Exploring how rights advocates use information and digital technology to create positive change
Tactic 1 - Mobilise people
This tactic is good to use when you want to support people to come together, online and in person, around a cause. This tactics card includes:
- video stories
- a case study
- suggestions for the different ways you could use this tactic
- a featured tool
- tips
To download this card click here.
Tactic 1 - Mobilise people from Tactical Technology Collective on Vimeo.
Examples from this video:
- Video Volunteers Demand Land Rights – citizen journalists in India
- Using a friendless Facebook profile for Visibility – LGBT advocates in Lebanon
- The Pink Chaddi Campaign – women's advocates in India
In 2009, MySociety launched a campaign called 'TheyWorkForYou,' in which voters in the UK could send targeted emails to their Members of Parliament (MP), demanding transparency in the use of public funds. “We send tens of thousands of email alerts every day to readers of our website TheyWorkForYou.com” says Tom Steinberg of MySociety. These emails go to people who have asked for alerts on current events. Each email gives a link to a website, where people can find their MP and write him or her a custom email. After sending the email, people are invited to join a Facebook group, which, when they join, will post a link in their Facebook profile to publicise their own email campaign to their friends. In 2009 TheyWorkForYou successfully mobilised its readers around a UK MP expenses inquiry. The government sought to have MPs’ expenses claims kept secret, despite successful Freedom of Information requests. TheyWorkForYou mobilised people to demand transparency. Tom says, “Whether our email campaign was decisive in influencing Parliament, we'll never know, with Parliament being so secretive. But it certainly mattered that TheyWorkForYou has masses of traffic and that people want to use the site every day. With this, we were able to send a few thousand emails to MPs about this issue. It might not sound like a lot, but they went to over 95% of all MPs. These were all individual messages to MPs from their real constituents. Extremely targeted emails have got to be the most effective form of email campaigns.” Soon after this campaign the UK government agreed to disclose MP expenses.
Tools used: Custom-built content management system (CMS) and contact management system made from open source software components was used to make TheyWorkForYou. Wordpress and Facebook were also used for the MP expenses campaign.
Reach: The campaign was focused on UK citizens and politicians. The website had 500,000 visitors the month the story broke in the UK press, and it receives an average of 250,000 visitors per month.
Cost: USD$1700 in staff salary to run the campaign.
Resources: Web hosting was donated.
Time: From planning to completion, the MP expenses campaign took five days. The CMS was already developed and installed.
Level of Difficulty: 2 with contact management tools in place, 4 if you must develop them.
Links to learn more:
DIFFERENT WAYS YOU CAN DO THIS
1. Create a short slogan that is easy to translate. Ask people to photograph themselves holding a sign with the slogan in their own language and send you the photo to share on your website or in a video or slideshow.
2. Make a profile or a fan page on a social network site to parody a public figure you seek to infl uence, and ask supporters to become friends with this profile. But be aware of who has ownership over content created in groups you establish on commercial websites and consider who will own contact details of people that become group members.
3. Host a competition for short videos about your issue and ask people to vote on their favourites. Host screenings of the winning videos in-person and online. You can hold a screening in a public building and invite local media.
4. If you don’t already have a list of contacts interested in your campaign, partner with an organisation that sends out emails to its supporters and ask them to direct its members towards your action.
5. If supporters must remain anonymous, you can make this anonymity part of your campaign imagery: for example, by asking people for photos of their hands or feet, or of objects that can become symbolic of an issue. You can then use these images in your campaign. people’s attention to your action?
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Collaborate on a photo slideshow You can use images that you and other people have uploaded to the free photo sharing website NAMITA SINGH, VIDEO VOLUNTEERS, ON YOUR CALL TO ACTION:
“There is no campaign without an action. So one piece of advice is to have a really strong and meaningful call to action, which gets people to do something. Also consider that the actions of one village can be used to inspire people in other villages to speak out, so be sure to share your success stories.”
REBECCA SAAB SAADE, TECHNOLOGIST, ON RISK AND DISCLOSURE:
“I would advise anyone working on sensitive issues to think of their target group first, media second. Closed societies tend to have strong word-of-mouth kind of communication. Addressing public opinion comes later. In order to mobilise people you need to understand that even if you don’t mind being vocal and visible, others do. If you promised you won’t compromise people’s privacy, then you never should or they won’t trust you anymore. So study the people you are working for, think of what message needs to get across, then think of what media to use.”
NAMITA MALHOTRA, ALTERNATIVE LAW FORUM, ON USING ONLINE TOOLS FOR OFFLINE ACTION:
“Online activism is a fairly new phenomenon in India. What was so unique about the Pink Chaddi campaign is that it used online tools to ask people to take an action offline. There were various problems with the online activism that made it difficult to translate into an offline mode and one of them was the fact that it was on facebook.”
Read the whole of Tactic 1. This card includes more links, tips and examples: DOWNLOAD CARD (PDF)
