To early scholars, collective action was inherently oriented
towards change. Some of the earliest works on social movements
were attempts to understand why people got caught up in
collective action or what conditions were necessary to foment
social movements. These works were rooted in theories of mass
society. Mass society theory was concerned with the increasing
industrialization of society, which many felt led to a sense of
alienation among individuals as traditional social structures and
support networks broke down. The study of social movements
as specific social processes with specific patterns emerged from
this field of study.