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Advocacy & lobbying for human rights issues. A social media model for efficiency

par Arifon, Olivier
Référence ECREA International and Intercultural Communication Section. Conference: International conference on Communication, Development and Human Rights: Social Change and Media Flows (2013: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona)
Publication Non publié, 2013

Communication à un colloque

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Résumé :

Advocacy and lobbying may refer to social aspects, to influence on decision-making process. It concerns any to types of protagonists such as grassroots movements, private companies, professional bodies or lawyers and public relations agencies.During the last ten years, the disengagement or some failure of the State, especially in social and environmental domains, leaves empty spaces, often occupied by civil society, and NGO's, using for that the Web 2.0 functions in order to create influence, to raise awareness and put pressure on decision making process related with their fields.ICT tools and applications, such as social media, have deeply modifies the conditions and the communication’s strategies of protagonists involved in advocacy and lobbying. To understand the efficiency of ICT on advocacy and lobbying’s actions on decision-making process, a several dimensions’ model is useful. On one side, we considered collective actions and social change outcomes and actions repertoires. On the other, mediating conditions. Al least, ten tolls or registers of communication cold be considered. The key point remains to gain in credibility and accountability.Human rights, or regulation topics on social change, are real challenges for NGO’S for several reasons. One of them is the difficulty to select measurable and reliable data’s able to represent universally accepted norms. Another is that Human rights issues are on the bottom of the agenda for many States.This paper will present a comprehensive model for efficient lobbying and use of ICT. Then, case studies will be presented. One is based on interviews with Amnesty International for the Arms Trade Treaty (a ten year campaign for regulation of trade of small weapons at world level), another one with International campaign for Tibet, an on going campaign for human rights at EU level.The purpose is to understand how a combination of influence and lobbying with ICT and social media could contribute to some success – or failure – on such topics and with less powerful protagonists than usual representation of corporate lobbying.