Posts filed under ‘media’
More EU “web streaming services”
In our excitement about Europarl TV, we missed the re-launch of the EPP-ED internet video station at www.epp-ed.tv. It is a slick new platform.
As the EPP-ED points out in its press release, “EPP-ED TV first broadcast via the internet in June 2007”, making it the old man on the block as it just beat the Commission’s EUTube out of the blocks.
The Socialists and ALDE group have not progressed from providing the infrequent link to a YouTube video of an MEP’s speech or a scintillating press conference.
The Commission’s EU Tube continues to churn out slightly humorous, professionally-produced videos with racy-for-a-governmental-organisation sexual references. Last Wednesday, Make Love, Not CO2 joined the list. In just 33 seconds, one learns that turning off the TV when not in the room, taking showers instead of baths, towel-drying instead of blow-drying hair, covering pots with lids, riding bikes instead of driving SUVs, enjoying quiet candle-lit ambiance instead of blasting music leads to… a nice romantic dinner instead of a date leaving in frustration.
Magical Mike
Harvard Political Review and Politics 2.0
Good to see the Harvard Political Review’s online edition turning its attention to the impact of digital on politics.
Interesting point raised in the article - does the use of digital in campaigning encourage undue focus on senstionalist and controversial issues (i.e. misspeaking Clintons, Obama’s pastor etc) at the expense of discussion about substantive policy issues?
Sarko in the Celtic Tiger’s cage
Image via WikipediaThe second in our now regular series of blog posts from our lovely French colleagues over in Paris…grrrrrrr.
After the announcement of the “No” on Friday, June 13, Dublin erupted in jubilation. But the next day, Ireland found itself in a situation comparable to the habitually sober citizen who has woken up with a raging hangover after having gone on an almighty pub crawl. A weekend national newspaper referred to an “Oh sh*t, what have we done?” vibe floating around. Opinion polls indicated that paradoxically most Irish support the EU, even if they voted no and found that almost 40 per cent of those who rejected the EU Treaty did so because they did not understand or were not “familiar” with it.
24 hours after the Bastille Day celebrations of July 14, the president of the European council, Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy sparked a general outcry in Dublin by bluntly revealing an open secret… “The Irish will have to vote again”, he said to members of his party. And the media hype began. Immediately, the Irish started fulminating about such arrogance on the part of the Gallic elite. Suddenly, Sarkozy’s four-hour visit in Dublin on July 21 became a much more controversial topic for the Irish than the last Gaelic football game. It became THE story. Actually, to say the least, the reception of the French President could have been warmer…
On his way back to Paris, “the French gaffer” as he is called in the daily French newspaper Le Monde, denied having asked for a second Irish vote. In fact, Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy is all too aware that there is no miracle solution to this institutional crisis at the present time. Irish events could be seen as a perfect introduction to a lecture on “sarkocism”. Lesson 1: raising the roof once more while pretending you are not. It is too early to say if this strategy is actually adapted to the present Irish versus European context. The forthcoming months will determine whether the answer is positive or not…
An American in Paris – talking about America
No, this isn’t the title of a French horror movie – or even a francophilic indie film poking fun at its less gentrified countrymen. Last week in Paris, Fleishman-Hillard CEO Dave Senay (who is American by my own professional estimation) gave a presentation on the digital media employed by the Obama campaign in the US to an absolutely packed auditorium at Science Po. It’s no secret that the Obama campaign has generated a massive amount of interest in Europe (and indeed the rest of the world), but it takes a room full of 500 French students hanging on every simultaneously interpreted word of an American CEO talking digital communications strategy to hammer the point home.
As an American who has, at times, found himself in Paris, the last thing I would have deemed wise would be to give a ‘lecture’ (even within the hallowed halls of Sciences Po) on something as quintessentially American as a half-Kansan, half-Kenyan Senator from the great state of Illinois. But there was Dave, speaking in English to a crowd of French students, journalists and whoever else could fit in the auditorium – and they couldn’t get enough.
No disrespect to Dave, who is a fantastic and encaptivating speaker and presented wonderful material, but the crowd was there because Barack Obama transcends America – he speaks to the rest of the world as much (if not more) than he does to his own countrymen. Is it his message or his method?
As Dave’s presentation (materials to come soon) shows – the methods that Obama is using to communicate his message are as revolutionary as an old populist named Andrew Jackson used in 1828. While Jackson’s novel use of a new creation – the postal service – probably weren’t noticed on this side of the Atlantic, Obama’s use of digital communications platforms like youtube and facebook certainly are.
With America’s recent past of ignoring everything beyond its own borders, it feels good to be connected again. But why does Europe feel such a strong connection to Barack? Without detracting from both his message and the man himself, the simple answer is, because they are connected to him – 24 hours a day at 256k bps.
- Coverage of Dave’s speech appears in this article on the online edition of the French daily Le Monde
Internet has 8 times the influence of newspapers on Europeans
Our digital practice in Europe has recently launched the results of a piece of research conducted in France, Germany and the UK with consumers on the impact of the use of the internet on their decisions. The Digital Influence Index that results uses both the time spent on different media and the influence consumers say it has on the decisions they take to come to an index that we shall be using to track the growing power of the internet over time. The study was undertaken by FH with Harris Interactive.
Unsurprisingly, the study comes to the conclusion that the internet trumps both print and broadcast media in terms of the influence it has on consumer decisions. Clearly, there is a lot more to the study than that, so click here for the social media release with lots of further info, pics, speeches, exec. summaries and media coverage.
While the study focuses for the most part on decisions consumers take, rather than political decisions, it does address the latter. Interestingly our bods come to the conclusion that political decisions by citizens are less likely to be influenced by the internet than other consumer related decisions.
Having said this, it is clear, at least for me, that the study underlines the potential impact of digital on public affairs and politics.
1. The influence of the internet scores highly (61%) in terms of citizen behaviour of campaigning on an issue. This compares favourably to campaiging for a political party (45%) and voting in an election and way above voting in an election (18%). Speculating wildly, one might argue that this confirms the issue driven nature of the internet rather than the party political. This underlines the fact that on our issues, Brussels public affairs people might find rich pickings in finding and mobilising people around issues online. It should be our natural hunting ground for third party advocates. (see p. 11 executive summary)
2. Political parties/candidates need to be on the net. While the influence of the net on votes in elections may be lower than on other forms of political activity (see point 1. above), in terms of influence different kinds of sites have content from “sponsored sites” (i.e. party/candidates) scores highest of all 61% and non-sponsored sites score second highest 42%. (see p.12 executive summary). This suggests that the politically interested are going online to get their information and that more candidates/parties should invest online to get their message out to their core support – more work for Jon perhaps?
We hope to have some more comments from the people behind the research on here soon, in the meantime your views on the findings are most welcome.
The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me blog.
We recently read on BadScience about the Dore miracle cure for dyslexia, a £2000 treatment which has been associated with NASA space technology (denied) and a research study that ended with the resignation of five members of the editorial board of the journal Dyslexia. Additionally both academics who have spoken out against the treatment and patients who merely said it didn’t work for them have been threatened with libel action.
However, the rights and wrongs of this situation are not the point of this blog posting, but rather the way in which traditional media have blindly supported the cure as a miracle treatment whilst ignoring any evidence to the contrary. The blogging community on the other hand have covered the other side of the coin and analysed the situation using science over ratings.
Proper representation of scientific fact is one of the challenges we often find ourselves faced with in public affairs. Blogs and social media may be the answer to having our clients messages communicated, objectively and supported by factual evidence over sensationalisation.
Despite the amateur nature and lack of control on blog reporting, the blogosphere often proves to be more reliable in many ways. Blog authors have no higher authority telling them what (or what not) to write and many of them have the insight which no journalist could have – some of the bloggers who revealed the Dore case were not only Phd researchers but also had personal experience with dyslexia and autism. Put in contrast, the mainstream media may be trained journalists, but often have no scientific background, and work towards viewing and sales figures.
Hats off to Ben Goldacre of BadScience for highlighting this victory of the blogosphere, and to the science bloggers out there pursuing the truth, based on hard science.
Searching the EU blogosphere
Image via Wikipedia
Apparently in the world of search we are moving in two opposite directions, or at least Google think so. And who are we to question. Mere PA people that we are.
Firstly, there is apparently a move towards expanding the scope of general search to other forms of content. After all, whether it’s a vid. Note that as you’ve been searching Google recently maps, pictures, videos and allsorts of other online content are starting to pop up in your results. Have a go at putting in “Fleishman-Hillard Brussels” and you get a handy map of our location for example.
Secondly, there is a move towards more specialisation. In this regard, the boys over at Euractiv have created their own custom search engine for the EU blogosphere. Check it out here.
Which all leads us to wonder what does this mean? Well, we suppose if we work on our premise that policymakers also use the internet to find out about stuff – or at least their assistants do – that it’s not only your website that needs optimising but increasingly that other types of content may become more useful. Secondly, the custom search could be useful – for example, do you only want to know what the EU institutions websites say on a subject, or how about what a collection of NGO websites say? Could be handy.
Biofuels debate gets sexy
How about this for the use of digital to get across a very stark political message, in dare we say it a sexy way? As with many of the videos out there, it’s US based. It also dates from 2006.
However, it does seems quite relevant in today’s debate in Brussels about the use of biofuels, which is due to recommence in Committees next week. And we do after all have a tariff of ethanol too, which according to today’s FT is the highest in the world. In any case, we seem to be forgetting in the current debtate that there are some good reasons to move away from oil and the video reminds us in its own beautiful digital way.
n.b. in the name of openness and transparency, we should point out that we (FH Brussels) have an interest in this debate through parts of our client base, who are most definitely in favour of promoting the development of a global market for sustainable biofuels. The video is therefore of a professional as well as personal interest to us…
ECPA and the value of blogging in Brussels
Our lunch event on trade associations and the use of the internet the other week turned out to be interesting for all sorts of reasons. While our own experience on this blog and that of Pat Cleary, our US colleague, was clearly a draw, the real value was the exchange of experience between participants all fighting to persuade internal audiences of the (pretty obvious) merits of online communications in a Brussels public affairs context. Hopefully some more trade association blogs will spring up as a result.
Chief amongst those sharing their experience was perhaps Brussels’ foremost trade association blogger, Helen Dunnett. Helen is the eCommunications Manager (cool title) for the European Crop Protection Association. She writes the association’s blog, which is available on wordpress platform as well as on the blogactiv platform. Happily on the back of our discussions, Helen agreed to answer a few (ok, lots) questions about her experience to share with you all on this blog. Unsurprisingly, she has a lot of interesting insights so we’ve posted her response in full to all our questions.
Why did ECPA decide to start a blog?
The blogging site, pesticideinformation.eu, was launched in March 2008 as part of our new online communications strategy. We created this information portal, which is separate from ECPA’s public website, to bring together the different perspectives on pesticide legislation and use, be it press coverage, the latest reports or events or discussions in other blogs, into one place online. I’m the only one writing or recording blog entries right now and my blogs are intentionally unbiased because I’m not an expert on the subject, but I’m on the hunt for regular guest bloggers with reasoned and informed viewpoints to contribute to the debate. So any pesticide lovers or haters reading this, please feel free to contact me!
Another objective with pesticideinformation.eu is to bring the pesticide industry out from behind those factory walls and feel the ‘breeze’ of public opinion. It’s a way of showing them the conversation taking place online, direct from critics, the misinformed, opinion leaders or previously unknown allies, so it’s also an internal communication exercise. My industry is quietly proud of it products and their contribution to Europe’s sustainable food supply. I’d be overjoyed if they starting blogging too to explain in everyday language why they are happy to work for the industry, because they have an important and honest story to tell. That goal will take a bit more time and I am currently concentrating on recruiting non-industry content providers.
Not only is there a blog on topical issues, we also have incoming news feeds with unmonitored positive, neutral and negative pesticide news and comment. We have a Delicious plug-in so I can tag good quality news articles and blogs with simple key words as they get published. This is to help visitors read up on subjects connected to pesticides and make an informed opinion for themselves, rather than be unnecessary worried by yet another ‘pesticide porn’ story… you know the kind, cancerous pesticides found in wine, NGOs just forget to add that even after drinking 200 litres of wine in one go, it’s completely safe….. from pesticides residues anyway! (more…)
