A small group of individual rioters two blocks from my home. You'll have to pardon me for not wanting to encourage a repeat of this by sending a message that rioting near my home garners my political support.
> Riots, on the other hand, seem to cause the media hordes to descend and at least draw attention to the cause. It's hard to argue the fact that they are at least useful for consciousness -raising.
Although 'effective', or in this case 'useful' definitely does not have to be a synonym for "a positive thing", as you state.
It's possible to separate the benefit of increased awareness from the negativity of the event in question. Your spin is more akin to "people think riots are good".