Did Black Lives Matter Protests Change Public Opinion?

Abstract

Protest events affect public opinion on the issue of interest. However, the extent to which an individual’s proximity to protests impacts public opinion is less examined. Does a protest event occurring nearby, i.e., within an individual’s neighborhood, impact their opinion? Do protests that happen further away, perhaps in the next county, have the same impact on public opinion? This study analyzes the impact of exposure to protests by focusing on the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in 2020 using public opinion data from Iowa merged with protest locations in Iowa. Specifically, we examine public support for BLM and for defunding the police. We evaluate the role of distance through a discrete mileage cut-off and a distance decay function. Our analysis shows that people living closer to protests show greater support for the BLM movement in general and, to a less extent, for defunding the police. The results suggest that protests may affect public opinion, but only within a very narrow range of a few miles.