One aspect of the campaign that really interested me was its use of images to mobilise people and turn public opinion. Too often I think, we place far too little emphasis on the power of well-constructed images. I’m one of the guilty, as I tend to be a word person.

This diagram of the slave ship Brookes had huge impact in an era before photography

One of the turning points of the anti-slavery campaign was when someone unearthed a diagram of a fully loaded slave ship, the Brookes. This image had an enormous impact on everyone who saw it, and proved to be one of the most powerful tools of the campaign. These days, almost everybody who has been to school, has seen the Brookes diagram.

Another tool in the campaign was a logo of a kneeling man in chains, bearing the slogan, Am I not a man and a brother?, which was put onto items of clothing such as cufflinks and hatpins — the precursor of T shirts and lapel buttons so common in present-day campaigns.

Visualising Information for Advocacy

Well thought-out and designed images can often be used to instantly convey a message that can get lost in words — and with huge emotional impact. One of the best introductions to the use of visual elements in a campaign is a little booklet called VIsualising Information for Advocacy: An Introduction to Information Design. It’s available for free download here and is full of interesting examples and good advice.

Everyone working on the ground acknowledges it’s a problem, but nobody seems to have much advice about how to deal with it.  I’m talking about the fact that in many countries, it’s difficult to get into the news media without paying for coverage. I think it’s high time that we had some serious discussion about this, and how to deal with it.

This issue of having to pay for media coverage comes in a number of different forms. Some examples are:
* Having to provide a ‘travel allowance’ for journalists before they’ll attend your event, or pay them to ensure the story appears
* In some countries (like Malawi and Zambia for example), a ‘press release’ is a paid-for advertisement, rather than simply information sent to a news outlet to alert them to a story, so that they follow up themselves.
* Many organisations when seeking coverage for their issue on radio or TV, are directed to the marketing department as a matter of course – they’re expected to  buy airtime rather than have their issue covered as news.
* Buying regular advertising space – which in more and more cases these days, has the additional benefit of making the editorial desk more likely to cover your story in the news section too.cases, will also make the  regular advertising — and in some cases now in SA — if you advertise, you are far more likely to get editorial coverage too.

Of course, it’s important to distinguish between legitimate and open payment, and payment that’s unethical, or sits in an ethical grey area. Buying advertising or sponsoring programming is legitimate, as it’s open and clear — it’s obvious to everyone that a commercial transaction has taken place. But this needs to be clearly distinguished from paid-for exposure that poses as legitimate journalism.

It can sometimes be a very good idea for organisations to buy media time and space if they have good material and want to be in control of how it is disseminated — to be absolutely sure that it gets out, and reaches the intended audience. But when organisations to take out paid-for space or time, they need to be sure that their materials are appropriate. Too often, particularly in the case of print, organisations fill their paid-for space with material that is dense, full of jargon and technical terminology, and unlikely to be read by many people — and so waste their money.

In the case of grassroots and community media, NGOs and community-based organisations looking for coverage are often outraged to find they’re expected to pay. Many community-owned media organisations justify this by saying they need to earn funding in order to survive. I’m sympathetic to this argument, but still believe it’s important that all paid-for content is clearly identified as such, and that financial considerations should never have an influence on news coverage.

But what about paying for news coverage? I think it’s a bad idea for a number of reasons. Firstly, leaving aside ethical issues for the moment, there’s the problem of resources. Many small organisations just don’t have the budget for the kind of news coverage they need in order to push their advocacy goals. This link to my second objection — inequality. The need to pay for coverage means only the bigger, richer organisations get exposure (not to mention the for-profit corporations). Thirdly, it’s bad for journalism — when coverage is for sale to the highest bidder, many important and controversial issues will fail to get onto the agenda, either because there’s no money in it, or because the media organisation does not want to anger an advertiser. When ethics goes out the window, so too does credibility, sooner or later.  And when audiences start to feel they cannot trust what they see or hear, they’ll stop watching, listening or reading.

The issue of credibility is also a problem for organisations seeking exposure. Research has shown that audiences are more likely to believe messages when those messages are perceived to come from an objective source, rather than a source with a vested interest. This means that for advocacy campaigns, paid-for content (even if legitimate and open) is likely to be far less effective than genuine news coverage, in bringing about changed attitudes or behaviour.

Many organisations seeking to use the media for advocacy purposes are aware of all this but still feel they have no choice — that unless they pay up, they will not make the news. It’s a vicious circle — the more organisations do pay, the more others will also have to pay. So what are the answers?

Firstly the vicious circle has to be interrupted. I believe that all NGOs and CBOs — including the big, international ones, should make a principled decision not to pay for news coverage. This may have some negative short-term implications, but will pay off in the long term. But it means that everybody has to play ball. If some start paying, it’s game over.

Secondly, unpaid-for exposure is possible, and has always been possible. But it takes time and effort, and creativity. Members of NGOs need to learn how journalists think, and how they identify news. They need to put into practice the techniques that skilled PR practitioners use, for getting free exposure: stage interesting news-worthy events, build relationships with journalists, write effective news releases, and so forth.

It takes time and effort, and some resources, but is ultimately worth it. Those who are skilled in engaging with the media can generate free coverage whose value far exceeds what they’d be able to afford if they had to pay for it — in financial terms, but also in increased advocacy impact.

Writing Great press releases
If you are interested in producing more effective press releases, have a look at Journalism.co.uk, where  the site managers are trying to harness the crowdsourcing potential of the internet in order to get feedback from journalists on the kind of releases they like to get, and are likely to act upon.

In South Africa we’ve never really had strong investigative journalism at the local level (aside from one or two exceptions) and from what I hear, many local papers are increasingly focused on producing poorly disguised advertorial for local businesses and charities. Organisations seeking coverage are being told to get in line behind advertisers, which creates a huge problems for those charities, NGOs and CBOs which don’t have a budget for advertising.

Right now I can think of three implications for those seeking media exposure at the local level. Firstly, expect to see less and less serious content in local papers. Secondly, local organisations will have to start being much more creative when thinking of how to make the news. The photo of the cheque handover is no longer enough. We need to come with stories so complelling, that they simply can’t be ignored. Secondly, organisations need to think about media more broadly. The local paper or ‘knock and drop’ as they are known in South Africa is just one medium among many. Community radio for one, should be getting a lot more emphasis, but organisations also need to start using new media such as SMS and Facebook to reach their audiences.

Obama and new media in Africa

US President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Africa has had a lot of media attention. Obama of course is known to have used new media very effectively in his election campaign. He carried that approach through during his Africa visit, using new media such as SMS, Facebook and Twitter, to enable Africans to put questions to him, and to disseminate his speech in Ghana. Crucially though, the new media were used in combination with radio to ensure maximum reach. Ndesanjo Macha wrote about this before Obama’s visit on Global Voices Online.

One of the brains behind the strategy was White African. See his blog post on Obama’s African visit here.

Building Advocacy Campaigns

Oxfam GB has published a very useful book on advocacy called Building National Campaigns: Activists, Alliances and How Change Happens. The book is based on the experience of Oxfam and its partners in campaigning for improved employment standards for workers in five countries. It looks at the various steps or organising, strategising and campaigning for change. There are many useful lessons that can be learned from the juxtaposition of theory with case studies from the five countries. Building National Campaigns can be downloaded free.

There is also a web page with powerpoint slides, photos and other material, and users can also add their own experiences to the content.

But people’s own stories do move people in a powerful way. I believe advocacy campaigns need to use them much more. The key is to use stories in a structured way:

Firstly, tell a story about 1 or 2 individuals. In the story-telling, use language of te senses to create powerful images in people’s minds: describe people’s appearance and the scene, talk about how they felt, mention colours, sounds, smells, textures. Make it come alive, in other words.

Secondly, link the story to the broader issue. “This story illustrates a wider problem…”

Thirdly, let your audience know very clearly, what you’re asking them to do: sign a petition, pass a law, complain to their political representative, donate to an organisation… whatever the desired action may be. Story telling doesn’t have to be difficult. Stories can be written, narrated orally, told in photographs, a combination of photos and audio, or video.

Here are some links to examples of powerful storytelling:

http://blip.tv/file/2049608

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/11/05/health/healthguide/TE_AIDS_CLIPS.html?ei=5070&emc=eta3

http://www.soros.org/initiatives/health/focus/tuberculosis/multimedia/story_20080916

http://www.childrensradiofoundation.org/blog/ — scroll down to hear audio diaries from Mujahid Wiener and other children.

This may seem a little harsh. After all, if you want to give journalists good background information –  to help them better understand a complex issue rather than to give them a story they can print, sometimes you may need to say things off the record.

This may be the ideal, and in some places the idea of ‘off the record’ may be respected, but in my experience there are just too many journalists who do not in fact  understand or respect this unwritten rule. This is why I believe it is just safer to try never to say or do anything in the presence of a journalist, that you wouldn’t want publicised.

This was emphasised again to me the other day. One of the organisations I work with had arranged to show a documentary to a group of journalists at a training course. The showing of the film was followed by some discussion. During the discussion a comment was made, by-the-way, in answer to a question. The answer was intended  as a ‘for instance’, to illustrate the point being made.

Imagine our surprise when, three days later, an article appeared in a newspaper saying that my colleague had ‘condemned the opposition’ in a particular country. This was completely inaccurate and out of context, and potentially damaging to the organisation’s advocacy efforts in that country.

There was no point in trying to do anything about it. The damage was done.  Any letter or complaint would just prolong the problem. We had to keep quiet and hope the report would soon be forgotten.

But it was a valuable reminder — never be off guard when there are journalists around!

Of course, in these days of Facebook and citizen journalism, that just might be a rule for life in general.