The Role of New Media in Protest Organisation

The Expert Interview

To understand the importance and relevance of social media and online communication from the perspective of the protest organisation, the decision was made to conduct expert interviews with media experts of five of the coalition NGOs of The Wave.

In the expert interview, a form of semi-structured interview, the interviewee functions as representative for a group, which means the main interest is not focussing on him/her as a person specifically, but on his function within existing organisational structures, for example. A number of challenges arise for the interviewer when conducting such expert interviews, and mostly deal with the humaness of the interviewee, who can easily drift off the topic of interest by talking about personal problems, conflicts in the field, giving a lecture about irrelevant information, instead of answering the questions or block the interview altogether due to a lack of expertise (Meuser & Nagel in Flick, 2002: 89-90). The interviewer thus has a strong responsibility to stay in guidance of the interview and to always direct the conversation back to the topic. Furthermore, the interviewer should present his/her knowledge on the relevant topic. Semi-structured interviews can be challenging, as the interviewer should be flexible and has to adapt to the conversation, as some questions might be answered earlier than planned or can be left out. The decision about this has to be taken spontaneously during the interview (Flick, 2002: 92). Finally, regarding the interpretation of the interviews, an analysis often deals with a comparison of the content of the expert knowledge about the relevant topic. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews give important information about the themes and categories that help with the analysis of responses and other material (Blee & Taylor, 2002: 94). This will also be the case with the expert NGOs conducted around The Wave protest, as the aim is to compare their viewpoint on the usefulness of social media and the integration in the organisational processes.

As the interviews were recorded, it should be kept in mind, that this might have affected the naturalness of the interview (Flick, 2002: 168), yet none of the interviewees minded the presence of the voice recorder. For the further analysis of the interviews, they were transcribed as immediately as possible after the interviews were conducted.

In order to achieve the highest effectiveness of the expert interviews, the decision was to conduct the interviews in person, rather than choosing the option of telephone interviews. The candidates for expert interviews were chosen from the pool of Stop Climate Chaos Coalition members and were first of all selected by location. Especially those organisations that were located in London were chosen, as these were easily accessible with a single visit to London. The second characteristic was the size and popularity of the organisation, although during the course of contacting the coalition members, the large NGOs proved to be harder to reach.

Apart from the umbrella organisation Stop Climate Chaos, as the coalition leader, thirteen coalition members were contacted. Five of those (Christian Aid, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, We can – Climate Action Now!, EJF – Environmental Justice Foundation) declined participation in an expert interview, either as they were involved too little, too busy or do not agree to interviews generally. Five organisations never replied to requests send either by e-mail or telephone, and therefore were excluded due to lack of cooperation (WWF, People and Planet, UNA-UK, Unison, COIN – Climate Outreach and Information network).

Nevertheless expert interviews were conducted with 5 coalition members. These include the coalition leader, Stop Climate Chaos, two of the larger supporting organisation, Oxfam and Action Aid UK, and two smaller NGOs, Envision and Campaign against Climate Change. This selection proved to be very useful, as it equally represent two NGOs that were more involved in the coalition, and two members with fewer resources. Furthermore, interviewing the coalition leader was insightful and necessary for this research study.

The interviews were held in the offices of the respective organisations, apart from the interview with the new media expert, Tom, of SCCC. As their office is dissolved, his work place can be found in the Christian Aid Office in central London. The five interviews took 20-25 minutes on average and the interviewees were asked about 10 questions. After a short introduction with general questions on the organisations and the representative’s role in the organisation, the following questions dealt with the organisation’s involvement in the online promotion of the march in particular, which channels they used and how, and also how offline promotion took place. Furthermore, the use of social media during the march, such as Twitter updates, was discussed. Finally an evaluation of the success of The Wave was made by each representative².

The results of the expert interviews will be analysed through a comparative content analysis, where the answers are constantly compared against each other, with regard to the themes of the study and the strategies used and expectations the representatives have of social media and social network sites in particular.

Table 2. Details of the expert interviews

Organisation	Name	Role	Date	Length	Medium
Campaign Against Climate Change	Phil Thornhill	National Coordinator	12.April 2010, 2pm	21:42 minutes	Face-to-face
Envision	Helen Thomas	Communications and Events Manager	13.April 2010, 3pm	19:36 minutes	Face-to-face
Oxfam	Lucy Brinicombe	Press Officer Climate Change	15.April 2010, 10am	15:54 minutes	Telephone
Action Aid	Anella Wickenden	Head of Youth Engagement Team	16. April 2010, 11am	25:14 minutes	Face-to-face
Stop Climate Chaos Coalition	Tom Allen	New Media Officer	16. April 2010, 3 pm	23:52 minutes	Face-to-face

2.