*From grist
Do marches convince observers to join a movement, or push them further? Sure, if you go down the street waving a sign that says “There are no Plan Bs", looks like you're doing something good. But some studies have suggested that you are not bringing anyone closer to your cause; indeed, loud public outcry can easily do harm.
"Unfortunately, the very nature of activism leads to negative stereotypes," write the authors A STUDY of 2013. Calling "there is no blood for oil" or putting fake blood on fur coatst you "associate with hostile militancy and the unconventional or the strange". So, uh, not helpful at all in building a mass movement.
But now there is good news for the protesters – at least the pro-environment ones. A new study published in the journal Frontiers in Education found that climate change marches can not only increase the popularity of activists, but also encourage observers to think that we can all work together to solve the global crisis.
The researchers asked about 600 "observers" before and after the March for Science and the People's Climate March, which took place a week apart in 2017. Study participants did not participate in the marches, but many did. had heard about them through the media.
After the marches, people of different political persuasions saw the protesters as "less arrogant, less gloomy and less weird," he said. Janet Swim, study author and professor of psychology at Penn State.
To understand the role that liberal and conservative media have played in swaying opinion, participants were also asked where they got their news. As you might suspect, those who heard about the marches from liberal media sources saw the marchers in a more favorable light.
That may have happened because people who followed conservative news simply didn't know about the march before it happened, Swim said. And what better way to convince someone that we can collectively work on climate change than to show a giant group of people … coming together to protest the climate crisis.
Marches encourage the building of our tendency to follow the crowd. "The more people involved, the more relevant your message tends to seem," says Swim.
And that sense of importance can help spur action. Marches have two main goals: inspiring other people to join your movement and getting the government to act.
So why did previous studies suggest that protests were unhelpful in persuading the general public? Swim said that may be because these studies "looked at more aggressive protests." In contrast, observers might have been more sympathetic to the marchers in 2017 because many of the participants were not necessarily activists. The strategy behind the People's Climate March, above all, was to expand the movement beyond ordinary people. Less Sierra Club or 350.org, more pastors and labor unions.
"If you were an observer in 2017, if you saw the march, you would see people of faith, unions, people of color and communities on the front lines," said Paul Getsos, national director of the People's Climate Movement and lead organizer of the march in 2017. "It wasn't your typical kind of activist march."
This kind of mass mobilization "defeats the narrative that nobody cares about climate change," he said. "If we mobilized only the usual base of activists, it is a fact that it would not have the same impact."
But does the impact last? Many worry that the protests risk being one-off events and failing to inspire a lasting political moment. Consider this passage that Michael White wrote about “The Guardian” before the women's march in 2017: “Without a clear path from the march to power, the protest is destined to be an ineffective spectacle adorned with pink hats.”
"To anyone who attended the event, the claim that it was an amateur hat party, undertaken under casual conditions, was madness," writes Rebecca Traister in The Good and the Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Rage. She argues that thousands of women participated in political training after the march, learning how to run for office or fight for better health care.
Similarly, the week following the 2017 People's Climate March was filled with lessons, training, fundraising and lobbying sessions. This march in particular, which focused on climate change in terms of jobs and economic investment, helped lay the groundwork for the Green New Deal, according to Getso. "It strengthened the resolve of environmental bodies, unions and communities to learn how to work together," he said.
To be sure, the last strike of "Youth Climate,” in which hundreds of thousands of students walked out of class to protest government inaction on climate change, has been met with patronizing behavior. For example, British Prime Minister Theresa May tha that the interruption "increases teachers' workloads and wastes teaching time".
Isabella Johnson, Lead Organizer for Illinois Together with Youth Strike told the "Chicago Tribune" that some of her classmates had questioned her activism, either because they didn't think climate change was important or because they were skeptical that the protest could bring about a change.
"Sometimes, it just shows that they feel threatened, and it shows that they're paying attention to what we're doing," Johnson said. "The fact that they are concerned shows that they are listening to what I am saying and it brings the issue to their mind."
*Citizens Channel /EN/
