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I'm seeking research on the effectiveness of protest marches as compared to other, possibly more modern forms of activism.

I feel like somewhere there must be a study that effectively says "10000 people on a protest march was, you know, okay, but 1000 people spending all day contacting their elected representatives had a much bigger effect".

I suspect that question generalises to "If I have 10000 randomly assigned volunteers and a day, what's the best way to have them make a political change?"

Joe
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    I think this is too broad as it depends of the grade of commitment of your volunteers, which may range from "spend some hours in a street and then go home (but only if the weather is fair and it is easy to find a parking place and there is no need to walk too much and there is nothing worth on TV and...)" to "assault the Winter Palace" or "publicly burn themselves bonzo style" – SJuan76 Sep 24 '16 at 17:00
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    And of course, commitment of your volunteers and how much pressure you need to get the issue decided your way will depend greatly what is the issue at hand, collecting signatures is probably enough to to ask for a street be named after your favorite comic hero, a protest march may be most effective against a new tax and if you are trying to depose a dictatorial government or fight a coup d'état you will probably need armed people. – SJuan76 Sep 24 '16 at 17:08
  • Marches are about awareness. Not sure that's all that easily to measure. –  Sep 24 '16 at 23:21
  • I have no idea how anyone could measure this. There are just too many variables. But I will not yet give up hope that someone proves me wrong. – Philipp Sep 25 '16 at 03:07
  • @Joe - Can you define what "effective" means? There is a lot of literature out there on things like protests, but I would want to know what outcome you want to optimize. – indigochild Sep 26 '16 at 19:28

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