Public protest is a long-established form of social action. It’s used to great effect by many and diverse groups to inspire and drive change. But what makes a protest effective?
The climate movement has used protest frequently throughout its development, sometimes successfully and sometimes less so. In recent months we have seen instances here in the UK where environmental protesters have tried to raise awareness of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. Their tactics were very different and the results varied, providing an interesting set of case studies to explore the question of what makes a protest successful.
On 19 June, Just Oil protestors sprayed orange, corn-based, powdered paint on Stonehenge just before summer solstice celebrations at the revered 5,000 year-old landmark. The activists’ goal was to persuade the UK government to stop the extraction and burning of fossil fuels by 2030. This message, however, was lost amidst widespread outrage from political leaders and the general public.
Later in the month, the Restore Nature Now march, organised by a coalition of the biggest UK nature associations and supported by hundreds of others, drew over 100,000 people to Parliament Square in London to request more action to halt the destruction of nature. The protest was peaceful, but despite a high turn-out and the clout of prominent organisers, there was little media coverage. The BBC, for example, chose not to feature it on their main national broadcast channels.
At Wimbledon in July, the anonymous art collective Brandalism took over more than 300 adverts on tubes, stations, commercial billboards and bus shelters with art highlighting Barclays’ role as Europe’s biggest investor in fossil fuel extraction: a whopping £186 billion since 2016. The goal of Brandalism and multiple other groups targeting Wimbledon was to persuade the tournament to drop the bank’s sponsorship. While this protest was covered in the usual media channels, it was not talked about nearly as much as the more disruptive actions.
We might conclude from these examples that there is a strong relationship between the disruption caused by a protest and the public and media awareness it generates. Does that mean disruptive protests are more effective? A study by YouGov suggests that the answer is no. The general public appears to believe that such protests hinder more than they help their causes.
Yet a poll of 120 experts on social sciences carried out by Apollo for The Social Lab reached the opposite conclusion. These experts place ‘the strategic use of nonviolent disruptive tactics’ as the top element of an effective protest, ahead of other things like focusing on gaining media coverage or having ambitious goals. They explain that disruptiveness can initially anger people but can, in the longer run, be more effective in reaching goals. There is, however, one important caveat: only movements that already have high public awareness and support will normally reap the benefits of this tactic.
As one of the study’s respondents explains, ‘Whether we like it or not, the history of social change is also a history of political contestation and disruption. Disruption of everyday life is often the best way to receive media attention, generate visibility for a cause and above all to push political and economic elites to compromise and accept change, if only to protect their own interests.’
It’s frequently difficult to draw cause-and-effect links between activist protests and changes in policy or business practices, or, indeed, to judge what tactics work best. What we do know is that only by making room for diverse forms of protest can we create real change in society.
