Climate change protest: a single radical gets more media coverage than thousands of marchers
Yet recently in the UK that statement is being challenged by disruptive environmental protesters unexpectedly gatecrashing live sporting broadcasts.
- Yet recently in the UK that statement is being challenged by disruptive environmental protesters unexpectedly gatecrashing live sporting broadcasts.
- At the end of April, live on ITV the animal rights protesters Animal Rising delayed the country’s biggest horse race, the Grand National, by 15 minutes.
- From April 21 to 24, Extinction Rebellion (XR) held four days of peaceful protest in central London attracting an estimated 60,000 people.
- Certainly if the idea was to attract more or better headlines, the results seem underwhelming.
The media was already unsympathetic
- Even before the Big One had started, right-wing press coverage was already unsympathetic.
- Plus journalists claimed there was a good chance that the London Marathon would be targeted.
- The MailOnline ran one positive article but alongside a negative piece warning that coachloads of “grinning eco zealots” planned to closedown London.
- The Channel 4 reporter’s summation was that The Big One was a cross between a music festival and a village fete.
Disruptive protest attracts attention
- Across the weekend, the #TheBigOne hashtag was dominated by XR protesters arguing that disruptive protest is reported but non-disruptive is not.
- Academic research backs this up, showing a clear imbalance in the media coverage of disruptive and non-disruptive protest.
- My own ongoing research on younger climate activists suggests they won’t be put off as within XR they are able to decide what protest they will and will not participate in.