Aside from being inaccurate, he said, it has the dangerous affect of normalising not sticking to the rules and it allows people to decide to more easily break them.
In short, no-one else is doing it, why should I?
On BBC Radio 4 Today he explained his position further:
A lot of time we see headlines about people breaking the rules and we see politicians saying to people: ‘Look, it’s up to you. You’ve got to obey the rules.’ Of course, everyone does need to obey the rules. We’ve all got to take responsibility for it but it’s not there that the problem lies.
“If you look at all the evidence it shows by and large most people are to a very high degree obeying the rules. It’s about 80 or 90 per cent and that’s stayed pretty constant throught the pandemic.
“The problem is we imply the public is the weak link when the evidence shows we’re not. The reason why it is counter-productive is two fold. Firstly, if you tell people ‘everyone is doing this, stop it’ what you communicate is ‘everyone is doing it.’ You set a ‘negative norm’ and people think ‘everyone else is doing it, why shouldn’t I?’
“The second thing is, if we are going to get through this pandemic it’s got to be as a partnership between the Government and the public. Government have got to support the public and the public has got to go along with what the Government asks of them. If you blame people you break that partnership Government starts to be seen as ‘them’ and their influence starts to drop.”
Professor Reicher added that reporting focusses on the abnormal not the normal wshen what we needed are ‘dramatic stories of compliance’.
The next day the Today programme featured some of those stories.
A couple who have taken to playing Scrabble via Zoom, for example.
Or Richard from Lincolnshire. He spoke of the funeral for his wife Sheila who passed away during lockdown of a non-COVID issue. There was no Wake and no thanking the 30 who attended.
Petra spoke of her Christmas plans being changed and the service station was full of people exchanging large bags of presents at a safe distance.
It makes me think of the deep well of stories that are out there and how it would be good to see them played out.
A few days ago I blogged about the need for direct communications to cut through to people.
I’m so pleased to see that others independently had reached the same conclusions.
Why this change of tack?
Because people have grown tired and the messages of last March have blunted with new ones needed.
Reasons to be cheerful
There are things to be encouraged by.
Trust in local institutions remains and there are lots of trust in local voices.
Besides, perhaps surprisingly, the number of people sticking to the rules hasn’t dropped that much. Ask the BMJ who have blogged the results of surveys that show this and also highlight the danger in the circulating the perception this isn’t true.
This means that the right messages can still land if they are refined.
In this stage of the pandemic, the message has become urgently more direct, hard hitting and human.
For me, this also confirms the ages-old truism that news is people. Or to rephrase it, people connect with people. The old lessons I learned in a newsroom as a junior reporter are still relevant.
The human story of the COVID-19 victim
This post from Telford &Wrekin Council punches you between the eyes. It is a real person, a resident of Telford, called Sharn telling her story in her own words in a post shared with pictures.
You see her healthy at Christmas and you see also the images of her deteriorating.
I was admitted last Sunday and Tuesday I thought I was leaving in a box as I couldn’t breathe unattended!! I have never been so scared and alone in my life thinking you are never going to see your children again is torture.Fortunately I’m getting stronger everyday so will be home soon. Sadly not everyone is as fortunate so many bodies leaving this hospital it’s awful… TAKE THIS VIRUS SERIOUSLY GUYS
Sharn, aged 34, Telford, January 2021.
In 20 hours the post has been shared 2,400 times and there have been 1,100 comments. Scrolling through them they look almost entirely positive with messages to Sharn wishing her a speedy recovery.
Sharn gave her permission for her story to be featured.
This is the kind of content that has cut through. Telford & Wrekin Council’s Kellie Thompson who is responsible for the content deserves enormous credit.
The human story of the workers at the temporary morgue
In this BBC content, Surrey County Council worked with traditional media to feature the new temporary morgue built in woodland as an overflow as the morgues in the county’s hospitals are full.
In the footage, we see the construction, the empty racks for the dead bodies and interviews with staff who work there. The BBC in this clip are at pains not to film the bodies out of respect for the families of the dead.
The Local Resilience Forum spokesman sets out the big picture and Kirsty the re-deployed Surrey police detective talks about the numbers increasing not decreasing.
Credit to Andrea Newman’s team at Surrey County Council for this.
Also in Surrey, Surrey Heath Borough Council are also in the eye of the storm with rising infection and death rates. Like many other public sector organisations they’ve been posting the official messages but have been facing the rising tide of abuse, frustration and conspiracy theories.
Credit to Joanne Atkinson and the team for using a very human approach. In the post they dispense with the well worn government graphics and throw their hands in the air. We get it, they say. We’re all fed-up. So are we. But because the rates are so high we have to keep playing our parts.
The response is positive. In 20-hours, there’s been 98 shares, 15 positive comments and 168 positive reactions. This is a good response.
Conclusion
These are three examples of content that capture the current direction of travel. I’m sure there are many more.
Directness can work.
The more direct and human appears to be cutting through to people online. It is, of course, a different matter as to whether or not these messages convert into action.
I’m so impressed at the work of public sector people right now. That needs to be repeated as sometimes those at the coalface don’t always see the bigger picture. If that’s you, thank you for what you are doing.
XIR3675 Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c.1555 (oil on canvas) by Bruegel, Pieter the Elder (c.1525-69); 73.5×112 cm; Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, Belgium; (add.info.: Icarus seen with his legs thrashing in the sea;); Giraudon; Flemish, out of copyright
There is an oil painting I heard about shortly after 9/11 that is so perfect looking back I think I may have imagined it.
It was a landscape by 16th century Flemish artist Peter Breugel be Oude. A farmworker absorbed is stooped over his plough, a shepherd daydreams, a fisherman is wrapped in his work and sailors busy themselves with tasks.
In the mid-distance if you squint and unnoticed you’ll see a tumbling body fall into the sea.
That’s Icarus falling to earth after flying too close to the sun.
I heard of this painting not long after 9/11 to make the point that as big events happen we miss them because our lives are taken-up by detail.
Right now, we are at one of those moments. On January 8 2021, it was announced that London hospitals are within weeks of breaking point at the out-of-control wave of COVID-19 patients. Please act, the report said. Wash your hands. Stay at home.
Our NHS is about to shatter.
We are the ploughman in this scene and our grand children will ask what the heck we were doing.
We’ll tell them that we were tired of lockdowns, we were meeting friends, we were going to the supermarket and we were watching TV. Some of us were laughing at it all, saying it was not true and some journalists were too busy to take down the drip of misinformation that would kill some of us.
It’s not the job of communications people to wake people up it’s ALL our responsibility to wake up and warn our friends and family of the impending disaster.
As I was watching BBC ‘s Newsnight I was struck by the experts interviewed. The first was a man who has dedicated his life to his field and was clearly troubled at what he was seeing. His use of language was deliciously British. There is a thousand deaths a day, he said, and we can’t do that.
The second interviewee, a consultant, said that things are tremendously stretched. It’s language I recognise from the public sector. Things are challenging. It’s a worry, he said. Language always masks the reality. A thousand deaths a day isn’t a challenge, it’s 10 Hillsborough disasters stacked on top of each other stretching out into the future.
But the consultant is a prisoner of the language that he uses. It got me thinking that this language isn’t getting through.
Where are you going with these incontinent dogs? You need to stay at home. People are dying. Don’t you get it? Do you want us all to get ill? You are irresponsible idiots, colossal idiots.
– Massimillio Presciutti, Mayor of Gualdo Tadino, near Rome, March, 2020.
I hear that students are graduating and they want to have a party. We’ll send armed police and they’ll go along with flamethrowers.
– Regione Campagna, March 2020.
Now, releasing the Mayors to batter the crap out of people is one thing but it did make me think about use of language and of the content that we allow.
There was a debate this week online about access to intensive care units for journalists who are covering the story. There was frustration at the restricted access. There was counter-frustration from NHS comms people that access had been granted, that it was time consuming and anyway family are not allowed in so why should journalists? Besides, footage of dying people without their consent is deeply unethical.
I get both perspectives and I recognise the hours put in by hacks and communications people. They are now tired. Doctors are nurses are tired of shouting into the void only to be told by some that this is a fraud.
It made me think that maybe the only thing that can cut through now is dying patients, the voices of their families and the weary staff who are treating them.
Like many people I watched the scenes in Washington DC with a sense of shock.
A crowd pumped-up by President Donald Trump marched on the Capitol building – the US equivalent of the Palace of Westminster – broke their way in and forced the suspenion of the election of President Joe Biden.
To someone who grew up on American soft power the occasion was jaw-dropping. There was a sense of 9/11 about it. Stuff was happening that shouldn’t be happening.
I’m in no place to comment on US politics but I’ve found myself hoovering it up in the last six months. This is partly because the character of who is the Leader of the Free World has a bearing on British politics. Partly, this is because politics is a petri dish for experimental comms and partly pure escapism from the truly depressing state of British politics in 2021.
I wasn’t going to blog about the episode but this tweet caught my eye for its simple truth:
Real power lies in the content you create and the protestors got that instinctively.
In 1812, when the British Army sacked Washington had there been Instagram there would have been Red Coats LOL-ing in the Oval office too.
I’m not sure why that tweet has landed but it has.
In 2016, the Turkish military staged a failed coup by rolling tanks up to the airport and TV station. President Erdogan defeated it because he was still in possession of his iphone and Facetimed his country to demand his supporters take to the streets. They did.
There is truly a different rule book in the 21st century.
Dad used to work in local government ‘it would be such an easy job,’ he used to say, ‘if it wasn’t for the public and councillors.’
In my own time working for a council I kind of got what he meant.
In time I grew to realise that the elected member who was able to listen and tell people what they were doing were the ones that made the most difference.
This brings me to social media and the elected member.
I drew-up the LGA social media guidance for elected members for England and did the same for the Improvement Service in Scotland.
I’ve spoken to dozens of elected members to understand what makes them tick and surveyed many more and I’ve trained lots.
There are good ones and not so good ones and that’s fine. When I first trained elected members in 2010, it was more about telling them what was coming down the line and sitting down with two or three of them to physically set them up.
Things have changed.
Ten things elected members need to remember
What goes online stays online
When you post something it tends to stick around. Even if you have second thoughts there’s every chance there’s been a screenshot taken. So count to 10 first.
Be yourself
People really warm to people who speak human, including elected members. So if you have a dog and enjoy taking her for a walk across the fields then tell people. You become human instead of a press release regurgitator.
Professional and council standards still apply online
There’s a myth that the internet is the Wild West where you can say just whatever you like. That’s just not true. Many councillors have found this out to their cost. It’s not uncommon to see complaints rise with social media the driver. Check your council’s standards are.
Defamation still applies online
Defamation laws have evolved in recent years to meet the changing landscape but the fundamentals stay the same. Publishing a false allegation is the same if you print it rather than post it online.
You can’t control the internet
Unless you are North Korea District Council but their control mechanisms wouldn’t go down well.
Sometimes people will say nasty things
People seem to be getting angrier and they want to influence the things they can control. So, bins not collected can lead to meltdown. Why? It’s easier to do that rather than complain about bigger things but yes, there are strategies for this.
Avoid being political
Truth: what that Minister said on Marr on a Sunday morning is of interest to very few people. If you’re a politico you may be engrossed. This will probably not be the talk of the public bar in the Bull & Bladder, Brierley Hill. But talk about local issues? Now you’re talking. Tackle those issues and that’s even better. Tackle them while talking about your dog occasionally too and you’re really cooking with gas.
Use the tech
A smartphone can do it.
Not after 9pm and not on a Friday night
There was a councillor I remember who had this rule who I spoke to for the LGA work. He didn’t tweet at these times because he’d noticed that people had had a skinful by then. Take a look yourself.
Social media is an addition
The delivery of leaflets in normal times will generate some response but it’s not a golden bullet and neither is social media. It’s one tool amongst many.
Do shout if you’d like to chat about helping you with training for elected members.
Every year at the post-Christmas point where I open the fridge door and wonder why the hell we bought so much cheese, something comes over me.
Fuelled by Shropshire Blue I set myself the challenge of writing predictions. I look back too at what predictions I got right.
After 2020, there’s a temptation to throw everything up in the air and take-up knitting.
But what the heck.
Predictions I got right for 2020
Well, I did say that ‘if the last 12-months have been turbulent the next year will be more so.’ To be honest, I was thinking more political Brexit-shaped turbulence rather than pandemic. Such simpler times.
Prompted by the pace of change in the landscape, I also said that teams that make a root-and-branch review every 12-months will prosper. COVID-19 has made things change faster. It has bulldozed IT departments, flattened chief executives and exposed the tardy. I stand by this.
Local newspapers and local radio have become more trusted. This happened. Traditional news brands was where 70 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds got their pandemic information. That rose to 94 per cent for over 65s. We trust traditional brands. We just don’t fancy paying for them.
Nationalism has grown. Britain, the country where I grew up has been changed by Westminster’s tack to what would have been called the extreme right when I was a kid. Three hundred years of peace on the island has put down firm roots which are being pulled apart. English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish nationalism have all risen.
Mental health washing has been endemic. We’ve all seen it. The email once a year that reminds you to take regular breaks cynically sent with one eye on an industrial tribunal. Utterly undone, of course, by demands of 14-hour days for nine months straight.
TikTok did become more important doubling in size to more than 12-million users. NHS comms was all about crisis comms. Facebook groups did grow with 66 per cent of the platform’s users using them. With groups and closed networks like WhatsApp, the need for pre-buttals is ever more important. Have we woken up to this? We’re starting to. But very, very slowly.
Brexit cast a long shadow. Kent became a lorry park. But overshadowed by the public health emergency it wasn’t as marked as I’d have thought. In the South East, late 2019 was pretty grim. But the last minute deal averted the disaster of no deal on the country.
Ethics were challenged less than I predicted. Britain has long had an independent civil service and a politically restricted group of local government communicators. As Brexit has been less of an issue than the pandemic, there has been less pressure.
Fire comms was less about crisis comms than I thought. Cracking voice search was a luxury of an issue to worry about and 5G’s roll out has been slower than expected.
No, I didn’t predict Black Lives Matter as an issue or the pandemic.
Predictions for 2021
In past years, the predictions were of channels changing and evolving.
That’s true of 2021.
But the real predictions here are about policy, politics and the pandemic.
It’s going to be a tough year.
There you go, there’s some low hanging fruit for you.
Here’s how…
For all the gloom I’m setting out, one shining positive is that they will play such an important role in settling the pandemic and bringing the UK back towards some kind of normality.
An avalanche of mental health problems
There is only so many unappreciated 14-hour days with the looming threat of redundancy a person can cheerfully take. That point has been reached for some and will be for more.
Managers, please manage.
Sorry to start the year on a downer.
Content creation: Disinformation and misinformation
Once upon a time, a snappy poster had the ability to change the country. In 2021, the ability to create sharable content that challenges dis and misinformation is the difference between success and failure.
WhatsApp: Disinformation and misinformation
Creating sharable content to challenge is one thing getting that in front of people is another. Getting people signed-up to your WhatsApp for Business and asking them to distribute on WhatsApp will be one key.
Facebook: Disinformation and misinformation
Knowing your Facebook group admin and creating an army of supporters to share and challenge content is vital.
Return to the office pushback
In 2020, we learned how to work from home overnight as our offices closed overnight. Don’t think that this is irreversible. Bean-counting chief executives and managers who think WFH is a duvet day haven’t gone away.
Locally made content with a local voice
Data suggested that the single national sharable message has an increasingly short shelf life. But the locally made message with a human voice and a local accent cuts through massively.
This will continue in 2021.
Deepfakes
Channel 4’s alternative Christmas message with a deep fake version of the Queen delivering the message pushed the issue overground. In 2021, they will become more common.
Being able to spot and call out deep fakes will be an important skill.
Artificial Intelligence
The knowledge gap within public sector comms over AI will start to close slowly. Its pace will be slower than is needed as journalism and web platforms will experiment and make the mistakes first.
Equality in PR will get worse and the right people won’t feel worse about it
CIPR data showed that there are fewer working class or ethnic minority people pursing careers in the profession. This will get worse when it should be getting better because we’re pre-occupied with the effects of the pandemic.
Excluded groups will get louder and make comms trickier
The economic headaches that will run through 2021 will see more division but the pandemic and economic impacts will drown them out.
Be brave on this one, people.
Whose fault is it? It’s the social media page admin’s fault
It’s the fault of Westminster, the rich, Bill Gates, the poor, the poor who have children, the South, the English, the Scottish, Yes voters, No voters, the Welsh, the Northern Irish, Cardiff, Stormont, teachers, police, civil servants, judiciary and gritter wagon drivers.
As we struggle to influence the big picture ourselves the smaller picture will be a channel for the public’s anger.
Much of this will end up on the lap of public sector comms people who look after social media.
Look after them more than anybody because they will be the ones who will fall over and get up insisting that they are okay.
Age gaps will continue to grow in public sector comms teams
The lack of younger recruits coming into the profession will continue and will become a bigger issue. How can we communicate with all our profession if our profession is aged 40, white doesn’t use the channels that younger people use?
Media relations continues its revival
As trust in traditional media maintains its trajectory, media relations will maintain its increased importance. The ability to answer a question is hugely important. So is creating content that will fulfill the need of the journalist.
Brexit will be a quiet background noise of disruption
It’s easy to forget that the UK leaving the EU remains a big thing. Why? Because COVID-19 and because a trade agreement has been shaken hands on.
Problem solved? No, problem devolved.
The coming months of 2021 will see disruption as the real impact of Brexit plays out. The 1,200-page document will have hidden benefits and hidden landmines. They will be uneven. Traffic disruption in Kent, fishing issues in Peterhead, automotive prosperity in the West Midlands, border tensions in Larne. Each part of the UK will find its own set of stories. All will be important to them and all will be drowned out by each other.
The impact will be toughest here on local government and local businesses.
Police comms… relax
And keeping the peace for all of this will be the police and its communicators. This will be such a difficult job to get right. Relax, you won’t get it right so do the best you can.
COVID-19 jabs and 85-year-old influencers
Comms for this will be local, local, local. For Halesowen, it needs to be with a Halesowen voice so the people of Halesowen are won over. By all means have those big picture scientists but its Jen’s 85-year-old Nan getting the jab who will convince the town.
Public sector comms will save the day… it needs to capture this
For all the gloom I’m setting out, one shining positive is that they will play such an important role in settling the pandemic and bringing the UK back towards some kind of normality.
It’s so important that comms captures and records its role in making this happen.
And finally…
Yes, it will be difficult.
But if you work in public sector comms you’ve never been more needed and you’ll never be prouder than when you tell your grand children in years to come that you did the best that you could when you had to.
The secret to 2021 is to do the best you can when you can and keep something in the tank for tomorrow. You’ll cover more ground that way.
Your Christmas jumper is on and the workstation has tinsel… what better way than easing off than with a fiendishly hard 2020 quiz for comms people.
Part teaching device and part team building exercise this is a chance to pit your wits.
Take ha tea break to run this quiz past your colleagues to see how well you can do with this mixed bag of media stats and data points that every self-respecting comms person needs to know.
Answers are at the bottom of the post.
Q1 – In 2020, which is the largest social platform in the UK, according to Ofcom?
A) Facebook
B) YouTube
C) TikTok
D) Twitter
Q2 – What was the combined TV audience for Boris Johnson’s lockdown address to the nation in March?
A) 22.6 million
B) 30.1 million
C) 18.9 million
D) 27.1 million
Q3 – In 2020, we’ve never spent more time online. How long is the national average?
A) 4 hours 2 minutes
B) 3 hours 57 minutes
C) 5 hours 9 minutes
D) 2 hours 26 minutes
Q4: How many Netflix subscribers are there in 2020?
A) 7.1 milluion
B) 17.1 million
C) 12.4 million
D) 6.3 million
Q5: How many people like the Downing Street Facebook page?
A) 1.2 million
B) 4.3 million
C) 1.5 million
D) 10.1 million
Q6: What percentage of all Facebook users are members of Facebook groups?
A) 10 per cent
B) 66 per cent
C) 42 per cent
D) 71 per cent
Q7 – How much did Sir Captain Tom Moore raise through his sponsored walk?
A) 14 million
B) 40 million
C) 44 million
D) 130 million
Q8) What is the most popular museum anywhere in the world on TikTok?
A) New York Museum of Modern Art
B) Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam
C) The Louvre, Paris
D) The Black Country Living Museum in Dudley
Q9: On average, how long does an adult spend watching video in 2020?
A) 29 minutes a day
B) 4 minutes a day
C) 14 minutes a day
D) 59 minutes a day
Q10: According to industry regulators PAMco how many people read a national news title in print or online in 2020?
A) 8 million
B) 18 million
C) 30 million
D) 16 million
Q11: What is QAnon?
A) A disproved conspiracy theory that alleges a cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophioles run a global sex trafficking ring and plot against Donald Trump
B) A series of posts on anonymous messageboard 4Chan.
C) A movement classified by the FBI as a domestic terror threat.
D) All of the above.
Q12: Which track is used in the 2020 John Lewis ad?
A) Please, Please, lease Let Me Get What I Want
B) Your Song
C) Give A Little Love
D) Somewhere Only We Know
Q13: What is the most popular messaging platform in the UK used by 40 per cent of adults daily?
A) Messenger
B) WhatsApp
C) Telegram
D) Signal
Q14: Which pop star is the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS choir singing with for their attempt at a Christmas number 1?
A) Justin Beiber
B) Harry Styles
C) Maria Carey
D) Cliff Richards
Q15: If over 55s hold the record for spending time on news sites with 25 minutes a day how long do 18-year-olds spend on news sites?
A) 15 minutes
B) 3 minutes
C) 4 minutes
D) 12 minutes
Q1: A: YouTube, Q2: D: 27.1 million Q3: A: 4 hours 2 minutes Q4: C: 12.4 million Q5: A: 1.2 million Q6: B: 66 per cent Q7: B: 40 million Q8: D: Black Country Museum with 367,000 followers Q9: A: 29 minutes a day Q10: C: 30 million Q11: D: All of the above Q12: C: Give A Little Love Q13: B WhatsApp Q14: A: Justin Beiber Q15: D 12 minutes.
TLDR: We’re faring better than expected with COVID-19 disinformation but science’s message is losing in community groups… and what the hell are Reach plc titles playing at?
I’ve long said the battle against COVID-19 misinformation will be won or lost on Facebook so I decided to take a deep dive into that so you don’t have to.
Over three days I read 675 posts in community groups, public sector pages and news pages across the wider West Midlands.
It’s clear science says the path out of the pandemic is through inoculating at l;east 70 per cent of the population. But the path is a rocky one with Facebook scientists telling you otherwise.
As a country, we need to win the information war to reassure people that tests have been done on innoculations. In the summer, just 50 per cent said they’d have the jab. The absolute minimum to make it work is 70 per cent.
Bridging that gap is the key comms challenge of all our lifetimes.
Within that gap are two sets of people.
The first are those who have genuine concerns. I’m allergic to penicillin. Does this mean I’m safe to have it? I get that.
But there others, the anti-vaxxers who ignore the science and circulate debunked tropes arere dangerous. These ideas kill people.
But are they winning?
I’ve mapped the conspiracy to see what communicators can learn from the underlying trends.
Wading through almost posts and thousands of comments I saw plenty of frustration with lockdown, a wish for Christmas, some conspiracy and abuse but also plenty of togetherness, humour and help.
I looked at three areas.
Facebook pages run by the public sector, pages run by news titles and groups run by members of the public for communities where they live.
In the future, people will look back and wonder why every conversation was not about the virus.
Easy. In wartime, people want to talk about other things than the events at the front. The pandemic is news, of course news companies are going to be covering it.
More than a quarter of content posted to news site featured COVID-19 whether it was the latest infection rates, debate about tiers or people from the circulation area in the first round of of inoculations.
Less than a fifth of public sector posts were COVID-19. This reflects two things. Business as usual has returned in earnest and that there is less appetite for pandemic updates nine months in. That’s borne out by the community groups. A tenth of what people post about is about the virus. There are other things to talk about.
Fig 1. Percentage of COVID-19 content by Facebook channel
Misinformation and disinformation is rife in community groups
They may talk about it less in community Facebook groups but when they do this brings out the conspiracy theorists.
Misinformation is getting the wrong end of the stick. Disinformation is far more sinister. It’s the deliberate sewing of lies knowing they are lies.
I looked at 25 Facebook community groups with a combined audience of up to 261,000.
A total of 61 per cent of COVID-19 content attracted misinformation and disinformation – far more than public sector and news pages.
Fig 2. Percentage of COVID-19 content with disinformation or misinformation in the comments
If you’ve not been onto Facebook recently, hang onto your hats.
There is the idea that the Government is doing all this just to record people’s DNA…
Or, there is the story that originated in Australia that a can of Coke tested positive.
Or there is the QAnon conspiracies that all of this is the ‘great reset’ by the New World Order. People who trusts the scientists are ‘sheeple’ who don’t think for themselves.
It may be tempting to dismiss this sort of talk. But don’t forget that the US has elected QAnon conspiracy theorists.
But there are those who respond. Don’t think that theoriests have it all their own way.
Striking as I looked around community groups was the lack of public sector content being shared in them. Anti-vaxxers have all the best memes that are easily sharable.
Local stories for local people work
What does work in community groups is content with people from the area getting shots.
If anything is, this is the secret sauce in the battle.
Often this leads to local people recognising the people in the picture.
It’s brilliant to see.
News companies… especially Reach plc… are attracting misinformation and disinformation and appear not to act against it
As a former journalists, the way that news companies are handling the pandemic troubled me the most.
Of course media companies are going to be attracted to to COVID-19. It’s the story of the decade. But what was interesting was the comments they attract. Posting COVID-19 content attracts sceptics like a moth to a flame. But there is a marked difference between Reach plc titles and non-Reach titles.
Here, there is a striking disparity between how Reach plc police their comments and write their content and other news organisations.
Almost half Reach plc content attracted mis and disinformation – that’s twice as much as other news companies.
I have a lot of time for journalists working for Reach plc. I know several and as a company they have a firmer grasp of how to make online news work than many others. However, the data does not lie. I don’t want to go into the question as to whether this devisive approach is deliberate but I would challenge this company to do a better job at policing Facebook than they are.
Some of the comments on Reach’s Facebook pages are dangerously inaccurate.
All to often comments on Reach plc Facebook pages turn into a rancid free-for-all that can’t be good for the long-term trust and business of journalism.
Fig 3. Percentage of COVID-19 content with mis or disinformation by ownership
Public sector pages are mis and disinformation free
If there’s good news it’s that the conspiracy theorists are not on their pages. Or if they are their content doesn’t last long.
But if people’s only experience of the topic is pages then they’d be lulled into a false sense of security.
One alarming issue through the review was a lack of public sector content making its way into community groups. It is getting cut through in news pages but not in the community.
What public sector communicators can do about it
The failure to get public sector uinformation into Facebook groups is alarming. But without direct action this is unlikely to change. Group admins are as influential as as patch journalists. They are the new gatekeepers.
Good relations with Facebook admins are important but so is the ability to enlist the help of the community into sharing the message.
Staff, community leaders and members of the public who all signed up to help in the early days of COVID-19 need to come into play.
But a discussion with Reach plc editors is beyond time. Of course, people can debate topics. But when the information in the comments is dangerously inaccurate it makes a mockery of the noble ideals of journalism. This is a shame when there is some good work – Reach included – going on in the content.
Notes
Facebook media pages analysed: Birmingham Live, Black Country Live, Stoke-on-Trent Live, Burton Live and Coventry Live (all Reach plc) as well as Stourbridge News, Hereford Times, Worcester News, BBC Midlands and Express & Star.
Facebook groups Halesowen Times Take 2, Atherstone & District People’s Forum, Great Barr Neighbourhood Forum, Streetlifers of Stourbridge, Uttoxeter Community and Events, Kenilworth Vibes, Indians in Birmingham, Leek Community, I’m From Dudley, Blackheath / Rowley Page, Stoke-on-Trent Past and Present, Everything Moseley, Ross-on-Wye Noticeboard, Wolverhampton COVID-19 Mutual Aid, Spotted Tipton, BrownhillsBob, Friends of Stafford, Stoke Prior, Worcestershire Noticeboard, Bridgnorth Chat News Rants and Idle Speculation, Stratford Upon Avon Forum, Helping Hereford Through COVID-19 Bedworth Community Forum, Leek Awakes, Voice of Ledbury, Solihull, For the Love of Shrewsbury and Nuneaton Local.
Facebook pages held by the public sector included Dudley Council, Sandwell Council, NHS Birmingham & Solihull, Warwickshire County Council, East Staffordshire Borough Council, Birmingham City Council, West Midlands Combined Authority, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust, Herefordshire & Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, West Midlands Police, Hereford & Worcestershire Fire & Rescue and Warwickshire Police.
For the review on December 15 and 16 2020, the first 15 posts were analysed with comments.
I’ve always been a firm believer in teaching both the theory and the lived experience.
It’s fine showing people what channels and what content works. But what happens when people shout?
For me, comment is fine. Criticism is also fine so long as its not abusive and abuse is never fine.
We should not tolerate it.
But if we say we don’t tolerate it we need to set that out in black and white.
For me, that starts with a set of social media House Rules that say this is what you can expect of us online and here’s what we expect of you. Without those House Rules how do you take action with confidence?
Here’s a set of boilerplate House Rules for you.
Feel free to adapt.
INSERT ORG’S NAME social media House Rules v1.0
We believe that social media is an important part in how people live their lives.
At INSERT ORG NAME we’re adaptable and continually changing how we improve the way we work. We pride ourselves in being open.
We’ve a set of house rules on how we use social media and how we expect people to use it too.
What we’ll do…
We’ll confirm its us. If you see a INSERT ORG’S NAME account online you can check its us. We’ll list our social media accounts on our website here INSERT LINK.
We’ll listen. We’ll read all messages and look to flag-up problems with the most relevant part of the organisation. We’re keen to hear from you.
We’ll say when we’ll monitor each account. We’ll not be online 24-hours a day. But we will say when we’ll be online on each social media account we use.
We’ll be human and polite. We’lltreat each message with the politeness you’d expect if you were dealing with us face-to-face or on the telephone.
We’ll follow people where we can. But this doesn’t mean endorsement.
What we’d like you to do in return…
We’d like you to be polite. We know that sometimes things don’t go to plan and you’ll want to flag things up with us. But do remember, we’re human and the person monitoring the social media account is only trying to help. So are other people who use social media.
We’d like you not be anti-social. We won’t tolerate swearing, threats or abuse online just as we don’t offline. We won’t deal with your query on social media. We’ll direct you to other channels instead.
We’d like you not to be personal. If you’ve a complaint to make against an individual we’ll look into it. We’ll point you towards our complaints page INSERT LINK.
We’d like you not to spam or advertise. Our social media channels aren’t the place for followers to advertise. Making the same points over and over – otherwise known as spamming – isn’t for our social media. You’ll be better off making a complaint or contacting us another way so we can look into the issue for you.
We’d like you to not over-share. If you’ve got an issue we’ll happily look into it. But be careful not to post private information about yourself or others.
We’d like you not to spread disinformation or misinformation. That includes anti-vaxx, QAnon and other tropes. We are committed to ensuring clear public health messaging.
Of course, most of the time social media works fine but on the rare occasion where you don’t stick to the house rules we reserve the right to delete offending content and block you from contacting us through that route. We also reserve the right to contact police.
If you have any questions about our social media or feel a post may be taken down unfairly email us at INSERT EMAIL ADDRESS.
Just 11 per cent were sharing COVID-19 messaging, the Ofcom study shows, less than half the number from week one.
So where does that leave us?
Not to put too fine a point on it, immunisation is the route out of this and it’s hanging in the balance.
The debate that needs to be won
It leaves us with a debate to be won.
Some of those hesitant have reasonable questions. A caller to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, for example, asked if a long COVID sufferer would be at risk of having the jab? Answer: on balance, no.
Such questions are quite reasonable and the assurances that the UK drug watchdogs the MRHA are that they have thoroughly tested the drug.
Spending time online for research leads me to spend several hours on Facebook a day. It also leads me to read a lot of misinformation. There are two places where this crap really builds up. Number one, Newspaper Facebook pages in the comments section and number two, Facebook group comments. There, the information is often wall-to-wall.
A quick trip to Birmingham Live my local Reach publication on Facebook leads me to:
“We know this is part of a bigger plan to force everyone to get it.”
“The flu’s been around forever there’s a vaccine and still kills thousands each year yet we just get on with it.”
“We’re being lied to.”
If you’ve spent anytime online you’ll have seen this.
I worry that many of those making decisions haven’t.
So, what’s to be done?
Newspaper editors need to take responsibility for the misinformation that their Facebook pages and comments sections are filled with. It is killing people.
Facebook group admins also need to take responsibility for their share too. It is also killing people.
It’s tempting to throw your hands into the air and say this thing is bigger than all of us but there’s one group of people who can help with this fight that we’ve forgotten all about. In the first weeks of lockdown, a million people came forward to volunteer their services. They are perfectly placed to act.
If only two in 10 came forward to help spread the public health messages about the vaccine that’s 100,000 people. Around 69 per cent of the population use Facebook. If 69 per cent of this number shared information to the 200 friends in their feed that’s upwards of 26 million people reached.
Of course, these are hypothetical numbers and the eventual reach could be more or less that that. But the concept makes sense because.
How about a full on rebuttal?
The traditional way to challenge an inaccurate story is to write a follow-up. So, X hits back at claims that Y is the next book in this series.
However, good evidence exists that if you do that you just reinforce the original misinformation which is pointless.
As my Uncle Keith once told me: ‘Never argue with an idiot. To a passer-by it’s just two idiots arguing.’
But comms people are tired
Worn down by long hours and stress we’ve entered the arena of burn-out and more severe mental health problems.
If the Manchester Arena bombing caused problems with 22 deaths what does 50,000 dead cause?
Public sector comms people can’t do all the communicating on their own.
They needn’t.
How to reach them and with what?
How about UK Government and national NHS content?
Hmmm. But fewer people have been sharing national messages that bring with them unhelpful baggage.
But how about the local council and NHS corporate Facebook, Twitter, email or Instagram page? Isn’t that the answer?
My answer to that is that clearly on its own, it isn’t.
While some good locally-made content with a local voice is being made the public sector page on its own attracts a minority audience.
For me, the answer is to create highly sharable local content that helps make the point that the vaccines have been tested and cleared by the country’s finest scientific brains.
But it needs to be local content that repeats the central message.
So, create it locally on Facebook but drive your band of NHS volunteers to it through dedicated email lists or new WhatsApp for Business broadcasts.
So the request…
Hello volunteer,
Can you share this <INSERT LINK> weith your friends and family?
By sharing this you will help save lives.
Thanks!
There is time to get this going but precious little of it.
