If someone has the ability to engage in an act of civil disobedience that will raise attention about climate change and sound the alarm, as it were, and if that act is relatively harmless, then we might as well go for it... because it certainly beats the alternative of doing nothing, or engaging in acts that will garner rather little attention or media coverage.
To be sure, you've certainly given us a lot to think about, and you've done a good job of highlighting points that would suggest that there was a lot more calculation and consideration behind this act than we may have first believed.
Disruptive protest can definitely be effective…when what your protesting against is somehow linked to your protest. Defacing art seems completely disconnected from Just Stop Oil’s concern.
"[T]he most common take seems to be “Don’t these people know how social change works?? Disruptive protest is not the answer and this is not how you win people over!!”"
I'm not sure if it's our respective social bubbles, but from my brief twitter binge on the issue, the more common takes in my bubble were: "This girl is obnoxious, posh, and has pink-hair" and "Does she want less oil or cheaper oil?".
I agree with your general points about disruptive protest (for a few specific causes/ geographies at least), so I'm not disagreeing with your thesis. But I would assume that the Sunflowers stunt was counterproductive, because of poor optics and messaging. It didn't actually seem very disruptive (annoying museum goers and eroding a little bit of social trust), and caught loads of headlines, so it intuitively seems to have been a good disruption-headline ratio, but I'm sure that they misfired on the execution.
With the optics, surely there are sensible norms about the kind of people you want headlines about. I doubt the combination of a privately educated accent and an 'extreme activist' look (pink hair, piercings) performs well with any demographic.
The message is the worst issue, though. Her headline claim: "fuel is unaffordable to millions of cold, hungry families... they can't even afford to heat a can of tomato soup" is ambiguous at best, a massive own goal at worst. I genuinely find this a good argument that we need more, cheaper, and locally-exploited fossil fuels for fuel poverty/ energy security reasons. It's called Just Stop Oil, but nothing about stopping gas there, so let's restart fracking projects in Lancashire ASAP! That was her argument... right?
As far as I recall, Insulate Britain had way better optics and messaging. Their protests were genuinely disruptive and annoying, but I also think they had an excellent clear message and protestors seemed way more down-to-earth. My takeaway from videos of Insulate Britain protests was very normal-seeming old blokes being abused by road-rage motorists. It's a simple, largely uncontroversial message that makes me think of both my mum's drafty home/ rising energy bills, and climate issues. With Just Stop Oil, I have no positive associations from the recent wave of protests.
Epistemic Status Warning- Of course, this is mainly from my gut reactions and a twitter binge. I'd be a bit concerned that your data collection methods wouldn't pick up which particular protests harmed and supported the movement, because many different types of protests tend to be bunched together in a particular time period, but I would be persuaded my more fine-grained data. It might even be the case that the seemingly bad optics and messaging create more debate and more headlines.
"0/10 for theory of change"—haha. That is bold indeed!
Thanks for doing this research, James. It's extremely important to look at the evidence, since we as humans have a strong bias against socially disruptive actions. (Or certain types of disruptive actions, at least.)
I think the real reason why there's such a backlash is simply related to the general fact of our dislike for confrontational methods of change. As one of my friends and fellow animal advocates put it one time: "Even if disruptive tactics turned out to be the most effective, I still wouldn't do them." Reminds me of the Washington Post article from years back: "Americans don't like protests. But protests may work anyway."
Most of the time, it's a gut reaction dislike for the tactics, rather than a strategic analysis of the evidence.
Good to know about those researches. However, I guess we're missing the point if we only talk about violent/disruptive acts per se, while avoiding the target of those acts. The guys from Van Gogh said: "Life or Art!" - or it was Food or Art, I can't remember. Anyway, I think that is a stupid choice, since art can means life (or food) for many people. Actually, life and art was pretty intricate and significant for painters like Van Gogh himself, and for a whole generation of artists from past centuries. I mean, would bombing the Coliseum or sabotate an oil plant be the same thing just for the sake of hard protesting?
Thanks for this, an excellent article. So the radical flank effect can help increase support for more moderate groups but is it also possible that they could also increase support for those groups who are opposed? Has this been investigated?
Okay... I think I see your point.
If someone has the ability to engage in an act of civil disobedience that will raise attention about climate change and sound the alarm, as it were, and if that act is relatively harmless, then we might as well go for it... because it certainly beats the alternative of doing nothing, or engaging in acts that will garner rather little attention or media coverage.
To be sure, you've certainly given us a lot to think about, and you've done a good job of highlighting points that would suggest that there was a lot more calculation and consideration behind this act than we may have first believed.
Very nicely written and explained Baran :)
Job very well done
Disruptive protest can definitely be effective…when what your protesting against is somehow linked to your protest. Defacing art seems completely disconnected from Just Stop Oil’s concern.
"[T]he most common take seems to be “Don’t these people know how social change works?? Disruptive protest is not the answer and this is not how you win people over!!”"
I'm not sure if it's our respective social bubbles, but from my brief twitter binge on the issue, the more common takes in my bubble were: "This girl is obnoxious, posh, and has pink-hair" and "Does she want less oil or cheaper oil?".
I agree with your general points about disruptive protest (for a few specific causes/ geographies at least), so I'm not disagreeing with your thesis. But I would assume that the Sunflowers stunt was counterproductive, because of poor optics and messaging. It didn't actually seem very disruptive (annoying museum goers and eroding a little bit of social trust), and caught loads of headlines, so it intuitively seems to have been a good disruption-headline ratio, but I'm sure that they misfired on the execution.
With the optics, surely there are sensible norms about the kind of people you want headlines about. I doubt the combination of a privately educated accent and an 'extreme activist' look (pink hair, piercings) performs well with any demographic.
The message is the worst issue, though. Her headline claim: "fuel is unaffordable to millions of cold, hungry families... they can't even afford to heat a can of tomato soup" is ambiguous at best, a massive own goal at worst. I genuinely find this a good argument that we need more, cheaper, and locally-exploited fossil fuels for fuel poverty/ energy security reasons. It's called Just Stop Oil, but nothing about stopping gas there, so let's restart fracking projects in Lancashire ASAP! That was her argument... right?
As far as I recall, Insulate Britain had way better optics and messaging. Their protests were genuinely disruptive and annoying, but I also think they had an excellent clear message and protestors seemed way more down-to-earth. My takeaway from videos of Insulate Britain protests was very normal-seeming old blokes being abused by road-rage motorists. It's a simple, largely uncontroversial message that makes me think of both my mum's drafty home/ rising energy bills, and climate issues. With Just Stop Oil, I have no positive associations from the recent wave of protests.
Epistemic Status Warning- Of course, this is mainly from my gut reactions and a twitter binge. I'd be a bit concerned that your data collection methods wouldn't pick up which particular protests harmed and supported the movement, because many different types of protests tend to be bunched together in a particular time period, but I would be persuaded my more fine-grained data. It might even be the case that the seemingly bad optics and messaging create more debate and more headlines.
"0/10 for theory of change"—haha. That is bold indeed!
Thanks for doing this research, James. It's extremely important to look at the evidence, since we as humans have a strong bias against socially disruptive actions. (Or certain types of disruptive actions, at least.)
I think the real reason why there's such a backlash is simply related to the general fact of our dislike for confrontational methods of change. As one of my friends and fellow animal advocates put it one time: "Even if disruptive tactics turned out to be the most effective, I still wouldn't do them." Reminds me of the Washington Post article from years back: "Americans don't like protests. But protests may work anyway."
Most of the time, it's a gut reaction dislike for the tactics, rather than a strategic analysis of the evidence.
Your research is extremely important. Carry on!
Steven Rouk
Connect For Animals
Good to know about those researches. However, I guess we're missing the point if we only talk about violent/disruptive acts per se, while avoiding the target of those acts. The guys from Van Gogh said: "Life or Art!" - or it was Food or Art, I can't remember. Anyway, I think that is a stupid choice, since art can means life (or food) for many people. Actually, life and art was pretty intricate and significant for painters like Van Gogh himself, and for a whole generation of artists from past centuries. I mean, would bombing the Coliseum or sabotate an oil plant be the same thing just for the sake of hard protesting?
Thanks for this, an excellent article. So the radical flank effect can help increase support for more moderate groups but is it also possible that they could also increase support for those groups who are opposed? Has this been investigated?