Factors Shaping Public Opinion on Social Movements during Political Instability: A Case Study on Black Lives Matter (BLM) -

The research discusses the various demographic and nondemographic factors mobilizing public opinion in favor of social movements represented by the mass movement of Black Lives Matter (BLM) during political transitions.It aims at answering the question of how social movements can gain the support of public based on the examination of demographic and non-demographic factors.The hypothesis is that social movements acquire power from demographic factors such as race, gender and political identification in addition to non-demographic factors represented by social media, mass media, and technology.The research would focus on the American public opinion using the survey findings from Roper iPoll which indicates a significant relation between BLM, political identification, gender, race and use of information technology in validating social movements.The study concludes that public support for BLM is prejudged by demographic factors including race and political identification more than factual information transmitted by information technology as a non-demographic factor.