Healthy Influence Blog

Read almost any daily news source and you’ll find a protest story.  A small group of dedicated advocates who see a better world than currently exists have taken to the streets to protest the evils in their corner of the world.  Today, the Wall Street Journal takes a look at one particular protester and examines his technique.  The Journal does a good job at finding one person who seems to illustrate the main points of protest persuasion.

The Journal describes Xavier Renous, a world class protest consultant, who not only plans and leads events, but also trains and advises others on the fine points of the art.  He teaches people how to chain themselves to trees, damage genetically modified crops, and withstand police interrogations along with other subtleties like using black text against an orange background for posters (it stands out better on TV).  For example:

I’ll use this story to analyze from a scientific persuasion perspective, the manner and effectiveness of protest persuasion. Consider three large persuasion concepts:  the Communication Cascade, the Persuasion Toolbox, and the Rules.  Briefly, the Cascade holds that a persuasion source must take a persuasion receiver through a series of stages from Reception to Processing to Response before achieving the ultimate goal of Behavior Change.  Failure at any communication stages dooms the attempt.  The Toolbox classifies all persuasion variables into one of three categories:  WATTage, Arguments, and Cues.  The Rules are large guiding principles of effective persuasion in action.

Let’s start with the Cascade.  Overwhelmingly, protest and advocacy groups focus on the Reception stage of the Cascade.  Most of their persuasion moves aim at getting their presence and message in front of the largest audience possible.  Fewer persuasion moves are aimed at Processing, Response, and ultimate Behavior change.  It is as if protest persuaders believe in a communication gravity whereby if you get receivers to Reception then they will inevitably fall through Processing, Response, and voila, Behavior Change.  That’s a pretty metaphor and a more pleasing concept – communication gravity and the free fall from one state to an inexorable other – but there’s no evidence to support it.

Consider now the Persuasion Toolbox.  Overwhelmingly, protest and advocacy groups focus on peripheral route cues with little attention given to WATTage and arguments.  I say this not to deride anyone’s cause, but after a thoughtful consideration of the many different examples of protest persuasion I’ve seen through my life.  Consider the three elements of the Persuasion Toolbox and decide for yourself.  We have WATTage, Arguments (and the Central Route), and Cues (the Peripheral Route).  Think about the protest communication you’ve seen and how you would classify elements into the Toolbox.

The typical language and behavior of protest persuasion is large, extreme, out of range, attention getting, simple, obvious, bright, loud, dynamic, energetic.  What Toolbox element is this:  WATTage, Argument, or Cue?

Such dominant characteristics are rarely key elements of Arguments, those crucial pieces of evidence, reasoning, and thoughtfulness.  How much elaboration can one do with street puppets, a sea of red t-shirts, rhythmic chants, or someone chained to a tree?  Thus, it is difficult to see how most protest persuasion functions as an Argument (information that bears on crucial elements of the persuasion issue).

Further, while these features attract attention, it does not seem to be the kind of attention that moves the WATTage switch from low to high.  An observer seeing protest persuasion (think of a film clip from an event) is not likely to shift processing modes.  Thus, it is hard to see most protest persuasion as something that functions as that mental switch for WATTage.

That pretty much leaves Cues as the default function for most protest persuasion.  All of that large, colorful, and energetic action functions as a simple indicator to the “correct” attitude and thus behavior.  Cues are easy to spot, easy to process, and when well done point to, underline, and boldface the “correct” behavior.  They tend to produce immediate change that rarely lasts past the presentation of the cue.

A simple persuasion analysis of protest persuasion thus points to a receipe for failure.  We see two key points:  1) Focus on Reception with less regard for following Cascade stages and 2) reliance upon persuasion Cues with less regard for producing Central Route change with high WATT processing of strong Arguments and long term change.  This analysis predicts a failed persuasion attempt.

Assessing what is “success” for contemporary protest persuasion is a difficult task.  However, if one uses concrete, observable actions as the criterion, it’s apparent that the agenda of protest persuaders, especially from the “green” orientation, has largely failed over the past 50 years.  Population continues to grow and so does demand and consumption of energy.  One could argue that protest persuasion has slowed that growth, but in the absence of good empirical evidence, a “comparative advantages” argument is really quite a weak criterion.  Besides, protest persuasion does not aim at little changes, but seeks the Big One, baby.

And, finally, consider protest persuasion and the Rules.  Reflect on these two:  1) All bad persuasion is sincere and 2) It’s about the other guy.

At the top of the list of “sincere persuaders” one would have to put protest persuaders.  Talk about people who wear their hearts on their sleeves.  If you are chaining yourself to a tree, no one would ever doubt your sincerity.  Which is large persuasion problem.  Protest persuasion is more often an act of self expression rather than an act of persuasion.

Further, protest persuasion seems to be tone deaf to “the other guy.”  Hey, you’re trying to get other people to change what they are doing.  The world doesn’t change for the better simply because you believe what you believe, but because the other guy starts believing what you believe.

My analysis leads me to conclude that protest persuasion is a lot of protest, but little persuasion.  It is more about self expression than changing the other guy.