Call and Response

(photo courtesy of http://tinyurl.com/2ddg8x5)

Protests are demonstrated as a public act of disagreement with another group of people (company, religion, etc). Often they are located on street sides or at important events. Sometimes protests have a leader, who calls out to the bigger group of protestors and the others respond. It could be a chant of repeating words that express how they feel or the leader could ask series of questions and have the protestors respond.

(video courtesy of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQj_5VGCPVg)

The protestors carry signs and usually make loud references to what they are doing at that protest. It is an example of call and response because protestors want the audience, which are bystanders, the public, or policymakers, to listen to their side of the problem and they do it by protesting.

(photo courtesy of http://tinyurl.com/2bcx46m)

To link this topic to design in society, if you think about the protest as being the design, you can see the idea, organization, production, and result that happens. People begin to strongly feel for a topic and communication then occurs to do something about making their stance important and known. They create a time, place, and send out this information to others to try to get as many people to join. The protestors will often make signs that can be easily read from a car or across the street. Then at the actual rally, their purpose is for people who don’t know or disagree about the subject to understand how they feel.

Designers do this with their art; they come up with an idea, they organize it, orchestrate it, make it, and show it, to get a response from their audience.