· More about Participate Online ·
Nearly a month ago I wrote a post about the levels of engagement, off the back of a blog post I read by Nicholas Street. Nicholas responded to my blog post on his blog, so in the true spirit of blogs I've decided to respond to his post on my post on his post :)
All the fuss is about a document Participate Online - User Motivation in Mass Participation (PDF) - the research seems to have been commissioned by the BBC and carried out by Sparkler in the UK. This document makes essential reading for those interested in online mobilisation. The report reiterates my own chart on this subject - that analogue methods of participation are more useful in heavy-involvement participation (giving money (ok, maybe not this one - not sure what they were thinking of here!), providing information, being there, giving time, starting something) while online methods of participation are more likely when people (the masses) are listening or watching.
Another very interesting point the report makes is that when people think about their community, they think about geography rather than social groups. I find this interesting because for me it is very different - I have friends in every capital city of Australia so my community tends to be related to specific areas of interest or my history with those people (e.g. technology, politics, knitting, people I knew when I lived in Brisbane) and because of this, the people in each of the communities I belong to are scattered all around the place. I don't have a strong connection to my geographic place of choice, Sydney, partly because I've only been living here for five months. Heh, maybe I'm a freak.
Interestingly, it is people who live in cities who will be most engaged with global issues (important for the likes of Oxfam and Amnesty) while people in both cities and urban areas will be most engaged with national issues. People in rural areas tend to be most connected to their local area and feel insignificant in national or global issues.
So back to Nicholas's blog post, I think what he's suggesting is that smaller groups of communities do a good job at getting things done because they feel a sense of connectiveness within the group. I'm thinking of Amnesty's letter-writing groups and Community Aid Abroad's local activist groups as examples of this. In ANTaR's case, we have a strong presence in four or five states, with people in another two states working hard to build a stronger presence there. I think Nicholas is right - perhaps one of the ways to mobilise people is to make the actions very local. What's interesting about this is that Community Aid Abroad (now Oxfam) is increasingly a national-based organisation ... do you think eventually they will go full circle and strengthen their local groups to better engage with people and increase grassroots action?
Comments please :)
Sunday January 6, 2008
Categories: Campaigning
Commenting is closed for this article.
Hi Priscilla – it’s an interesting report. I’m just digging into it now, but I just wanted to mention something re: geographically based communities.
On page 8 of the Participate report, they state “With a specific focus on location-based communities” – this might account for the focus here.
However, I’ve seen other research (my recollection is it’s in this report: http://www.e-benchmarksstudy.com/ but I can’t recall and don’t have time right now to dig it up) that shows donations and participation rates in online campaigns increase when geographically targeted.
So although I suspect it’s in part a reflection of the focus/methodology of the report, it is a broader trend.
— Grant 7 January 2008 #
This is completely straw-poll as I have not done any hard number crunching on the local/national divisions yet (I really should).
As a feeder into participation rates: it appears that the small local parts of the large organisation I am with (you know me P) feel they have more impact than they have. Whereas the dispersed, and especially online, larger but looser communities often feel they make little or no impact on change.
Thus a small number of activists in a local area are more likely to engage in any given activity (as they feel they make a difference), but it appears (again straw poll) that their numbers and localised impact make them less likely to produce a measurable outcome.
— Mark 7 January 2008 #
Thanks for your comment – that’s really interesting. I guess an organisation like the BBC is more likely to engage people locally as news is seen as an essential service, as opposed to an activist organisation that is appealing to people based on opinion and motivation.
Although the local actions don’t result in a measurable outcome, do you think there’s a chance that if they’re vocal enough, they have the capacity to swing public opinion and therefore motivate more people to take action? I’m thinking about a couple of local issues from my area in Melbourne (Footscray), where local action became quite newsworthy and therefore built momentum around (a) a local swimming pool closure, and (b) diverting trucks so they remained on highways and didn’t travel on residential roads.
— Priscilla 8 January 2008 #
We need to make a clear distinction between local activism on local issues and local activism on international issues.
Local activism about the local swimming pool is going to have a significant impact because they represent a statistically (and electorally to be cynical/pragmatic) significant proportion of a small population. A group knitting in Footscray may have little impact on changing attitudes towards capital punishment in Saudi Arabia (for example) though.
We should certainly not discount this level of activism and it is both an effective entry point and a way to start a larger movement as you point out in what I assume was a rhetorical question about swinging public opinion.
Not all noise is good noise, but often it is (and it’s fun). Hence my occasional impersonations of a Moravian Swearing Bear.
Oh, and I have a lot of trouble with your captcha!
— Mark 8 January 2008 #