So what makes a protest successful? At first thought, I concluded that a protest must lead to change in order to be successful or effective. I also thought in order to be effective there should be many people involved.Is this always true? Well, many protests especially violent protest (such as the riots in Watts, California), do lead to change but it is not necessarily a positive change. I think destroying buildings is a successful way to draw attention to a matter, but it may prohibit people from seeing the true issue. In other words, the observers may be more focused on the form of protest instead of the reason for the protest. Sure there were a lot of people involved and yes they has a significant impact on the community, but none of that was positive.
This is why non violent protests have proven to provide more positive results. For example, sit ins of the 20th century, which were often dangerous but remained effective. The civil disobedience route tends to draw more attention to the matter at hand and less attention to the way the protesters are portraying the message. I think this is what constitutes a successful protest. It is a protest that clearly sends a message in the most civil way possible, so that the focus is on the reason of protest.
3 comments:
I agree with your view that non-violent protests in the long run are much more effective. I liked that you pointed out the fact that when protests become violent the focus of the media and the people you are protesting against will become blind to what is wrong and just see the acts of destruction. With violent protests the media will focus on the people who have died, buildings that have been destroyed and not focus on the cause at stake. I think this was a good prospective to take and protests.
Reading your post was really enlightening to me, as I never thought about the violence involved in protesting. I believe I agree with your view that violent acts of protest can have a negative impact on a society and that to protest nonviolently would probably be more ideal.
I agree that it is important that you point out how the *way* a group chooses to protest does not always help it further its cause (i.e. riots might hurt a group's credibility more than it helps). So, attention is not always a good thing. Which leads us to ask, what makes a form of protest more effective with its audience?
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