Examining Plogging in South Korea as a New Social Movement: From the Perspective of Claus Offe’s New Social Movement Theory

Abstract

This study examines plogging as an environmental movement, using Claus Offe’s new social movement theory to critically analyze why its value as an environmental movement has not been recognized in Korean society. Four rounds of in-depth interviews and narrative analysis were conducted between 2 October and 28 December 2022, which involved eight individuals who participated in and organized the plogging movement. The results revealed three reasons for plogging’s failure to be appreciated by Korean society as an environmental movement: (1) the plogging movement overlaps with existing social movements; (2) the generational gap related to plogging movement participants stemming from the “new middle class”; and (3) conglomerates using the plogging movement as a marketing tool. The plogging movement has value as a new proactive, social movement for environmental protection that centers on people’s participation. However, long-standing ideological and structural issues embedded in Korean society hinder the recognition of plogging’s value.

‘Simply Make a Change’—Individual Commitment as a Stepping Stone for Sustainable Behaviors

“…Behaviors such as vegan nutrition, plastic-free shopping, and plogging were frequently chosen. They reflect the zeitgeist and are currently popular in Germany and elsewhere, especially among younger people [47,48,57]. However, these were also the behaviors that were perceived as rather difficult to perform.…”

“…This result is in line with the theory of planned behavior [23], which implies that individuals are more likely to behave in a certain manner if the behavior is beneficial to them. In Korea, where plogging is trendy among people aged 20 to 40, it is always carried out by larger groups and seen as a community event [48]. This gives participants the feeling that they are not fighting for environmental protection alone, but are part of a larger movement.…”

“…Nevertheless, even without the exchange in a fixed commitment group, as in [18,20], participants felt empowered to make changes. However, in future self-commitments, social media could be used, as in [48], to connect at least those participants who would like to have more exchange in a group.…”

“…Research on commitment approaches has often looked at energy saving (e.g., [20,41,42,45]), and car-free mobility [22,46]. The present study included behaviors, which have recently received considerable attention in Germany, especially among younger people, such as plastic-free shopping, vegan nutrition and plogging, i.e., a combination of waste collection and jogging [37,47,48]. Moreover, while previous research has often focused on one behavior, we were interested in the evaluation of different behaviors with different degrees of execution difficulty, e.g., energy saving (easy) versus vegan nutrition (difficult).…”

Brain mechanisms discriminating enactive mental simulations of running and plogging

“…Moreover, while this study aimed to adopt an enactive approach of the mental simulation of plogging, it still only provides a limited understanding of this form of physical exercise. Indeed, recent studies showed that the practice of plogging increases proenvironmental awareness and attitudes, and serves also as a prosocial behavior that bolsters relationships (Kim et al, 2023;Lee & Choi, 2023;Martínez-Mirambell et al, 2023a,b). This dynamic should offer promising perspectives for studies investigating how the human mind processes pro-environmental physical exercise.…”