The Effectiveness of Planning, Organisation and Leadership in Protest

Jade Chow 414001685

FOUN 1002 English for Academic Purposes (Section 9)

Carolyn Walkes

11th of February 2016

Draft 1: The Effectiveness of Planning, Organization and Leadership in Protest

In this essay, it will discuss the effectiveness of planning, leadership and organization within a campaign in order to achieve a successful protest. Moreover, it will give reference from various points of the discussion “Online Social Change: easy to organize, hard to win” presented by Zeynep Tufecki, in order to support the claim.

Protest can be defined as a statement or action in which expresses disapproval of or an objection to something and comes in many forms such as boycotts, petitions, strikes, riots and protest marches. Throughout history, it can be conveyed that protests are quite effective when one seeks change within society.

In order for a protest to be successful, there must be a plan, as well as organization and some form of leadership even in such a technologically based society. It can be often said that today’s protestors rely too much on social media and dismiss the importance of such factors and this is why it fails and injustice remains. For example, the protest “Occupy” which Tufecki addresses, she states that, ‘three years after Occupy sparked the global conversation about inequality that policies that fuelled it are still in place.’ Vast amount of persons participated, it was covered by mass media and featured all over social websites, but it was still unsuccessful because it lacked the three fundamentals, planning, organization and leadership.

On the other hand, protests such as the Civil Rights Movement and Boston Tea Party employed the skills needed for a successful protest and this was done over a period of years, they set up meetings and worked together to make decisions and this is why it was effective; not straying from the fact that social media isn’t of great assistance in present times or that the length of time determines its...