How Effective Are Protests at Shifting Public Discourse?

• In Event: Media-Based Drivers and Consequences of Protests

Abstract

A large literature recognises that shaping public discourse is a key outcome of protest and that disruptive tactics may help amplify protesters’ claims through the media. Yet, by elevating the salience of their issue, protests might not only amplify their own claims, but also boost attention given to rival claims. Previous research has tended to focus on issue salience as the key discursive outcome of protest, rarely distinguishing between claims that are aligned with or opposed to the protesters. Do protests succeed at amplifying protesters’ own claims relative to their opponents’ claims? Does this depend on protesters’ choice of disruptive versus non-disruptive tactics? To answer these questions, I develop a new method for measuring the discursive success of protests that can be scaled for a large-N study. I systematically mine Twitter data to identify canonical claims in the discourse and measure their alignment with active protest groups. I then measure the visibility of these claims in the media and model the effectiveness of disruptive and non-disruptive protest in amplifying aligned claims. This paper applies this method to a large sample of protests in the UK between 2010 and 2020. The findings provide insight into the conditions under which protests succeed in shifting public discourse, as well as the tactical trade offs that activists face.

Author

• Michael Jacobs, University College London