Als Ice Bullet Challenge Durkheim

In the following essay, I have chosen to use Emile Durkheim’s body of theory on the understanding rituals to make a sociological analysis of the social media marketing campaign, known as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, seen on the social media site Facebook. Both aspects will be compared throughout the essay, addressing both the question of the extent to which the challenge is a ritual, and whether its context alters this. Emile Durkheim’s original book the Division of Labour in Society (1893), states how two very different forms of solidarity, mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity, are the basis of how social order appears to be maintained within the different societies.
Within Durkheim’s book he describes how he believed there was

These guidelines consequently caused a ‘common gesture’ to be shared amongst those who participated, to which can be linked to as a similarity to those of Durkheim’s understandings of rituals (Anon 2012). The way in which all the individual challenges were done in order to raise awareness and money for the same charity, the way in which all the challenges were filmed and the way in which all nominees made three further nominations after every challenge could be considered the common gestures found within a

Both contexts show how, in order for the ritual to be achieved, similar aspects need to be made and followed. For example, in traditional societies, it was the similarities between the people that held the population together, with them sharing the same daily routine in the same places with the same people, with similar beliefs (Durkheim 1893). Similarly with the ALS challenge, it was also the similarities that held the challenge together. The people taking part were sharing the same experience, in the same way, and place on Facebook, with people who had the similar