SOC 122 Tactics

Alejandro Aguirre

May 15, 2014

SOC 122 – 3:30

Kubal

C.A.P.E. Tactics

Tabling

      On the fourth of March, I participated in an event known as "March Forth", which was a day for students to talk about their issues at their tables to passersby. After the tabling, I, along with the other students participated in the march that protested these various causes.

      Thirty minutes prior to the event, I helped set up all the tables for every group that would participate. After all the tables were set, my group (C.A.P.E.) and I had enough time to finish decorating our board and making our picket signs for the march. Once everything was set up, I interacted with people who asked questions about our cause. The visitors seemed intrigued by the information I was telling them. My group also contributed by doing as I did. Our efforts resulted in six signatures from people who were interested in receiving more information from our cause. Although obtaining more signatures would have been nice, I think my efforts of informing people of our issue was successful in two respects: simply teaching them what our cause is about and influencing an interest in them about it.

      There are a couple of reasons why I think the tabling portion of the event did not go as well as I anticipated. First, I think that if there were louder and more interactive musical performances, people's attention would be easier to attain. This is not to say that I did not enjoy The Raging Grannies or the flash dance. I admired their performances and passion they displayed at the event, but I thought having more performances would have better portrayed our event as dedicated. The other suggestion is to have more time (in class, or at home) to decorate our boards so as to have a higher chance to attract people's attention.

      Overall, I think this part of the event went well in the two previous respects mentioned earlier and in altering people's opinions about our issue.

 

Marching

      On the fourth of March, my group (C.A.P.E.) and I participated in a march of protest on Fresno State's campus that commenced an hour after the tabling tactic my group and I also participated in at the school. The event and activity was publicized by chalking messages on the floor about the event in the Free Speech area a few days prior to the event. The purpose of the march was to further express the meanings of all groups' causes.
      My group and I all made our own individual picket signs regarding our issue. After we had made our picket signs, all the groups in the class began to march around the campus at 2 PM with their signs raised. We marched from the Free Speech area, through the midway near the fountain, and even on Shaw Avenue. There were very few chants and call-outs from the groups that were meant to attract more attention.
      Despite my and my group's efforts, I felt that our protest could have taken place during an hour when students are mostly out of class during a break like lunch, which is typically at noon. Also, our messages on the signs were made with standard markers, which were not sufficient in displaying them. To make the signs legible, we needed to have either bold our letters with our standard markers, or buy thinker point markers (we did not know this would be an issue until someone outside of our protest commented on that issue). These would be the areas on which I would improve if I were to engage in a march again.

      I think my group and I (as well as the other groups) did a decent job in catching people's attention, but would have been more effective if the previously stated issues were corrected. I say this because the person who commented on our march enjoyed it, but said it would have been nice to be able to read the content.

 

Film Screening

      The third tactic I engaged in with my group (C.A.P.E.) was publicizing a film that my group and I would present to the public at our school's campus in the Industrial Tech Building. The film we publicized was Broken on All Sides, a documentary that discussed the issues of the justice system through the processes of incarceration. After the film followed a discussion panel between the instructor, the students belonging to the group, and the rest of the audience.

      The only thing my group and I had to do to publicize our event was to post up several posters of our film that I, alone, created and designed (what it was about and when and where it was going to play) around our campus. The poster presented a picture of the film's cover art, what it was about, where and when the film would be presented, and mentioned that a discussion would follow afterwards.

      When the day came to see the film, I was upset to see that only three people aside from my group attended to see the film. This makes me wonder if there were issues with the posters I had designed. Looking back at them, I suppose I could have used a different format that would have caught more people's attention. Color would have also helped. In addition to the issue of how the poster was presented, I think there may have been an issue with distributing the posters. For example, some places where large crowds of students are present forbid postings. This complicates our groups' efforts to bring more people to our event. These are things I plan to fix or prevent the next time I participate in an event like this.

      I recall that two people aside from our group commented on the film, but I was not sure if their opinion was opposite from the film's perspective. So, I think the film reached the opinions of the audience in terms of the lack of education that inmates had and the economy that may have led to these lives of crime.

Chalking

      The next group tactic I was involved in for C.A.P.E. was chalking on our campus at Fresno State. There was really no formal publicizing of the event because the purpose of the messages expressed through chalking is to be discovered by passersby on their own time. Publicizing our actions and messages would defeat the purpose of people reaching out to read these messages as a result of their curiosity to know what these messages read.
      In terms of what my group and I did to set up our tactic, we first discussed a day and time that would fit all of our schedules to chalk on our campus. Our group also agreed on who would provide the chalk to write with. Afterwards, we discussed what we would write on the ground. We decided to provide some information that we presented on the March Forth event I participated earlier in the semester.
      We all decided to chalk in an area where students are most likely to walk by. It was right in front of the Free Speech area near the fraternity/sorority booths. Every participating member (including myself) wrote at least two messages pertaining to our cause. We chalked in the evening, which may not have been the best time of the day to display our messages. I say this because it is a time when the majority of students have finished their classes for the day and have gone home. There were very few students who were passing by our chalking and asked about our cause. They all asked what our cause was about and what our acronym meant. After answering these questions, the students expressed their understanding of the messages' purpose.

      If I were to engage in such an activity again, I would suggest to chalk earlier in the day so as to be surrounded by more people, thus having a higher amount of interest among our peers. This can play a vital role in positively altering the opinion of passersby. Aside from this, I think our efforts made a decent change in opinion in respects to the content of our messages.

 

Push-polling

      The final tactic I engaged in was conducting a phone survey pertaining to my group's issue. Each member of my group (including myself) came up with at least one question that either addressed our issue or demographics. The media liaison of our group recorded these questions and later posted them online for our survey.

      The experience of calling people to engage in a survey was just as I have predicted – unpleasant. The reason for this is due to the many rejected phone calls and surveys that I have experienced. This and more will be discussed from the collected findings from the surveys.

      Out of 88 respondents, 51 (58%) participated in our survey. Most of the respondents were not familiar with the prison realignment program. Only 1 of 21 respondents was strongly familiar with it while most knew little to nothing about it. Also, most of these people were aware that pre-trial detainees affect their tax-payer dollars. When asked whether respondents knew if detainees were fired after a prolonged detention, about the same number responded either "yes" or "no".

      In terms of demographics, most of the respondents were Hispanic (55% out of 22 respondents) while the least were Black, Asian, or Native American. Fifteen out of 21 respondents were between the ages of 18-29 and the least represented were senior citizens (1 respondent). Of the 22 respondents who decided report their income, 36% said they made under $10,000. Only one participant earned the above $200,000 and between $70,000-$100,000 while the rest made between $10,000-$70,000.

      I think this tactic revealed a great deal of information, but I could not adequately tell if the respondents were moved by the survey or if their opinions have changed as a result. I do not really see a different way I can approach this tactic to have better results, because of the fact that a phone call is less personal, thus making it easily avoidable for the respondent to reject the phone call or survey.