Whether it’s your take on a political situation or an environmental one, petitions are both liked and disliked by many. There are a necessary form of communication, whether that is to governments, manufacturers or simply voicing one’s opinion openly and asking others to join in and agree. Petitions are used for public debates or to see which footballer you think is the best in the world.
There’s no ending to what a petition can be about. It could involve animal welfare, human trafficking, housing, religion or even technology. The voice of the nation can be heard through one simple petition and it’s no wonder that millions of different ones are signed each year. At Petition.co.uk, it’s possible to simply sign-up, create your own petition then you can either download it and print it out, or send the URL link to your friends, family, peers and colleagues. Thanks to social media, Facebook and Twitter et al, it’s so easy for your petition to be seen and heard about in an instant. It can spread like wildfire and in a matter of hours there could be millions of people that agree or disagree with your petition.
It’s the response of the petitions that draws much attention. If you manage to get 20,000 people signing a petition about council houses in Manchester, for example, then your vote and voice is more likely to be heard. A petition with this level of magnitude is more likely to have an impact that pickets outside a council office.
On a lighter level, there are petitions that you can make for fun such as who is going to be the Christmas number 1 or if it will snow on Christmas Day. With a targeted audience and a set of goals that you want the petition to achieve, or not if you’re trying to gauge certain responses, then you can build up a portfolio of information depending on how in-depth the petition goes. Longer or more complex petitions are less likely to be completed by thousands of people, but simple yes/no answers and then a comment box after certain questions is a good way to ensure you are giving your respondents plenty of space to have their say and voice their opinion.
Petitions aren’t a new idea, they have been around for hundreds of years and it al depends on the target audience and the relevance to them. If you have strong views about dinosaurs, then you’re alienating a large group of people, but that might mean you have a good response from palaeontologists. However, if you want a general idea from a nation, such as the UK, then you need to make the petition stand out and make people want to answer it. That way, you can come up with statistics of x amount of people think y and x amount think z. You can then use this evidence to suggest that it is relevant to the nation.
What do you feel strongly about? Start your own petition today.