Get noticed: How to make an impact with your protest sign at climate strike
Credit to Author: Gordon McIntyre| Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2019 00:48:59 +0000
If you’re making a sign to carry at Friday’s climate strike in Vancouver, the experts have some tips.
Bigger is better (without endangering any of your thousands of fellow demonstrators, of course). And make your message punchy and catchy, said Steven Kates, Associate Professor of Marketing at Simon Fraser University.
In fact, Kates came up with something just the other day.
“I thought, ‘what would be a good message to communicate during the protest on Friday?’ and I think a cultural meme, a piece of cultural information that is short, concise and to the point, would be very effective,” he said. “I even thought of one for myself: ‘It’s My Goddamn Planet, Too.’”
Because it’s a protest, there won’t be enough time for people to read your sign and process the information deeply because people are only going to see it for a moment, he said.
“But if they see enough signs over time with the same message, that could result in persuading other people that climate change matters.”
Kates’ colleague, Prof. Judy Zaichkowsky, said personal messages resonate.
Something like: ‘One Person Can Make a Difference,’ or ‘You Can Do It.’
Positive is good, she added. A row of dolphins with Xs for eyes, not so good.
“Nothing dead, people on a subconscious level really don’t want to look at dead things,” she said. “Cuddly animals are always good. ‘Save the Salmon’ with a picture of salmon, polar bears.
“So if we apply that to (climate strike), we want people to believe they can really do something, and we want them to feel good. We want them to think about reuse, recycle, restore.”
As many as 20,000 people are expected to take part in Friday’s protest, beginning at Vancouver City Hall at 1 p.m. followed by a march across the Cambie Bridge to the Vancouver Public Library plaza.
Students at University of B.C. are gathering at 11 a.m. for a rally on campus, then heading to city hall to join the main event via a bike-and-bus convoy.
Elizabeth Hodgson, centre with sign, a professor of English at University of B.C., organized a sign-making party for Friday’s climate strike.
Elizabeth Hodgson, a professor of English at UBC, organized a sign-making party for students, faculty and staff, supplying sharpies, poster-boards and cookies.
Elizabeth Hodgson.
“When word started circulating about three weeks ago we would have climate strike action at UBC, we agreed as a faculty we would let students and staff participate in the strike,” she said. “The dean of arts agreed to that, he said this is a critical issue and if you want to do that just make up the time somehow.”
The teen behind climate strike, 16-year-old Swede Greta Thunberg, has come under a lot of attack from mostly older white men such as People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier and right-wing commentators on social media.
Hodgson can only shake her head.
“It’s just crazy to me,” Hodgson said. “As university professors we spend a lot of time watching young people become citizens, become engaged, start to really take their shape as adults in the world ,and have a sense of what’s going on and wanting to make change happen.
“To me it’s incredibly exhilarating to see young people say ‘I’m not just a consumer, I’m not just an object to be advertised, that I have agency, I can make a difference.’”
Are you headed to the Vancouver Climate Strike Friday? We want to see your signs. Email us at vantips@postmedia.com with a photo of your sign, name, age, contact information and what makes you passionate about climate-change action.
For more information, see our call-out online here.
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