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Communication plan 2008
World Social Forum
Communication Commission
WSF International Council
Berlin 30/05/2007
Communication plan 2008
How to make the 2008 events/mobilisations globally visible?
- Diffuse largely the invitation coming from the IC and organisations starting from after Berlin.
- All the groups that want to organise activities for 2008 will inform the site team until September
30th 2007, about the activities they are going to realize (sending also multimedia contents if
possibile, under the general title “Another world is possible” and their own specific slogans )
- These activities will appear in the “event” site (wsf2008.net) in various forms and languages (eg.
world map), which will provide information for the general public and media
- All the groups that have informed about activities for 2008 are invited to choose – by November
15th (an)other activity(es) outside their continent to which they want to “connect themselves”.
- The connected activities will be detailed by the people who decided to connect.
- By the 15th of December, we shall have 15 simultaneous press conferences announcing the
global mobilisation in January 26, 2008
- During the 26th of January 2008, the wsf2008.net site will have a world clock showing what is
happening in the various countries, with multimedia content. Eg. short video, pictures, radio content,
etc.
Communication plan 2008
This plan addresses three levels of communication and information:
1. Internal communication among IC and WSF organisers/facilitators
2. (Intra) communication among WSF participants
3. External communication and information (independent and commercial media)
It also looks at the building up, coverage and process communication of the WSF
during the year.
The plan is divided in 8 tasks, that are integrated but can be implemented by working
groups, each supported by one organisation, who shall administer funds and contract
people. and be accountable towards the Communication commission and IC.
It has a proposed budget, mainly to have a working team of people dedicated to the
different tasks. It is also structured to be able to fund-raise in a more focused way
The plan is divided in two parts: the first is focused on 2008, the second is a more
general plan. In order to have a good communication strategy, a longer term plan is
necessary, which can solve many of the needs and problems we have today.
Communication plan 2008
1. INTERNAL AND INTRA-COMMUNICATION
- The communication among the organisations who participate at the
different Forums/activities/mobilisations
- The communication among those who organise the Forums/activities
(i.e., the facilitators: the International Council, its Commissions and Working
groups, the Organising committees of the different Forums, and other
facilitating and service groups that might arise for Mobilisations)
What is proposed:
a) To redesign the WSF Bulletin/Newsletter that already exists
The proposal is to change it into a strong and participative tool, divided into
two different instruments: one for the general list of participants, the other for
linkage among facilitators.
b) Create a living internal space for communication
- Develop usage for IC working groups of the wsfprocess.net groups
- Facilitator of the internal space of communication who stimulates
encourages debate and the circulation of experiences and ideas
Communication plan 2008
2. NETWORKING AND REACH-OUT
Horizontal communication between the groups participating in the WSF process
PROCESS SITE
The process site (www.wsfprocess.net) allows thousands of organisations to contact other
similar organisations and engage with them exchanges and projects using the option
‘groups’ and using mailing-lists and collaborative publishing. The use of this type of site
is structurally decentralised and it is tool for working groups and building joint
initiatives
1. Public pages
A directory of activities and organisations and groups accessible to the general public, and
feed it into wsf2008 site
2. Horizontal communication for Activities 2008
In Nairobi 20% of activities were organized by groups of organisations; this might
increase in 2008 (because of need of broad based calls for organizing big activities and
marches)
One of the new aspects of intercommunication is a “Declaration of connection” among
groups in different continents. The list of connected activities will be made visible in
the event site on the map
Promotion of TELE-ACTIVITIES as a mean of “connection” in 2008
A tele-activity consists in two groups of people in two different place to interchanging via
audio and video through internet using widespread means.
Communication plan 2008
3. EVENT SITE (WSF2008.NET)
Though not in a specific place, the WSF 2008 must be promoted as a global
“event”/mobilisation; therefore, as in the previous forums, there is a need to have a
specific website. The functions of the event site are the following:
- Convey through all the content displayed the message that "another world is possible", that
“we are all over” and to “Act now! Be be part of a global movement”.
- Provide for general public and media general information about 2008 global day
mobilisation
- Explain how to participate: people network and declare activities and then they send
mediatic contents to a facilitation team or upload them by themselves.
- Show multimedia content during the build up (and promote the various multimedia
repositories and alternate media cooperative sites) with visual tools, such as a world map with
“flags” of the places where Wsf activities will happen.
- Allow site visitors to participate in an individual way through testimonies, with their
content
Communication plan 2008
THE WORLD SOCIAL CLOCK
Objective: the construction of a section dedicated to providing daily visibility and promotion of
the mobilization process of the WSF; collection of historical audio/radio and video reports of
WSF events around the world; the establishment of a contact space for existing media
initiatives and the nurturing of conventional information media.
As a part of the WSF2008 website, these are its main functions:
- A world map, divided into time zones and with a different active time zone throughout the
day, showing the mobilisations at that moment and all over the world; thematic filters allow to
view specific demonstrations by issue
- A video window, to view images of events just as they are unfolding throughout the day
- The image of a radio, to listen to and airing audio archives referring to events in different
parts of the world
- A photo gallery of country events
- Multilingual text (translation to a minimum of 10 languages)
Communication plan 2008
4. GLOBAL VISIBILITY THROUGH MEDIA
COMMERCIAL MEDIA - SIMULTANEOUS PRESS CONFERENCES
The proposal is to have [15] simultaneous press conferences to launch the 2008 global
mobilisation [day], to take place in 15 cities that hosted a world, polycentric or continental
forum:
Communication plan 2008
PRESS WORK
The work of coordination of the press conferences – locally organised – shall be taken
by a working group, that is responsible for their common work – and a hosting
organisation.
Among the tasks:
- To collect the references of all journalists who have participated in all the WSF events.
- To collect and the common slogans / appeals and identify how to decline them in
various languages and situations
- Reach out for journalists, both mainstream and socially committed, as well as
communicators, by direct contact and follow-up
- Ensure press releases of the conferences in different languages, circulated to [1000]
worldwide media
Communication plan 2008
5. COMMON PROGRAM PRODUCTION/DISTRIBUTION
Infrastructure and content production
- Type of technological infrastructure which is better in terms of cost and efficiency
- How to involve those groups which produce information on the local level.
Radio
Radio should have a central place in the development and/or in the implementation of this
strategy: it is close to people, it has a horizontal format, which allows and facilitates the most
direct dialogue between different actors. AMARC, PANOS, Radio Forums, etc must all be actively
involved. Commercial radio as well, where possible. The meaning of the coverage given by the
Forum is to connect in network hundreds of radios from the five continents, in different languages.
Television
The WSF day of global action 2008 should also be televised by conventional means,
television/satellite, in particular. Starting with news channels and State or Public television
channels, the technical facilitating team will contact and assist them in downloading and gaining
access to the videos in a specific section of the portal. Some special materials can be prepared
for conventional broadcasts. All uploaded videos of a high enough quality for this type of
broadcast can be downloaded and used for television.
The worldwide distribution can be repeated with Eurovision, as well as other distributing
systems. Satellite televisions can also become members - today we have Telesur for South
America and Arcoiris for Europe and North Africa as well as Dawn media network for Asia. Other
regions/continents should be covered; at least through a satellite broadcast channel.
Communication plan 2008
6. WSF SOCIALLY- COMMITTED MEDIA NETWORK
Encourage the establishment of an informal media network that is recognised in the spirit of the WSF’s
Letter of Principles, and will be organised in the way they consider most convenient in order to share
resources and work on common media initiatives and coverage. In particular:
a) Regularly collect material dealing with alternatives to neo-liberal globalisation, as well as
specific action in this field so they can be turned into material of editorial interest.
b) Promote the exchange of program production on the WSF in the media, spread proposals and
ideas for shared communication in the WSF and favour the formation of joint editorial activities.
c) Create a Technical Group for Reception and Distribution of the above materials, which will
work as a hub for the channeling of the information to the different targets (professional journalists,
independent media, communicators of the organisations who participate to the WSF, other sectorial
channels, such as popular libraries, etc.).
d) Make a shared platform like the Ciranda system available for common communication initiatives in
the WSF at the local, regional and international level to the alternative media who participate and
spread/popularize other platforms which are available or will be created in those events.
e) Encourage the collaboration between the alternative, independent and community media with the
social movements involved in the 2008 mobilisation and the WSF 2009.
Communication plan 2008
7. COMMUNICATIONS OF THE IC TO THE WSF CONSTITUENCIES
Another function of the IC Communication activities, as important as it is urgent, is to
be accountable WSF constituencies of its actions. Each WSF is filled with rumours and
gossip about the lack of transparency of the International Council, about its dubious
management, about its lack of representation.
It is necessary to gather systematically and with each registration module all the emails from the participants. Currently there are almost 300,000 emails with participating
contacts gathered during four WSFs. How many of these are no longer valid is difficult to say.
But the point is to build a working system for the gathering and archiving that up to now has
been of no use and channel it through operative lists for the information and communication
topics.
It is necessary to start sending regularly to all of those with e-mail the decisions and
reference to the minutes of the IC acts and of the secretariat, as well as the process that
goes along with the realisation of each WSF.
Communication plan 2008
8. INFORMATION OF THE WSF DURING THE YEAR
Up to now, about 10,000 journalists have participated in the different forums. We should have a web
page and a database of the e-mails from the journalists to effectively keep the Global Civil Society
alive during the year.
Since there is no agreement on having a person or team in charge of a press office, the Commission
here lists what tasks need to be done and accepts proposals for implementation:
- Collect, [edit] and re-distribute information on the WSF and its activities on a [weekly] basis, using
the great variety of topics and data coming from the different forums and the activities of the different
organisations.
- Translate at least into [6] languages (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi) to be able
to have the adequate impact in different regions. It is proposed for the translation costs to come to an
agreement with Babels.
- The costs of transmission and distribution would be minimal thanks to Internet, as long as the e-mails
of the journalists are being organised.
- Another important initiative is to collect from all the organisations a list, in each country or area they
work with, of the journalists with whom they are in touch. This practice would add to the list of those
who had participated in the Forums and would provide a better geographic balance and value.