The Role of New Media in Protest Organisation

Oxfam

Lucy Brinicombe, Press Officer

15^th April 2010, 10 o’clock

Telephone Interview, ca 15 minutes. Friendly atmosphere very welcoming for talk.

L. Brinicombe: Hi, Oxfam Media!

Gloria: Hi, this is Gloria Fanenbruck, calling for the interview.

L. Brinicombe: Oh hello, how are you?

Gloria: I am good, thank you. And you?

L. Brinicombe: I am good.

Gloria: Ok, ehm. Yeah, this is my first telephone interview; I am not so sure how to start about.

Yes, so I am writing my thesis on the use of new media within the organisation of real life protests and well, my case study is The Wave, so I am basically focusing it on this particular protest and ehm, well maybe can start of by you telling me something about Oxfam and your role within the organisation and a bit about The Wave protest generally.

L. Brinicombe: Ok, so The Wave was organised by Stop Climate Chaos which is a coalition of about a hundred development and green organisations in the UK. And the Wave was the main, sort of final event before the climate talks. And Oxfam was ehm is, was one of the main players in organising the event. And I was there, and I am Oxfam's press officer, climate change officer. And so, what more can I tell you?

Gloria: Was the coalition built around the protest or was it there before?

L. Brinicombe: No, the coalition's been there for a few years, a couple of years. I can give you the contact details of Sarah Jenkinson who led the coalition and its communication. So she can tell you more details about Stop Climate Chaos. But basically, it's been around for a few years and ehm, it's been campaigning on Climate change issues, the whole idea being that we all needed to come together and make it more effective as far as being up-to-date with all that was going on and sharing information and sharing opinion and all sort of working together, ehm, where profits haaaa for example, through Stop Climate Chaos and we had different events, ehm, campaigns for various things, so in last July for example Oxfam led a coalition of some SCC members at King's Cross power station where we created a human chain around King's North power station, for the end of Dirty Coal. And so, that was now possible because we had those relationships through Stop Climate Chaos and so there were about 8 organisations involved in that.

Gloria: And do you know how many members of Oxfam attended The Wave? Was it a popular event?

L. Brinicombe: Ehm I don't know how many people, no. There were more than, there were a lot. I mean it is obviously difficult to tell, but there were about, I think wasn't it, about 50.000 people attending in total, so a lot of people, were yes, definate Oxfam supporters but a lot of people would have been mobilised through attention???? of Oxfams publicity as well.

Gloria: And so, regarding the publicity did you, you say you used social media, but also traditional media, I reckon?

L. Brinicombe: Yeah, so what we did was, I mean we were very very keen to support The Wave, and trying to get, and boost the profile of the event, so all our media messaging when it came to Climate Change evolved around The Wave and you know, for about, September time upwards, so for example we had Jamie Hewlett, a UK artist, he went to Bangladesh and he painted nine water colours, which were exhibited in London and ehm, that you know, was all about, showing the human impact in climate change in Bangladesh and showing the need for action and showing that you can do something about it by going to The Wave. So that was in October and we did a really big high quality sort of focused media launge for that, and we, so we did ehm, so he was interviewd by the Guardian and the Guardian website carried ehm, that interview and an online photo diary including his and online photos and the artwork and we also had a CTO, ehm. so that all worked really well. We had a competition with METRO and we had the diary was run on NME.com, so we kind a looked at all kinds of publicity, working on it. And then we had a ehm, Helena Christiansen, she went to Peru to photograpf of ehm, people there affected by climate change and those pictures were exhibited in New York, the new NGA and then in London and then in Copenhagen. and the London exhibition has secured a lot ofmain, ehm, traditional media as well ehm, so for example, BBC El Mundo did a beautiful piece on some of the ????? we gathered during the trip and her being interviewd in English and Spanish. Oh, you know a stunning piece. And then the Guardian did a sort of audio diary at the same time profiling some of the pictures, ehm and we had different interviews with Wife and Maxine, ehm, so on and so forth. And she also wrote a diary of the trip which was in MarieClaire in the November edition, so just in time for The Wave, ehm, and no sorry, the December issue, I think it was, coming out in November. And that again would encourage people to go The Wave to do something about climate change.

Gloria: yes, has very different target groups as well.

L. Brinicombe: Completely, I mean that was the thing, was that we, you know, wanted to make things into a profile to attend and get as many people to attend and people to know about it so they could attend. And obviously to to use that kind of momentum to show the politicians that the public will was there for them to deliver in Copenhagen.

Gloria: And online media, Twitter Facebook...

L. Brinicombe: Yes, well, I didn't do too much facebook, but there was facebook, there was Twitter, there was blogging during the Wave there was a Guardian team that was during Twitter and blogs, ehm, I mean people, and the supporters were doing tweets as well, that was a big moment too.

Gloria: So do you combine the social media strategy with your mainstream media strategy or is it more of a

L. Brinicombe: It's difficult, I mean, yes we do. And then we've got campaign, we have other ehm, we talk with other people that can actually push that along as well, I mean you don't necessarily have to be part of the media team to instigate tweets, you know, so the campaigns teams, you encourage supporters to do it. ehm, so there are all sorts of different ways to encourage the people to do that and to pass the message on.

Gloria: And well, Copenhagen itseld wasn't very successful regarding the results, but do you think that The Wave itself was successful?

L. Brinicombe: As far as the communication, yeah, definately, both the Wave and Copenhagen were, I mean we as fas as, from a media side , we you know, there was a huge amount of coverage on the urgency the need to tackle climate change the need for global deal, ehm, but unfortunately, it's the political will that wasn't up to what was needed. The Wave was a great success, because it pulled the country together, it was the biggest climate change demonstration ever in the UK ehm, it's got everybody, itgot people that haven't been involved before and it was, seen as an accessible friendly demonstration to go to, so there were people that might not neccessarily have tought about demonstrating were happy to go and were happy to do the the walk to Big Ben.

Gloria: The fact that Gordon Brown commented on it also made it a success.

L. Brinicombe: It wasn't only just that. Ed Miliband arrived at the beginning and walked a bit himself and ehm, there was a meeting with Gordon Brown later, we had ehm, the BBC coverage all day, the SKY coverage all day, Al Jazeera doing interviews, the Guardian tweeting and blogging and Sunday papers, most Sunday papers covered it. Ehm, so yes, it was successful as far as being able to amplify what was happening ehm, and it. And what I think was good about it was that it gave everybody something that they feeling that they could actually do something that they could make a difference. And the timing of it was so good, so it happened on Saturday, then Copenhagen started on the Monday.

Gloria: So what is going to happen with the Stop Climate Chaos coalition now?

L. Brinicombe: Ehm, it continues, you need to speak to them. I give you Sarah Jenkinson's name and she can toalk to you about it.

Gloria: But you don't know if anything else is planned, at the moment? As a next big event?

L. Brinicombe: Not yet, no, but I mean all of us are planning and working out what would be the most effectious thing to do tihs year, ehm, but you know, having had that you know, there is proof, there is proof in it that we can work together and obviously we need to work out what else we can do to get the change that we need.

Gloria: Ok, Thank you, I think thats the most important thing I needed.

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