this, this topic would make for a great dissertation. To narrow it down, we have provided some examples below:

Example activism and riot dissertation topic 1:

Animal activism – Does the end justify the means?

The desire to protect animals from lab experiments and associated perceptions of cruelty lead a substantial minority of activists within the wider animal protection sector to break the law. This dissertation looks at an array of case studies of such actions and asks, given the benefits that such experiments may lead to, whether achievement of the temporary halting of such experiments by animal extremists makes their actions a worthwhile crime. This dissertation considers the wider ramifications of animal activism, with particular emphasis on the increasing criminalisation of animal activism protest mechanisms, such as has occurred in the United States and Ireland.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Freeman, C.P. (2009) ‘A greater means to the greater good: Ethical guidelines to meet social movement organization advocacy challenges’, Journal of Mass Media Ethics: Exploring Questions of Media Morality, Vol. 24(4), pp. 269-288.
• Yates, R. (2011) ‘Criminalizing protests about animal abuse. Recent Irish experience in global context’, Crime, Law and Social Change, Vol. 55(5), pp. 469-482.