Message in A Box: Tools and Tactics For Communicating Your Cause

Message in-a-box gives you everything
you need to make and distribute

your own media. This book covers
A Strategy for Making Media, Print,
Images, Audio, Internet and Video.
Each chapter includes information,
references, links and inspiring case
studies that show how the right tools
and tactics can be used to make media
with impact. The DVD contains open
source software tools, video and text
‘how-to’ guides, as well as web and
printable versions of this book.
This second edition of Message in-
a-box includes new information, case
studies and updated software tools.
bookletmessagereprintcover.indd 2 27/8/09 19:31:49

message in-a-box
tools and tactics for communicating your cause
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1 PrelimsIntro.indd 1 27/8/09 19:08:25

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Tactical Technology Collective is responsible for

design, coordination and production of this toolkit.
http://www.tacticaltech.org
For full writing and editing credits please

see the credits section.
ISBN: 978-81-908821-5-6
First published by Tactical Tech in November 2008.
This edition September 2009. Printed in Bangalore, India by
Precision Fototype Services on 100% recycled paper.
For updates visit http://messageinabox.tacticaltech.org/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons

Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
Disclaimer: Message in-a-box provides NGOs and

advocates with a set of tools and materials that have
been selected and tested by practitioners in the field. For
full disclaimer information please see
http://messageinabox.tacticaltech.org/
Tactical Tech’s other toolkits include: Security in-a-box,

Mobiles in-a-box and NGO in-a-box.
Tactical Tech’s guides include: Maps for Advocacy: An
Introduction to Geographical Mapping Techniques,
Visualizing Information for Advocacy: An Introduction to
Information Design (English and Russian) and
Quick ‘n Easy Guide to Online Advocacy.
The development of the toolkit is supported

by Internews Europe

This book was written and produced by Tactical Tech with
additional material from the writers and editors listed below.
Design Lynne Stuart
Layout Lynne Stuart & Andrea Willmore
Editing and copy-editing Caroline Kraabel & Tactical Tech
Introduction Caroline Kraabel
Strategy chapter Namita Singh, Video Volunteers
(http://www.videovolunteers.org/)
& Tactical Tech
Print chapter Based on a guide written by Nilanjana
Biswas with additional material by Amy
Dalton.
Grassroots comics section Based on the book “Grassroots Comics – a
development communication tool” by
Leif Packalen and Sharad Sharma (http://
www.worldcomics.fi/home_about.shtml).
Published by the Ministry for Foreign
Affairs, Finland, May 2007. Reproduced
with the kind permission of the authors.
Quick guide to images Frederick Noronha
(http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com/)
Audio Intro section Jackie Davies, Communication for
Development Consulting
(jackiedavies2@yahoo.co.uk)
Audio Distribution Felipe Fonseca (http://efeefe.no-ip.org)
Plan your website This material is based on the eAdvocacy
Training materials produced by Aspiration
(http://www.aspirationtech.org/) in
partnership with Radical Designs
(http://radicaldesigns.org/). They are
used with their kind permission and have
been added to and adapted for this book.
Plan your blog for activists Sokari Ekine
& campaigners (http://www.blacklooks.org)
E-mail marketing section Tim Walker
Internet strategy section Dan McQuillan (http://www.
Internetartizans.co.uk)
Video chapter content Written by TTC in collaboration with:
Participatory Culture Foundation / Miro /
Make / Internet TV / ifiwatch.tv / WITNESS
/ FLOSS Manuals / Social Media Centre
/ Bay Area Indymedia / Anna Helme /
EngageMedia (www.engagemedia.org/)/
How-to Videos: Simos Xenitellis
Material on mobile phone video Melissa Bliss
Additional material for the print, Libby Davy, Caroline Kraabel
images and internet sections & Tactical Tech

D

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Tell us what you think 2
Software and tools 2
A strategy for making media 7

Getting started 7
Designing your strategy for making media 8
Consider copyright 18
Media strategy matrix 20
Further resources & reading 21
Print – on paper & online 25

Select a print format 26
Budgeting & fundraising for print 28
Plan your print production 29
Editing 33
Printing & distribution 35
Evaluation 37
Print case studies 38
Images – photos, comics,

guerrilla marketing & more 42
Illustrations, cartoons & photographs 44
Copyright & other legal issues 48
Grassroots comics 49
Guerrilla marketing 54
Simple animation 58
Images case studies 60
Audio – your message in sound 65

Material resources 67
Making an audio piece 68
Integrating audio with other content 73
Audio distribution on the internet 73
Audio case studies 75

F

Internet – global, local and low cost 81
Plan your website 82
Hosting & domains 88
Website maintenance 90
Plan your ‘blog’ or ‘easy-to-change website’ 91
Blogging case studies 97
Twitter & micro-blogging 98
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) 100
Creating search-friendly websites with SEO 100
Social networking & web 2.0 105
Email marketing 108
Evaluation 114
Video – be seen and heard 119

Planning your video project 120
Creating video 127
Filming 136
Editing 138
Translating video 140
Making advocacy videos without a camera 141
Video security 142
Video case studies 147
Publish video 151
Publish video online 155
Offline distribution 162
Screenings 165
Hybrid distribution 168
Video blogging case studies 171
Over to you... 175
Glossary 179
Free toolkits and guides for rights advocates 187
Image credits 189

H

Introduction
This book and the DVD that goes with it make up the Message in-a-box
toolkit. This toolkit, which is also available online (http://www.mes-
sageinabox.tacticaltech.org), is part of a series of publications produced
by Tactical Tech to help rights advocates make the best possible use of
information, communications and digital technologies in their work.
Message in-a-box provides a range of Free and Open Source Soft-
ware tools and ‘how-to’ guides that will help you plan, make and distrib-
ute your own media. Each chapter also contains additional information,
references, links and inspiring case studies that show how the right tools
and tactics can be used to make media with impact.
This toolkit will show you how to start using – or develop and
improve the ways you are already using – different media to communi-
cate about your cause. It covers Print, Images, Audio, Internet and Video.
There is also an additional section on the Message in-a-box website
about creating and sharing content using mobile phones.
The next chapter, Strategy, will be useful regardless of the media
format you are specifically interested in learning about: this chapter
frames the rest of the toolkit by providing a structure through which
you can define your goals, set clear objectives and identify target
audiences; this will help you choose the right media format for your
audiences, and use the right tools and tactics to create and distribute
your media.
The Print chapter covers planning, developing and publishing
print projects, whether small-scale (leaflets, fliers, information sheets)
or much larger-scale (books and magazines), taking you through the
processes involved step by step. The chapter covering Images looks at
how images can be used creatively in their own right; for example, as
comics, but it also explores the use of images within most of the other
media discussed in this book, and explains how to source and share
powerful images.
The Audio chapter examines the use of sound recordings and
details the equipment and techniques required to capture, edit and dis-
tribute audio online or offline, from simple ‘ear-witness’ recordings to
carefully crafted dramas. The Internet chapter covers ways of attracting
and informing supporters by creating and maintaining static or dynamic
websites, blogs and social network site groups, and it considers the
most effective ways to use email to support your rights advocacy.
Finally, the Video chapter takes you through video planning, pre-
production, production and post-production. It looks in detail at the
different distribution options and strategies and explains some of the

technical aspects of capturing video, editing it and distributing it online
or offline.
Words that are explained in the Glossary, at the end of the book,
are highlighted in red the first time they appear in each chapter. Tools
and software that are included in the guide are highlighted in grey when
they appear in the text, and are listed and described below.
Tell us what you think

Feedback is very important to Tactical Tech. Only with your input can
we improve our existing toolkits, develop new ones and provide other
support services that meet your needs. Please complete a short online
feedback form about this toolkit once you have looked at or used it. The
questionnaire is available at http://www.tacticaltech.org/evaluation
Software and tools

Tools and software included in this guide, which are available on the
DVD or from http://www.messageinabox.tacticaltech.org/toolist are
listed below. All of these tools come with how-to guides in written and/
or video format which are available on the DVD and website.
Audacity
Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder.
Avidemux
Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering
and encoding tasks. It supports many file types and is a great tool for
converting or compressing video files or making simple edits.
Drupal
Drupal allows an individual or a community of users to publish, manage
and organise a wide variety of content on a website.
Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is considered by many to be the best internet browser
available, particularly due to its security features, the global community
of developers involved, and the huge range of add-on products that
extend its functions.
Gimp
GIMP is image editing software. It is similar to Adobe Photoshop
for tasks such as photo retouching, image composition and image
authoring. It works on many operating systems and is available in
many languages.

Handbrake
HandBrake is a DVD ripper/converter. It allows you to read from
DVD/VOB files and convert them to MP4 or AVI files for storage on
your computer, use in editing software or distribution online.
Inkscape
Inkscape is a powerful and convenient drawing tool for the creation of
logos and illustrations. It is similar to Adobe Illustrator and works on
many operating systems.
Joomla
Joomla is a tool which helps people create, manage and publish content
on their websites.
Jubler
Jubler is a tool to create text-based subtitles for video. It can be used as
an authoring software for new subtitles or as a tool to convert, trans-
form, correct and refine existing subtitles.
Miro
Miro is a browser for watching videos and subscribing to vodcasts.
It allows you to grab webpages (including podcasts, video blogs, and
BitTorrent feeds) and watch the videos in them full screen, one after the
other.
KompoZer
KompoZer allows you to manage and create websites and is similar to
Dreamweaver or FrontPage. It supports WYSIWYG (What you see is
what you get) editing of pages, making website creation as easy as typ-
ing with your word processor.
Open Office
OpenOffice.org includes a word processor, spreadsheet application, pre-
sentation manager, and a drawing programme. OpenOffice.org works
with a variety of file formats, including Microsoft Office, and it runs on
Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
Scribus
Scribus is a page layout program. With Scribus you can create layouts
for newsletters, bulletins, manuals, reports or any other printed material
that requires text and image layout.
Songbird
Songbird will help you manage your music files and subscribe to
podcasts. It functions in a similar way to iTunes, allowing you to create

playlists. Songbird is the only media player which works with the
Firefox web browser so you can use it to surf the internet and find audio
files to download.
SPIP
SPIP is a publishing system for websites. It allows a community of users
to collaborate online, creating and developing content.
Video Lan Client (VLC)
VLC is an audio/video player that will read almost any media format,
including DVDs and VCDs. It can be used to author and burn CDs and
DVDs, encode video and connect to audio and video streams, and for
many other purposes.
Wordpress
Wordpress makes publishing and maintaining a website quite easy and it
is also useful for distributing podcasts and video. You can add pages and
quickly update content. WordPress is one of the most popular blogging
tools available. To use Wordpress you can either sign up for an account
at wordpress.com or, for full control and more features, install it on your
own server.

strategy
Strategy
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6
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strategy
A strategy for making media
Getting Started
It’s never been easier for rights advocates to create and distribute their
own media productions, using text, audio, video and the internet. Rights
advocates can make media to raise awareness about an issue, to convey
new information that is not in the public domain, or to mobilise people
to take action, but making your own media does not, in itself, guarantee
that you will achieve your objectives. Careful planning, in the form of
a strategy document, is essential to ensure that the media you make
genuinely contributes to reaching your advocacy goals.
Whether you are an individual rights advocate, a group or an
organisation, this chapter will take you through the steps involved in
creating a strategic plan for making any kind of media as part of a cam-
paign or project. Before beginning, there are three key questions that
you need to ask:
1. Do you need to make media to achieve your goals?
Media can be used to increase visibility, raise awareness, impart infor-
mation and encourage action around a particular issue, but making me-
dia also takes time and resources away from the other things you could
be doing. Be very clear about what you want to achieve, what changes
you want to bring about, and decide if making media can help you do
this. This is a crucial starting point for your discussions.
2. H
ow will making media enhance the impacts of your
campaign or project?
How can making media help achieve the changes you want to bring
about? Perhaps you are trying to communicate with people you can’t
reach physically, or you want to reach a very wide audience and ask
them to take action, or you believe making media will provide the best
way to explain or express what you want to say to one specific audience.
For example, if the overall strategy of an organisation is to influence
policy on climate change, it may be useful to have a sustained, long-term
media-making campaign that is directed at specific policy-makers.
Such a campaign can run over many years and involve many different
activities. Be clear about how you anticipate that making media will
contribute to the change you are seeking to bring about.
3. What are you asking people to do?
As a rights advocate or an organisation, what do you want to see hap-
pen? Do you want behavioural change in communities? Do you want
people to stand up and demand that a law be changed? Do you want an
2 Strategy.indd 7 27/8/09 19:10:21

designing your strategy for making media
industry to adopt ethical practices? Knowing what actions you are ask-
ing for, and of whom, will determine what media formats you should
use, the style of your media, the timing of its launch and who should be
involved in producing, distributing and promoting it.
Once you have answered these questions for yourself, or within
your group or organisation, you can begin creating a strategy for
making your own media for your campaign or project. The following
sections are not about getting mass media attention for your campaign
ot project; they provide simple steps to help you decide what kind of
media you should be making or commissioning to create the changes
you want to see.
Tips
In ‘The Good Campaigns Guide’ Tess Kingham and Joe Coe suggest an
AIDA formula for making media with impact:
A Attract People are flooded with information. Unless your

attention message can attract attention in the first place, you
will be unable to achieve anything with it.
I Generate Get your audience to relate to and care about your
interest message or issue.
D Encourage People may have heard about your issue – but
a desire to you want them to do something about it. Your
respond communication needs to motivate and persuade
them to act by convincing them that what you say is
true and important.
A Prompt Recommend a clear, specific action and be sure it is
action something your audiences feel they are able to do.
Source: Adapted from: Kingham, T. & Coe, J. (2005) The Good Cam-
paigns Guide: Campaigning for Impact, NCVO Publications, London.
Designing your strategy for making media

Creating your own media, distributing it and monitoring its impact can
be a long process, which may become confusing and overwhelming if it
is not well-managed and carefully planned. Designing a media strategy
will help; this is likely to be most successful when it is done as a group,
with the people involved in your overall campaign or project.
The following sections break down the process of creating a media
strategy document into simple steps. If you already have an overall cam-
paign strategy document, some of these steps will be complete already;
2 Strategy.indd 8 27/8/09 19:10:21

strategy
you can use your overall strategy document to feed into your strategy
for making media.
State your goal

What does your campaign or project want to achieve? It’s not enough
to have a general idea, your goal/s should be specific, so they can guide
what you do. If you have already established your campaign goal/s, they
should be used here to influence the media you make. If you have not
already stated your campaign/project goals, it is important to do this
before making your media.
Your goal/s should be specific; for example, ‘We want men in this
country to know that domestic violence is a crime’; ‘We want to sub-
stantially reduce rates of domestic violence in this country’; ‘We want
police officers who do not enforce domestic violence laws to be charged
with breaking the law’. Be clear about each of your campaign/project
goals because these will be used to inform the media you make.
Create your proposition statement

The next step in creating a strategy for making media involves defin-
ing the issue: what is the problem and what do you think the solution
is? You should be able to state this in just one or two clear and concise
sentences. Getting this statement right is an ongoing process – you may
need to make changes while developing your media strategy over time.
People should understand, through the media you make, what the issue
is and what it is you are proposing to do about it.
Examples of proposition statements: ‘We need to stop child traf-
ficking in Nepal; we must enforce the law against child traffickers’ and
‘Same-sex couples in India should be recognised by the law; we must
change the law to ensure same-sex couples are given the same legal
rights as heterosexual couples’.
Have clear objectives for making media

Objectives are even more specific than your goals. Objectives need to
be SMART:
S: Specific
M: Measurable
A: Achievable
R: Realistic
T: Time-bound
Though you may have only one or two concrete goals, you need to
be precise about how you will achieve them through the use of media. A
good strategy for making media may be multi-pronged
2 Strategy.indd 9 27/8/09 19:10:21

and multi-faceted. For example, your strategy can include one

objective to raise awareness among men about why domestic violence
is wrong and another that targets the broader international community,
asking them to get involved by telling governments and police to enforce
the laws which prohibit domestic violence. You also need to be clear
about how the media you make will help to achieve these objectives.
While you may be ready to write down your objectives in this early
stage of making your media strategy, you will probably want to return to
this section later once you have worked through the rest of the process.
This is because SMART objectives must be very clearly defined, which
means that you will need to define your target audience and decide the
media format/s you will use.
An example of a clear objective is: ‘Our blog should encourage at
least 2000 people to sign a petition about police inaction on domestic
violence within one week’ or ‘5,000 men and boys in x village should
see this poster about domestic violence within two weeks’.
Do research
When you know what you want to achieve, you will probably discover
that you need to know more about your issue. The next step will be
to do some research, keeping your goals and objectives in mind at all
times. This research may involve the following:
o Background research – dig out old reports and data created by your
group or affiliated partners. Write a brief history, map out what infor-
mation exists and look for new information where this is required.
o Previous efforts and campaigns – what have other organisations or
individuals done to support this cause: were they successful? Why or
why not? Doing this will help identify what to avoid and what to pursue.
o Context mapping – know what is happening right now in relation
to your cause. What are the key events that have recently taken place
and what are the events that will take place in the near future that may
have impact? Identify who the key spokespeople for this issue are and
what key terms are being used by different groups. What messages
relating to this issue are reaching different stakeholder groups, which
messages are failing to reach them, and why?
Once you have done this research, you might want to adapt your
proposition statement, your goal/s or your objectives by re-articulating
them to take account of what you have learned.
Identify your target audience and participant communities

There are generally several communities involved with an issue, and all
of them can be considered stakeholders. It is important to list all of your
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strategy
stakeholders, as you need to know everyone who has the power to influ-
ence your cause and help make a change. Knowing all the stakeholders
will help you define your target audience and participant communities.
Types of stakeholders
o Allies – people and organisations who already support what you do.
o Adversaries – people who oppose the change you want to see.
o Neutral – people whose position or attitude is unclear or who have
not become actively involved in this issue.
You should map your stakeholders using these three categories
and have discussions about why you see them in this way. It is only
after you understand where different audiences stand that you can
prioritise them according to their influence and importance in terms of
your objectives.
Target audiences and participants
‘Target audiences’ means the people who can actually make the change
that you want to see. ‘Participant communities’ means people you’d like
to see becoming a part of your media campaign or project: these are
the people, organisations and groups who will watch your media, help
distribute it and provide different forms of support. Some of them will
be active participants and some passive.
It’s important to define your target audience and participant com-
munities because, very often, a media campaign that has been designed
for everyone ends up being for no one in particular. Successful films,
television programmes, newspapers or posters are never made for
‘everyone’. On the other hand, a well-made media campaign that targets
a specific audience can very easily end up being liked by many different
groups of people.
Using the list of stakeholders you have created, identify a target
audience (or audiences) for your media campaign and define the groups
of people who will become your participant communities. Identifying
these two groups will help ensure that your media is effective.
For instance, if a media campaign is seeking to ensure ethical
practices are adopted by mining industries, the mining industry and the
government are likely to be the target audiences. These are the people
who have the power to make the changes you want to see. Communities
affected by mining and national or international environmental advo-
cates will likely be the participant communities. These are the people
who will become involved by consuming and distributing your media
and by taking action to support your cause. The target audiences and
the participant communities may overlap; for example, a media cam-
paign which asks for behavioural change in men who commit, condone
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or ignore domestic violence might identify these men as both the target
audience and the participant community.
Audience profiling
After you have identified your target audience and participant commu-
nities, create a profile for each that includes details such as:
o Demographics – race, gender, ethnicity, age, education, religion.
o Geography – local, national, international, remote, urban, rural.
o Attitudes – how do they perceive the issue, how proactive they are?
What would it take to get them to take action?
o Media habits – what media do they have access to, use and like?
o Culture – what is their cultural background, what languages do they
speak or read?
Craft your message

This is a critical step in creating your strategy for making media. Your
message is what will pull people toward your campaign. Through your
research, find out what needs to be communicated and how. There
can be several messages that you send to different stakeholders, but
they should all lead to the same goal. Remember that an effective
message should:
o Be simple and explain the cause clearly, without ambiguities.
o Emphasise the critical importance of the cause.
o Tell people something new, something they had not thought about.
o Be engaging, interesting, perhaps even shocking.
o Articulate the need to take action, and provide a solution.
When crafting your message it is important to remember that
accuracy and honesty are vital. If your audience feel you have misled
them in the media you have created, you open yourself up to criti-
cism and the entire validity of your campaign may be questioned.
For example, if you are addressing climate change and you access a
government report which states that there is a possibility that some
large companies could make gross profits from selling their ‘carbon
permits’, without reducing their carbon emissions, it would be inap-
propriate to tell people that “The biggest corporate polluters will profit
from carbon trading”. This would be misleading without other concrete
evidence. You should find multiple sources and seek out experts, if
required, to ensure that your message is clear, truthful and can stand
up to criticism.
Once you have created a message for your media, you should test
it out on audiences who represent your target and/or participant com-
munities to ensure they respond to it.
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strategy
Creating an effective message

When Oxfam International wanted to create a message that would
encourage people to pressure their governments to invest in education
in developing countries, they used evidence that shows that education
reduces poverty levels to develop this message:
“Basic education helps break the cycle of poverty”
However, when they tested this message on focus group audiences

they found it did not motivate them to act. Instead they found that this
simpler message received a much stronger response:
“Education is every child’s right”
Once you have given your audience a clear message that states the prob-
lem or issue, you need to take them to the next level, where they are able
to get involved to bring about the change you are seeking.
Make a call to action

All of the media you make to support your advocacy campaign or proj-
ect should state clearly what action you want people to take. Although
your media can generate awareness about your campaign or project,
it is not this awareness in itself that will create change. You have to be
very strategic about your ‘call to action’, because it is this action that will
bring about the change you desire.
A ‘call to action’ should:
o Be actionable! It should not be something people find extremely dif-
ficult to do.
o Compel people to do something.
o Provide options for different levels of engagement.
Identify resources
There are two ways to address the issue of resources when you are
creating your strategy for making media. One option is to design your
strategy for making media and then work on pulling the resources
required together. The second option is to map out the resources you
know you have and decide the media you will make, using only those
resources. When deciding which option you will use it is important
to be realistic: know what kinds of resources are available within your
group or organisation and what you may have access to through your
supporters and networks. For instance, you might already have a video
camera which you can use, or a filmmaker or volunteer in your organisa-
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tion who can make a video. This will bring down your production costs
immensely. You may have a partner organisation involved in community
radio which could help you get free airtime for your audio content. On
the other hand, if you need to hire a filmmaker to make a film, or if you
need to pay radio stations for airtime, this could put a huge financial
burden on your organisation.
It is best to create a rough budget for your media campaign at the
beginning, that sets out what funds and other resources you will have
access to. Seek advice from people who have done similar campaigns, as
media production often has many hidden costs.
Different kinds of resources you may need to include:
o Human resources (people, skills and time)
o Financial resources (access to funds)
o Intellectual resources (access to knowledge and information)
o Material resources (access to equipment and tools)
Budgeting and funding

Once you have made an estimate of what resources are available, you
can create a budget. You can then work from this document to ensure
you do not spend funds you do not have.
While it is always best to try and plan ahead for your media-
making needs by including funding for this in your overall campaign
or project budget, if you do not have adequate funds available, there
are organisations, trusts and foundations which provide funds for
rights-based media campaigns. Approach them with your proposal and
funding requirements. Approach other organisations and individuals
who might want to be partners in this campaign or project and who can
bring in their own resources.
Make your media: choose the right format, tactics and tools
Media should not drive your overall campaign; they should be a way of
achieving your goals and objectives by relaying your message and calling
for action. Decide on your media format, tools and tactics only after you
have completed the earlier strategic steps. Then you can decide which
media you want to use and whether they will be distributed online or
offline (or both). Answering the following questions will help you select
the right media format.
o Which media formats do your participant communities have access to?
o Which media formats do your target audience/s follow the most?
o Which media format can best carry your message?
o Which media format will be most likely to encourage people to
take action?
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strategy
Formats
Media formats include video documentaries, print posters, blogs,
audio podcasts, recorded street theatre performances, radio drama or
SMS (text message) urban games. You can use a combination of media
formats and tools to spread your campaign message to different audi-
ences. For example, while you may send out video footage of human
rights violations to national television stations, to ensure they receive
widespread general attention in your country, you could also have a blog
that regularly updates your global audience about new footage you have
obtained, provides information regarding where it has been broadcast,
and shares responses you have received from audiences, relevant organi-
sations and government bodies.
Tactics
There are several ways of putting across your message within the media
you make, but usually you will be able to identify a ‘best’ approach.
Tactics are the approaches that are used to address your individual goals
and objectives within your overall strategy. Your media tactics should
help you communicate with your target audience and participant com-
munities. They should be used to convey messages that will appeal to
their tastes, habits and interests; this might include using humour to
appeal to a young audience, or group mobilisation to bring about a col-
lective action; it may involve expressing complex data in striking visuals
to get a message across clearly, or broadcasting compelling stories of
personal experiences, to ensure these are heard by those who have the
power to change the situation.
Tools
Tools are what you use to create, promote and distribute your media.
There are many ways to produce media, but you should be able to
identify a ‘best’ way based on your understanding of your audience,
goals and resources. For example, the media format you have chosen
to use may be video, but there are many tools you can use to do this:
mobile phones, digital stills cameras, professional cameras, handycams,
flipcams, archived footage etc. If you are only interested in putting your
video on the internet, mobile phones and flipcams may be good tools to
use. If you want to broadcast your video on television or in the cinema,
it will be better to use high quality equipment. Editing your video
requires other tools, as does distributing it.
Security and privacy

Producing and distributing media can involve risks. You may need to
photograph or film in places where others, including governments,
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corporations or public officials, are involved in illegal activities. You might

need to access documents which could incriminate people. You may
need to hide media or documents that need to be kept private and secure.
Anyone who is producing media should be careful about their own
security, but it is even more important to be mindful of the risks your
media may cause for others. If you need to film in risky areas, then do
so inconspicuously. If you need access to confidential documents, work
under the utmost secrecy and understand how to encrypt documents
and hide your digital footprints. If the people involved in your media
campaign could be at risk if their participation, or information about
them, was made public, be sure you have talked about these risks with
them and always give them the option to withdraw.
Get consent from everyone who is participating in any kind of
media production, including the carers of minors under 18 years where
this is possible and appropriate, and be sure you store documents and
footage in a way that will not lead to risks for yourself or others. You
should always provide people with options if they are participating in
the creation of your media: perhaps you might conceal a face or voice
on camera, or keep the source of documents anonymous. Refer to the
other chapters, particularly the Video chapter (p. 119), to find out more
about the need to maintain security and privacy, and the methods you
can use to do so.
Even if you don’t think you are working in a risky environment, it’s
important to ensure the safe and remote back-up of the data and footage
you have collected.
Create a timeline
The effectiveness of a media campaign largely depends on timing. Your
media should be released when the need for it is greatest. For example,
you could release a photo-journal of human rights violations against
women when authorities launch an event promoting the equal rights
of women or when they make claims about the improving state of
women’s health.
There are issues which are not so time-bound, but even with those
it is necessary to make the media campaign topical and relevant to cur-
rent events. For example, a poster campaign about children’s rights may
get more attention if it is released when a news story on this issue has
made headlines. Or perhaps it could be launched on ‘Stop Child Labour
Day’ or ‘International Children’s Day of Action’, when you are more
likely to be able to mobilise the support of participant communities and
get media coverage.
In planning a timeline for your media production and distribution,
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strategy
consider how long your media strategy will continue. For example, if
you are engaging in a three-year campaign, your plan for making media
may not begin aggressively, but if your overall campaign will be short,
getting people’s attention from the start will be critical.
Your timeline should:
o Show the period of planning and production of your media.
o Show when your media will be released.
o Include which messages and media are to be sent out and when; for
example, 50 email or text messages over a one-year period.
o Allow for a progressive build-up to the whole campaign if you are
planning to create multiple media.
o Relate important events to your media campaign and allow for flex-
ibility to respond to events as they unfold.
o Be realistic and achievable.
Evaluate outcomes and measure your impact

It takes a lot of effort to ensure that people remember your message and
take action on it. This is why it’s important for you to measure the impacts
of your media campaign or project: you need to know what works and
what does not and to assess whether you have achieved your objectives.
Media impact indicators
You should decide on media impact indicators before you create your
media. These should be developed from your objectives and they
should be able to measure what your media has achieved. The fact
that people consume your media does not, in itself, constitute impact;
impact means people taking the action you called for. For example, if
10,000 people read your blog, you can count that as a ‘good response’.
But when 200 people who visited the blog attend the rally as you asked
them to, that is impact.
Media Impact Indicators may include the number of people who
visit your website AND sign the petition; a formal response from gov-
ernment when you lodge a petition to them; an increase in media cover-
age of your issue; a change in the laws you are campaigning against.
Measuring impact
Once you have the required data, you can evaluate the effectiveness of
the media you created. There are now many tools for analysing your
online media outreach and these can help you collect data. Some of
these tools are discussed in the Internet chapter of Message in-a-box
(p. 114). By measuring the impacts of your media you will know how
many people you were able to reach, whether they included the right
audiences, whether you sent the right message and created the desired
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Consider copyright
impact. The measurement of impacts should be ongoing, so you know if

your strategy is working and can make changes accordingly during your
media campaign, rather than after it is complete.
Examples of media impact might include, ‘1000 people visited the
website in a one-week period and 800 signed the petition telling police
to arrest domestic violence perpetrators’ ; ‘There was a 500% increase in
monthly coverage about domestic violence in selected major newspa-
pers’; ‘After we lodged our petition, the government agreed to open an
official public enquiry looking at how police officers can be made to
uphold the law’.
Documenting impact
It is important to broadcast your success stories to the world. The more
people know about the positive impact of your campaign, the more
likely they are to get involved. If you have designed your media cam-
paign in various stages and it is progressive, then the impact from one
stage can provide momentum for the next stage. It helps tremendously
if you can demonstrate and document the achievements of your media
campaign as it is happening, because this can make the target audience
more responsive, and inspire others to join in and take action. You will
also be creating a document that your own organisation and other rights
advocates can learn from.
Consider copyright
Copyright licensing is a critical part of any media production work.
Copyright gives the author of an original work rights for a certain
period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution
and adaptation. After a defined time, depending on national laws
(usually the life of the author plus 50 years or more), the work
eventually enters the ‘public domain’ and anyone has the right to use it.
By default, copyright laws are set at ‘all rights reserved’. This means that
no one has the right to do anything with this work without the explicit
permission of the copyright holder, except where other ‘fair use’ laws
prevail. This means you need to be very careful if you are using someone
else’s work (such as photographs, text from books, stills from a website,
music, audio-visual material and so on). You should check what
copyright license has been used for any content you want to use in your
media and unless this license states that you can use the content in the
way you want to, or it is already in the public domain, you must seek
permission to use it. If you do not, you may have to withdraw your
media from the public domain and you may even be found liable for
breaching copyright law and have to pay compensation.
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strategy
Similarly, you need to think about how you want other people and
organisations to use the media you create, and choose licenses accord-
ingly, because the media that you produce will also fall under copyright
laws. You should also consider copyright when commissioning media
to be made and be clear about this when drawing up contracts. When
you are making human rights-based media you are likely to want to give
other people more freedom to use your content than the standard ‘all
rights reserved’ copyright. You may want people to distribute and share
your media, to promote your cause more widely. You may want them
to re-mix your content or adapt it for a local audience. To do this, there
are several kinds of licenses available that you may assign to your media.
These are known broadly as ‘open content licenses’.
Open content licensing
Instead of assigning an ‘all rights reserved’ copyright you can instead
state that there are ‘some rights reserved’ or even ‘no rights reserved’, by
using Open Content Licensing. It makes sense to use Open Content Li-
censes if you want to make information and knowledge freely available
and put it in the hands of people, and in the public domain. You should
always license your work in a way which allows people to use it in the
way you want it to be used. There are several sorts of open content
licenses which you can use, such as a Free Art License, Common Docu-
mentation License, Open Music License, Creative Commons License,
Open Content and Open Publication License.
Creative commons licenses
This is the most common Open Content License system used today; the
Creative Commons website allows you to choose the license that’s right
for you by asking a series of simple questions.
When using creative commons licenses, there are four key areas of
copyright permissions that you can choose to ‘give away’ or keep:
o Attribution – Users must attribute your work in the way you have
specified.
o Share-Alike – Users must license their own ‘derived work’ using the
same sort of license that you have used.
o No derivative works – Means that the work can not be modified in
any way.
o Non-commercial – Requires that the work not be used for commer-
cial purposes.
You can use a mix of these license requirements to suit your needs.
Tactical Tech, for example, used an ‘Attribution Share-Alike Non-com-
mercial’ license for Message in-a-box so as to allow people to translate it,
re-mix it, publish and distribute it freely, so long as they do so for non-
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media strategy matrix
commercial purposes and they provide appropriate credit to Tactical

Tech as the original publishers. Using the creative commons licensing
system you can also define the ‘jurisdiction’ of your license, depending
on the country you are in, so as to accommodate local copyright laws.
To let others know that you are using a Creative Commons Li-
censes, you can use the Creative Commons logos. When you choose a
license, you are provided with a logo and HTML text so you can add the
license information to your site.
Media strategy matrix

The following matrix summarises the information that has been pro-
vided in the above sections and briefly lists the key elements that should
be included in your strategy for making media.
MEDIA STRATEGY MATRIX

State your goal State what you ultimately want to achieve.
Create a Develop a few clear, succinct sentences that state
Proposition the problem and how you plan to address it.
Statement
Have clear Develop SMART objectives.
objectives
Do research Find out things you need to know.
Identify your Know who is involved with the issue – both
target audience allies and opponents – to help define your
and participant target audience and participant communities.
communities
Craft your Create simple, engaging, creative messages.
message
Make a call to Encourage people to take action.
action
Choose your Choose the right media format for your
media format, audience and then select the right tactics and
tactics & tools tools to achieve your objectives.
Security and Take care of your own security in risky
Privacy situations; protect the identity of people
involved and respect their privacy. Secure the
information you gather.
Create a timeline Time your media campaign or project to ensure
maximum impact.
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strategy
Measure Define the outcomes and impacts you want;

outcomes & develop indicators to monitor and measure
Impacts your success.
Identify List the resources you have and those you need;
resources budget accordingly and find funding if needed.
Consider Copyright your work under Open Content
copyright Licenses in a way that will support your
messages to travel far and wide.
Further resources and reading:

Additional resources and reading:
o For more information about developing a strategy and identifying
stakeholders see the New Tactics in Human Rights website resources:
http://www.newtactics.org/en/tactical-mapping/
o Use the Creative Commons website to create your own copyright
license: www.creative commons.org/
o A great website to help you with audience research:
http://man.comunica.org/archives/category/audience-research/
o For more information on measuring the impact of your media:
http://www.mediaevaluationproject.org/
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2 Strategy.indd 22 27/8/09 19:10:22

print
Print
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24
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print
PRINT – on paper & online
The information in this chapter and the software provided in Message-

in-a-box will help you plan, develop and publish a large-scale print proj-
ect, such as a newspaper or book, or a one-off or smaller-scale project
such as a poster, fact sheet or brochure.
The more carefully you plan your printed publications, the easier the
process will be. The questions below can be used as a starting point. The
rest of this chapter provides in-depth information about planning, pro-
duction and evaluation for all kinds of print projects, alongside useful case
studies that illustrate how publications can be sustainable and successful.
This chapter will help you think, before you start, about how you
want your final print production to look, its style, scale and the number
of copies to print. This may sound obvious, but projects can have a way
of expanding drastically as enthusiasm grows.
What skills do you need to develop?

The most important things that you’ll need to start your print produc-
tion are ideas, a strategy and teamwork. Print production, especially for
periodicals like newsletters and magazines, can be a wonderful team-
building experience, but careful and patient coordination is required to
make it a sustainable one. At the outset, make an inventory of the skills
you’ll need to produce your publication.
Human resources and skills:
o Coordination and planning
o Layout and design
o (Grassroots) marketing & networking
o Budgeting (see p. 28)
Extra skills – for larger print jobs:
o Writing
o Editing (see p. 33)
o Image sourcing, creation &/or manipulation (see Images section, p. 42)
o Desktop publishing / word processing
For more about finding and managing human resources, building
teams and maintaining energy and focus, see our Strategy chapter on
page 7.
What resources will you need?

For simple (but effective) smaller projects
It is a myth that to produce something printed you need a high-end
computer. Newsletters, brochures, fact-sheets, posters, stickers and t-
shirts, for example, can all be produced without computers. A good idea
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select a print format
is the main essential for a high-impact campaign. A series of fact-sheets

can be produced with only a typewriter (or even clear handwriting) and
access to a photocopier.
For publications sustained over the longer term
It is difficult to sustain ongoing complex print publishing without some
computer resources. Basic equipment that you can use to get started:
o Computer – to run the software listed in this section, you will need
access to a personal computer with at least a 486DX 66 megahertz
(MHz) processor and 128 megabytes (MB) of memory.
o Software – you can get Open Office (a word processing tool) or
Scribus (a layout tool) with the help of Message in-a-box, or you can
work with any software that you or your team are comfortable with.
See the Print section of the Message in-a-box website, or the CD.
o Printer – laser printers can be a very cost-effective way to do simple
print projects. Printers are also useful at the editing and drafting
stages of larger projects. See Printing & Distribution in this chapter
(p. 35) to help you decide if you will be using a laser printer to pro-
duce your finished work.
o Digital camera or scanner – a digital camera will create ready-to-use
digital photos that you can download onto a computer. A scanner will
allow you to digitise a printed image. See the Images chapter (p. 42).
o Memory stick – if you do not have your own computer, or if you will
be using more than one computer, a USB memory stick is useful for
moving files between computers.
How will you distribute your publication?

Early on, estimate the size of your publication, and the number of
copies that you can effectively distribute. Think about how to get them
to your audience. There are already too many dead trees sitting around
boxed up in corridors, or being pulped!
Select a print format

Once you have a clear idea of what your goals are, and of what sort of
message best communicates them, you are ready to select a format or
formats: brochure, newsletter, magazine or ‘zine, book, poster, t-shirt,
sticker?
How to decide? Think about your goals, capacity and audience. Are
you trying to get people to act fast on an issue, or do you have a message
that makes sense on its own and will not date quickly? Simple messages
can go into smaller, one-off publications like posters, stickers, t-shirts,
booklets or pamphlets, which can include a link to more frequent
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COMPARING PRINT FORMATS
3 Print.indd 27
Format Pros Cons Notes
Newsletters, Provide in-depth coverage These formats are costly; they These formats need to be sustained over time
Magazines They may give a voice to the grass roots demand skills, time and a You will need to prepare good-quality content
& ‘Zines Can include text and graphics good team Delegating, co-ordinating, team work
Can be distributed on the internet and distribution are crucial
Can encourage long-term engagement Watch size, design
They can be shared
T-shirts Fast, simple, catchy and durable Costly, not in-depth, can’t be You’ll need a good idea and design. One colour
updated or is fine, but ensure high contrast.
easily shared Include a link to your website if there is space.
Stickers Fast, simple, catchy, inexpensive, durable; Not in-depth, potential legal As above
online distribution is possible and security issues for people
distributing, can’t be updated
Posters Fast, simple, catchy, durable. High impact. Can be costly, potential legal/ You need a good idea and possibly a designer.
Online distribution possible security issues for people dis- Guerrilla postering (at any size) in the right
tributing, can’t be updated places can have big impact. Consider including
a link to your website.
Brochures/ Fairly quick and easy Distribution Ensure you include a link to your website.
Pamphlets More in-depth. Online distribution is easy Demands some skills Clear, concise writing and layout are essential
Fliers Quick and easy Inexpensive Distribution One colour is usually fine
Online distribution is easy Your flier needs a striking design to stand out.
Include a link to your website
Fact or infor-
27
Fairly quick and easy, relatively inexpensive Distribution Demands research, fact-checking and clear
mation sheet More in-depth. Online distribution is easy writing
Books, Very in-depth Can be heavy. Expensive to Carefully weigh up whether you want to give
print
Booklets & Can be self-funding through sales print and distribute; sales your book away or sell it; whether to make an
Reports Online distribution is possible systems required e-book or a printed book.
27/8/09 19:11:40
budgeting & fundraising for print
updates on your website. Posters or stickers can be put up by volunteers,

and fliers can be handed out at demonstrations.
If you want to engage people over the longer term, by giving them
an in-depth understanding of the issues involved in your cause, or if
your messages are evolving all the time, and are related to other devel-
opments, then a newsletter, ‘zine or newspaper is best.
To highlight a particular subject you could issue a one-off publica-
tion such as a briefing paper or communiqué – but don’t suggest it will
form part of a series unless you are committed to producing further issues.
A longer text might need to be published as a report or even as a
book. If your budget is smaller, it could become an e-book for down-
loading. Remember that anything published online can be updated
more regularly, cheaply and easily.
Using a combination of formats is the best way to reach all your
goals and audiences in the short and long term.
Budgeting & fundraising for print

You can get an idea of the costs you face by asking friends or organisa-
tions who have done a similar project, but you might need to go into
more detail for larger projects requiring ongoing funding, such as
magazines, newsletters or series of fact sheets.
Direct costs
How much will it cost to print? Look at:
o Format – the size and shape of your publication, the number of
pages, paper type, ink type, number of colours, binding, covers
(if any)
o Print run – how many copies will you print?
o Distribution – a big question, often overlooked. What method will
you use? How much will it cost?
o One-off costs – for example: computer equipment, design of template
Other costs
o Human resources – how much staff time will be spent on the
project? How will this be accounted for? Will any outside contribu-
tors need to be paid (graphic designer, illustrators, cartoonists etc.)?
o Travel, copyright, other expenses – will there be any other costs
you need to consider in advance?
Seeking funds
Publications can serve as fundraising tools. You may decide to sell your
publication; space could also be set aside in it for ads from supporters
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print
or from local businesses, even from your printer. You can ask individual
supporters for donations.
Ways of cutting costs

o Don’t print, do an e-book instead (but only if it reaches your audience)
o Use more affordable paper
o Stick to black & white or one-colour printing; replace colour photos
with greyscale, or with simple graphics
o Get several quotes for paper or printing
o Reduce the frequency – print fewer issues per year
o Reduce the weight – save on paper and mailing costs
o Reduce the number of issues distributed
o Reduce the size by cutting articles/pages or even by reducing font-
sizes (be careful to maintain good layout and readability)
Advertising
Small-scale ads are a great way to fund publications while provid-
ing a service to the small businesses in your community. Make
sure you set an ad-rate sheet and stick to it. One thing people often
forget is that maintaining an ad business takes time and labour.
Each business that buys an ad must provide you with a copy of the
graphic for their ad, and you will have to send them a copy of your
publication when it is done, to show them that that the ad has run.
Do not take on doing layout for advertisers unless they pay you for
this service.
Plan your print production

Create a production calendar
Even a simple publishing effort will benefit from a basic timeline and
task-assignment list. This will help make the difference between a cha-
otic experience and a pleasant one.
Consider all the tasks you will have to complete during the pro-
duction process. Group them in order under logical headings. Here is
a basic outline of the production process for a newsletter or magazine.
There are many sub-tasks you could also add.
o Planning – budgeting & fund-raising, content mapping
o Production– content gathering, editing & formatting
o Layout & Design – proof-reading
o Printing
o Distribution
o Evaluation
Make one person responsible for each task on the list; assign an
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plan your print production
additional person to be responsible if necessary as backup, or in case of

emergency on more important or larger tasks.
Deadlines & time management

To fill in deadlines, pick your final deadline and work backwards from
that date, allotting a deadline to each task on the list. Build in a buffer
of extra time to allow for unexpected delays. The longest buffer time
should be allocated for getting the articles from people who have agreed
to write for you. Writers may need to be reminded of their deadlines
and pressed for content, but not so hard as to lose their good will. Raise
a red flag as soon as a deadline seems in danger of being missed and look
for ways to catch up with the schedule.
Don’t forget to leave plenty of time for proof-reading before you
print the final version. If you can’t afford to get a professional proof-reader
to go over the whole text, ask someone who has good language skills and
hasn’t looked at the publication yet to go through the final version for you.
Gather your content

This section is mainly relevant to more complicated print publications
such as magazines.
There are two ways to generate content: solicit it from other
people, or write it from within your production team; many publica-
tions use both methods.
Gathering relevant good-quality content from the grassroots is
one of the most important and difficult aspects of this job, and often the
most neglected. Rather than speaking on behalf of people, community-
focussed media should allow them to speak for themselves whenever
possible. ‘Expert’ contributions can be included to frame and clarify
subjects if necessary. Your editorial team can provide pieces to round
out an issue or fill gaps.
In order to gather contributions and avoid writing the whole publi-
cation yourselves, you will need to:
o Have a plan with clear deadlines and division of responsibilities.
o Develop and sometimes train contacts who have an ear to the ground
and can write, or are willing to learn.
o Provide a clear brief to writers, including the length of the articles
and their purpose, plus editorial guidelines. A page of text in an aver-
age magazine, with no photos, amounts to approximately 1000 words
(for more on editorial guidelines, see Editorial Policy, p. 32).
o Be clear about deadlines and follow the progress of each person’s
work before the deadline arrives.
o Manage a respectful and skilful editing process.
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print
Map your content

Regardless of who will be contributing, always start the process with a
brainstorm session, working toward a ‘map’ of the content you want to
include. Make a note of each article and graphic component separately,
and of who is assigned to write it, recruit it (if relevant), and edit it, and
what their deadlines are. It is best to do this in a spreadsheet format that
can be updated as you go. What’s more, consulting your content map
and layout plan will help you give authors a clear idea of the length or
number of words required.
It is important to establish a tradition of content mapping early in
your production cycle, especially if you are producing a newsletter with
multiple sections. Even a one-off poster or brochure will benefit from a
scaled-down version of this process. Content mapping will help you to
task-master and to appreciate how each component fits into your overall
goal. Make notes for:
o Each article or image name
o Who will do the writing/reporting
o Who will liaise with others to recruit and supervise external contri-
butions
o Who will edit
o Deadlines for each item
If the article or photograph falls into a cluster of related content
in this issue, or is part of an ongoing section or column, note this also.
As you go on, other options or angles may emerge for grouping your
content thematically, and your content map can help you identify these
themes early on.
Don’t miss the story

Stay on the lookout for material that communicates the core messages
of your advocacy work. If you are doing this regularly, it will be easy to
fill your publication with relevant and timely material.
Always take a digital camera with you to actions and events. Build
documentation into the day-to-day culture of your organisation. Make
sure that you are recording and filing minutes of meetings, reports of
trips and delegations, self-evaluations of actions, and summaries of
research projects. You may find it useful to explore the possibilities of
audio documentation, which can later be transcribed.
Your community should be encouraged to suggest stories to you,
and to write them or provide good draft material, but you can also ask
for what you want, by putting out a call for coverage of important issues
and events. It may be possible to interview important figures who are
unable to write articles themselves.
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plan your print production
Brainstorming sessions will bring out ideas for the types of stories
and items that will be relevant to your goals and audience. Make sure
your texts contain a balance of ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ stories, factual and opin-
ion pieces, human experience and statistics.
Editorial policy
Having a clear editorial policy, with written guidelines, will help
everyone stay focussed, on time, on task and on message. It promotes
transparency and accountability within your community, and will help
you handle controversial submissions. Your policy should outline:
o Format – what language or dialect writers should use, what style
(if appropriate), and what types of pieces you are interested in; for
example, news items, reviews or interviews.
o Exclusions & Style – what content, if any, is deemed to be unaccept-
able, such as politically offensive speech or gender-biased language.
o Editing – what rights you reserve regarding the editing of submis-
sions. Make sure contributors have clear expectations. Most publica-
tions reserve the right to edit all submissions for length and clarity.
o Acknowledgement – whether you will give by-lines to writers.
Some collectives have a political position against doing so but others
deem it necessary.
o Writers’ Guidelines – if you publish frequently and rely on submis-
sions, consider offering a broader document with updated informa-
tion about the focus of your current publishing efforts, sometimes
called ‘Writers’ Guidelines’. See the Carbusters website: http://www.
carbusters.org/submissions/ for an example of how one campaigning
organisation accepts material.
o Style – larger, ongoing productions, especially when there are a num-
ber of people working on them, might justify having a Style Guide,
which should be included in Writer’s Guidelines.
Create a layout
Create a layout of your publication (section by section, page by page),
poster or other project. This allows you to decide what goes where and
how it will flow for the eye and mind of the reader. Think about the
format you have chosen and how text will fit on the page while leaving
space for images and headings. Remember to consider how it will be
physically printed, cut and, if applicable, assembled. Always create a
mock-up (a trial version of your document that you put together your-
self), to see how your layout concept is going to look and work.
You can use Inkscape to design simple graphics or logos for your
publication. If you do not have a talent for graphic design or access to a
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print
designer, it is best to stick to templates such as those provided in Scribus.

Read our online guide to Make a Newsletter for more on this. You can
even use Open Office for very simple layouts. The information you need
can be found under the Print menu on the Message in-a-box website.
For all projects:
o Sketch your layout on blank or grid paper before moving onto a
computer
o Consider how you can use images (see p. 42)
o Can you afford colour, in images, pre-printed header sheets or other
design elements?
o Think about the use of white space, an essential design element
o How will the eye move across the design?
For publications
Allow single pages for the front and back cover, and plan what will go on
facing pages.
Remember that the pages are laid out in multiples of two or four,
because of the way that the printing and folding processes work.
Style guide
If your organisation is going to publish frequently, it is important to
evolve a consistent communication style. A style guide is a document
that details specific decisions which have been made as to how you will
express things. ‘Style’ refers to the writing style, and may mean deciding
whether to use full-stops in acronyms, or whether to capitalise ‘Global
South’, or choosing between ‘nonprofit’ and ‘non-profit’.
The best approach is to start with something simple (perhaps
copied from another organisation you respect) and to develop it as you
go on. Make decisions as a group, and then document these. Be aware of
cultural conventions in the areas in which you are publishing.
Editing
Once you have your manuscripts, the process of preparing them for
production begins.
Make sure that you clarify your team’s division of labour and
channels of communication before you begin the process of editing.
One basic consideration is version control. Are you all working on the
right document, in the right generation? Saving all work regularly and
backing it up is another critical thing to remember. If you are not using
computers, make photocopies.
This stage can get hectic and clear expectations and division of
responsibility are important.
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editing
Top tips for editing

o Read through – always read the whole document once through
before making any changes.
o Show respect for contributors, whether your organisation edits
heavily to underline specific goals or lightly to favour authors’ voices.
o Accountability – have a solid reason for any changes. Ask questions
when you are not sure what something means.
o Consistency – use your style guide and common sense to achieve
this with punctuation, capitalisation, spelling, etc.
o Humility – save time and be respectful by only changing what you
must to achieve your goals.
o Fact-checking – who is accountable for the factual information you
are publishing? What are your sign-off procedures? Is information
accurate and up to date? Use the internet or check with your author.
Allow time for this.
o Clarity & readability – break up long paragraphs and sentences.
Use the active voice (‘She brings home the bacon’ rather than ‘The
bacon is brought home by her’). Avoid jargon. Does it flow logically?
o Content – is all the information the reader needs included?
o Tightening & cutting – eliminate redundant words, excessive adjec-
tives and distracting detail. Fix vague language and repetition: use
your thesaurus! Cut the least important information out but save
versions in case you need to go back and retrieve anything.
When to ask the author
o If material is technical, specialised, or unfamiliar to you
o When changes may alter the substance of the author’s point
o When you don’t understand what is intended
Copy editing
A few things to look out for:
o Format – incorporate any necessary line breaks. Fix inconsistencies
in heading style, font, boldface, italicisation, alignment, etc.
o Misspellings and spelling consistency
o Acronyms – state the term in full at the first mention with the ab-
breviation in brackets: Non- Governmental Organisation (NGO).
Use the acronym after the first mention unless there are so many
acronyms in the text that confusion might arise.
Editing and layout complement each other. Edit articles before
placing them into the template. Once you have placed an article, you
may need to edit it again for length. This can be a circular process
depending on how your team and production process are structured,
because your plans may change as the layout evolves; for example, if an
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print
excellent photograph becomes available or an article cannot be written

in time for this edition.
Proof-reading
This final stage of editing usually happens after layout, and almost
always happens on hard copy. Use proof-readers’ standard marks to
ensure clarity, and use your style guide to ensure consistency. You can
view the standard marks online at: http://bit.ly/qV3E
If you fix a lot of errors on the first round of proof-reading, you
might need to do one or more additional rounds. TIP: use different
coloured pens for each round.
It is also possible to edit on word processing programs such as
Open Office using the ‘Record Changes’ function.
Printing & distribution

Print management
You are now ready to send your project to print! It might mean making
sure you have a box of paper and a toner cartridge next to your healthy
laser printer, or else a printing company ready to go. Making the deci-
sion about how you will print your project is about cost, but also about
reliability and quality. Over time, you might develop relationships with
a few different printers, from a high speed copy shop to a commercial
printing firm.
If you have a strict deadline to meet, make sure you have booked
your print job in advance with your printer, and that you meet their
deadlines too. You cannot assume they will keep their expensive equip-
ment sitting waiting until you are ready. If you lose your place in the
queue, it might add crucial days to your schedule.
However you print, it will require coordination. If you are using a
graphic designer, they can often be hired to manage the print process.
What paper will be used? What finishing do you require (cutting, cov-
ers and binding)? Do you have an environmental policy; for example,
choosing recycled paper and soy-based inks?
If you are using a printer they will send you a proof sheet. This is
your FINAL CHANCE to make changes before ink hits paper and you
become legally responsible for the costs involved. Be sure it is correct. A
few errors in a large project are not necessarily a problem, but a spelling
mistake on a t-shirt can look very sloppy indeed. Be very clear in the
instructions you give to the printers, and make sure they are in writing.
If you are printing your publication yourself, do you have the right
equipment available for cutting and stapling? What about postage,
envelopes, labels?
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printing & distribution
Distribution
An important job, often overlooked. What method will you use (mail,
volunteers, community hubs, distribution company, website sales)?
How much will it cost? How many copies will you distribute? Will you
distribute to your constituents individually or to community hubs? If
you mail it to individuals, how far away are they? How much will each
copy weigh? Will you sell some material? Where? How can money be
handled responsibly?
Internet, print or both?
To work out the best way to reach your audience, ask questions such as:
o Will they be online, with a stable internet connection?
o Would they be more comfortable looking at something they can hold
in their hand rather than at a computer screen?
o Are they so far-flung that allowing them to access your report
online rather than in print would help to save you postage and reach
more people?
o What format will have the most impact across all audiences?
Don’t be afraid to mix ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ media. Make the most
of appropriate channels and use multiple strategies to reach your audi-
ence and achieve your campaign goals.
E-books & viral distribution
New and not-so-new technologies offer different and complementary
ways of distributing media. Blog posts can be printed out, photocopied
and physically distributed; for example, by being left in public places
that are popular with your audience, like cafes or community centres.
You can design posters using Open Source Software and print them
using laser-printers. You can ask a journal or print publication with
which you want to be associated to reprint your images and messages.
You don’t need to actually print something in order to distribute a
‘print’ publication. PDF files can contain your finished product in non-
editable form so that it can be distributed by email to your network, or
via a website. However, if you are unsure of your audience’s access to the
internet, you will want to distribute some hard copies. A combination of
online and offline approaches is usually the best option.
You can create e-books (containing both graphics and text), and
distribute these globally and inexpensively via networks such as http://
www.lulu.com/ or http://instabook.net/ ; this allows you to earn
income from your digital products.
Compact Discs (CDs) and USB memory sticks are great way of
circulating content in areas where poor infrastructure, such as expensive
or slow internet connections, makes online distribution inappropriate
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print
for reaching the communities you work with. CDs can be distributed at
markets or in other public arenas. In some areas this method has been
used effectively for distributing content that is censored or banned by
the authorities; for example, the whole online encyclopaedia ‘Wikipe-
dia’ was distributed on CD-Rom in this way in some countries.
Evaluation
Feedback and evaluation are vital to ensure the effectiveness and con-
tinuing improvement of your communications.
You should evaluate the processes that went into producing your
print project and the outcomes it produced. You can look at facts as well
as opinions. Questions to ask include:
Processes
o What did you learn?
o Did you finish it on time and budget?
o How could you do this better next time?
Document your answers and update your stored knowledge for the
next person in your organisation who does a similar project. Create links
to documentation of processes in case of staff changes or emergencies.
Outcomes
o Did our target audience receive or see our printed material?
o How many people did we reach?
What feedback can the audience offer?

o Did our publication achieve our strategic goals?
o Were there sections that people didn’t read, or didn’t like? Why not?
Evaluation tools:
o Include feedback mechanisms in any publication; for example, a
phone number or e-mail address with a request for people’s reactions.
o Use simple online survey tools such as
http://www.surveymonkey.com/
o Build in an evaluation form into your website’s Content Manage-
ment System. Drupal, for example. has many options for this. See
the Message in-a-box website’s evaluation page for this toolkit:
http://messageinabox.tacticaltech.org/eval
o Ask your stakeholders
o Monitor any enquiries, media coverage or audience behaviour
Ask for all feedback to come to a central point so that you can
compile and regularly review it with your team.
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print case studies
Print case studies
Newsletter – women’s centre in India

Organisation: Saheli Women’s Resource Centre, New Delhi, India
Goal: Inform & maintain rapport with the readers by sharing
organisation’s activities and other events.
Audience: Supporters, clients & others
Format: Newsletter. Low cost, black & white
Frequency: Once every four months, issues in Hindi and English,
since 1984
Sustaining a regular newsletter for 25

years entirely on voluntary effort is
not easy. There is much to learn from
the experience of this small women’s
group. Saheli Women’s Resource
Centre is a New Delhi-based organi-
sation working for women’s rights. It
is non-funded and runs entirely on
personal donations from supportive
individuals. It has functioned as both
a crisis centre and a campaign group.
It brings out a newsletter to which
people can subscribe.
The newsletter keeps support-
ers informed about campaigns and activities. From reproductive health
issues to domestic violence, from sexuality minority rights to economic
policy, the Saheli Newsletter covers diverse and often difficult terrain.
The fact that Saheli works as a non-hierarchical women’s collec-
tive is both a strength and challenge as far as bringing out a time-bound
publication is concerned. The group maintains a Daily Diary where
volunteers log the day’s events. This not only helps the group to under-
stand what works and what doesn’t work, it’s also a piece of historical
documentation. As a matter of editorial policy writers’ bylines are not
included, since this would “fail to acknowledge the inputs of others
into the newsletter – be it to type, translate, proof, edit or even post the
newsletters.” (Saheli: ‘25 Years of Continuity and Change’, 2006)
The early issues of the newsletter tended to be text-heavy. However,
in later years, the newsletter experimented with design changes, incorpo-
rated a more humorous style and used cartoons to pack a punch. Based
on internal and external feedback, more issues began to be covered. The
Saheli Newsletter continues to have wide outreach and relevance.
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3 Print.indd 38 27/8/09 19:11:41

N KENDRA April–May 2007 INFORMATION BULLETIN
print
State Violence & the Death Penalty:
The Myths on Capital Punishment
Fact sheets – social education in India

I have been unable to see anything in capital punishment but a penalty the
could not endure and a lazy disorder that my reason condemned. I argue for
an immediate abolitionWebsite :
of the death penalty.” http://vakindia.org/facts-myths.htm
– Albert Camus (1913-1960), “Reflections on the Guillotine”.
Organisation :
V ikas Adhyayan Kendra http://vakindia.org/
ence on Death Sentence is an inviolable command of compassionate culture
Goal
mental expression of social justice : To
grandeur. give
No civilized state shallthe
havereader facts that help them to form a knowl-
t death penalty even in the rarest of rare cases, lest it be condemned as guilty
y and devoid of humanity. Universal respect for Human Rights edge-based opinion on contemporary social concerns.
commands
tion of capital punishment as no state, committed to social justice and human
an stultify or demolish the rightFormat : life
to life of any Information
of any human being” fact sheet. Low cost, black & white.
1
– V.R. Krishna Iyer, former Supreme Court Judge.
4-8 pages, question-and-answer.
Frequency: Every two months since 1993
ment, known also as the death
e execution of a convicted Everyone has a Right to Life!**
state as punishment for crimes Each issue of Facts Against Myths
es’ or ‘capital offences’. Today,
most countries in the world has exam-ines the common myths sur-
with the UN strongly in favour
N General Assembly, recently, rounding a subject and then pres-
on executions, the vote being
against, 33 abstentions and 8 ents the facts refuting these myths.
a historic vote in that an
y of its members endorsed the Launched in 1993 by Vikas
penalty. Similarly, through a
nal Criminal Court in July 1998 Adhyayan Kendra (Development
ath penalty. Besides, this UN
wake of the recent endorsement
Research Centre), a Mumbai-based
nt, by a large majority, of its
olution in the UN Assembly for
secular non-profit organisation, the
conditional moratorium on
tand followed from the hanging
initial aim of Facts Against Myths
nd two of his aides. The fact
he death penalty has been laid "Every human being has the right to life. This Right
was to counter a growing fascist
on for membership of the EU
stituent States are members of
shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily
be deprived of his life...". – International Covenent on
trend in India. Facts Against
a pan-European human rights Myths attempted to use factual and verifiable information to counter
Civil and Political Rights, Article 6
myths and prejudices being propagated against Muslims and other

MYTHS – April–May 2007 1
FOR PRIVATE religious
CIRCULATION ONLY minorities.
Over the years, the scope of the fact-sheet has widened to cover
diverse topics: the myths surrounding the ‘beauty’ industry, the nuclear
industry, the ‘gene revolution’, HIV-AIDS and industrialisation.
Leslie Rodriguez, who has been the driving force behind this pub-
lication, says “If you want to bring out a similar publication or indeed
any documentation of social relevance, you must first have a power-
ful, pro-people critique of society. The style, the formatting, getting
the information out on time – all these are important too but they are
secondary aspects of the process. The main point is to take a stand. You
need to be aware of what is happening around you, identify the main
issues, understand the significance of various conflicting opinions and
then take a stand that is democratic and pro-people”.
How do they know whether the fact-sheet is serving a useful pur-
pose? Leslie explains that people usually write in with praise, criticism
and suggestions. But what gives the publishers the greatest satisfaction
is when they receive angry responses and threats from reactionary
organisations who are the main proponents of myths. ‘That’s when we
know that the truth, as we have documented it, has really hit home.’
laughs Leslie.
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print case studies
Regional bulletin – human rights in Mexico

Organisation: Equipo Indignación (Indignation Team), human rights
promotion and defence group, Mérida, Yucatán, México
Goal: To inform, encourage and assist human rights advocates
in the Yucatan Peninsula
Format: Printed bulletin and on-line publication. Low cost,
green ink over white paper. 30-40 pages
Frequency: Every month or every other month, depending on avail-
able information and time, since 1999
El Varejón bulletin started in 1999

and has since become one of the
main references for human rights
and social activists in the Yucatán,
a region with a long history of pov-
erty and authoritarianism. Among
the issues that this publication has
documented are: the general disre-
gard for the rights of Mayan peasant
communities and individuals, the
entrenched and socially-approved
domestic violence suffered by wom-
en, and the homophobia promoted
by the State and the church.
El Varejón offers editorials, documents abuses and injustices,
provides human rights ‘first-aid’ advice, and makes reports and news
available to an ever-expanding community of advocates. People can
subscribe to the publication individually or as part of a community or
organisation. The cost of the subscription is symbolic (around $1.00 or
50p for 10 issues); the team supports the printing and distribution of
the bulletin through fund-raising and donations.
When El Varejón began it was distributed among a small com-
munity of activists and NGOs concentrated in one metropolitan area .
With time, the publication has grown in influence and is now one of the
main sources of information and analysis about human rights in the
Peninsula. El Varejón continues to be distributed by regular mail but it
has also been digitalised and published on the internet. With this latter
strategy the team has increased the number of people they are able to
reach and educate on human rights from the perspective of Indigenous
communities, gay activists and women.
For more information (in Spanish), see http://www.indignacion.
org.mx/
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images
Images
41
4 Images.indd 41 27/8/09 19:25:31

An image from the campaigning website
I want to go home, highlighting the plight of the
Kgeikani Kweni, the first people of the Kalahari.
http://www.iwant2gohome.org/
Satirical cartoon e-card by Sokwanele about the

Zimbabwean elections 2008.
http://www.sokwanele.com/
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images
IMAGES – photos, comics, guerrilla

marketing & more
Images make your advocacy messages more immediate and compelling,

whether you are using journalism, blog posts, websites, guerilla market-
ing, posters, brochures or e-mail.
This chapter will show you how to find, create, edit and share
images, with an emphasis on photographs, comics, maps and simple
animations.
The power of images is explored further throughout Message in-a-
box, in the sections covering Print, the Internet and Video.
What do you need?

It’s essential to have ideas, creativity, imagination and a strategy. In ad-
dition, it can be useful to have: people to help, internet access, a camera
(mobile phone or stand-alone), and sources of images online or in
books, comics, or cartoons (already existing or commissioned by you).
Where can you get images?

As well as showing you how to create images yourself, this chapter tells
you how to find useful copyright-free images on the internet.
What about copyright?

Many images that already exist are copyrighted, and if you want to use
them you’ll need to contact the owner of the copyright and get their
permission, and possibly pay them. See the Strategy chapter (p. 18) for
more on copyright and Open Content licensing. Copyright as it applies
to images is also discussed in this chapter (p. 48).
Where can you use images?

Once you have your images ready you can use them in many contexts:
o Publications – in magazines, newsletters, brochures, posters, reports
o Online – in e-mail campaigns, websites, blogs, e-print brochures,
e-books
o Video – as still images in a video production. A video can be made
entirely from still images, which is particularly helpful when you are
using archive material.
o Photo activism – encouraging the grassroots collection and sharing
of images
o Guerilla marketing – powerful images are particularly succinct, and
therefore lend themselves to unconventional tactics
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illustrations, cartoons & photographs
How can you use images?

Use images of people to give your campaigns a personal touch. Images
could help introduce members or supporters of your organisation to
people who see your publication.
Use images to complement testimonials: photos of the work that
you do and the people who have been affected by it can enhance written
messages of success and support.
You could also make an entire campaign focussed on one image or
on a series of strong images. A good photo, a witty cartoon or an informa-
tive visual can have the power to engage your audience and energise your
campaign. Whether you want to shock people, wake them up, amuse
them or inform them, a picture really can be worth a thousand words.
Illustrations, cartoons & photographs

Illustrations and cartoons have been used for centuries to communicate
ideas, to explain issues quickly and clearly, for political satire and to
increase the visual impact of a message. Many such images can be repro-
duced clearly online and in print: a line drawing can be photocopied or
printed using one colour of ink. Remember, the simplest cartoons are
often the best.
How to find illustrations & cartoons

o Ask someone to draw them or to let you use one that they’ve already
drawn.
o Search Google Images. Use ‘cartoon’ or ‘illustration’ as your search terms.
o Try dedicated sites such as http://www.cartoonstock.com/ as well
as image-sharing sites such as Flickr (http://flickr.com/) that also
host illustrations, cartoons and other forms of graphic art.
o Collect illustrations from magazines and newspapers, or by photo-
graphing posters.
o Make your own images.
o Ask your supporters to suggest good resources.
Tips for taking photographs

When taking photos for your advocacy work, it is important to go back
to your message, goals and objectives and then think about the sort of
images you could use to get these across. There are various approaches
to taking pictures: you can capture a scene as events unfold, or you can
plan an image by making formal decisions about things like lighting,
framing, subjects and background. Below are some basic guidelines for
taking photographs, to be applied where relevant; they are ‘rules to be
broken’ as you experiment with what works best for you.
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images
Eye-to-eye – When photographing people, consider taking the photos

from the eye level of your subjects. This can make the photo feel as
engaging and personal as the real-life experience.
Compose with care – Decide what you are really interested in and
centre your efforts on getting the best possible photo of this subject,
whether it is a person, scenery or an object. When taking portraits of
people a plain background is usually better. Make sure no poles or other
objects appear to grow out of the head of your subject. At times you
will want want to include the background to show context. Make clear
decisions about what you are including in each photo and what you
leave out.
Move in close – Look into your viewfinder and fill the picture area
with the subject you are photographing. A shot from close up can feel
personal and intimate and reveal interesting details. Having your subject
almost fill the frame can also help your viewer understand and appreci-
ate your photo.
The rule of thirds – The ‘rule of thirds’ is worth remembering. Imagine
lines are drawn which divide your picture into thirds both horizontally
and vertically. You then centre important elements of your composition
where these lines intersect. The middle of the picture is not the best
place for your main subject (whether the subject is a landscape, person
or object), because this is distracting to the eye. Place the subject to the
left or right of the centre.
Make the most of light – Next to the subject, good light is the most
important element for photography. If it’s overcast, try keeping the sky
out of your pictures as much as possible. Also try to avoid taking photos
at midday when the sun is directly above you; morning and late after-
noon light tend to give better results. Experiment by moving around
(both you and the subject) to find the angle that gives the best light – if
you have a digital camera, you can take test photos to check this.
Plan your picture – If you are shooting a portrait, plan to arrive at a
time of day when you know the light is likely to be good. Find the best
place and lighting setup for your photo before you meet your ‘subject’, if
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illustrations, cartoons & photographs
possible. Shooting in a light room means there will be light reflected off
the walls which may enhance your image.
Control the flash – Experiment with taking photographs with the
flash turned off, especially when you are indoors and using a good
digital camera. Over-using the flash can create glare on your subjects
and flatten the colours. Watch out for the unattractive red-eye when
photographing people with the flash and if you have a camera setting to
prevent this, use it. On very low light days you can try using your flash
outdoors when your subject is close enough.
Practical help with creating images

Images in a digital format are easy to distribute widely. Digital images
can come from:
o A mobile phone camera or stand-alone digital camera
o A shared online source
o An analogue image (for example, a printed photo or transparency),
that has been scanned or digitally photographed
Once you have got an image from one of the above sources into your
computer, you will need the following:
o Photo editing software such as GIMP to process the images (available
free on the Message in-a-box CD and website > Images)
o Desktop publishing tools such as Scribus or Inkscape (available free
on the Message in-a-box CD and website > Print) or web-design
software such as KompoZer or WordPress (available free on the
Message in-a-box CD and website > Internet) to incorporate the
images into your media project
o People with basic computer skills to help
o Internet access in order to download, share and upload images
o A printer, or access to suitable printers for a fee
GIMP is a powerful tool for composing and creating images. Using it

you can:
o Create graphics and logos
o Resize and crop photos, retouch photos
o Combine images
o Remove unwanted image features
o Convert images into different digital formats
o Create animated images
o Prepare images for use on websites
See the Images section on the Message in-a-box website or the
DVD for Gimp, Scribus and Inkspace ‘How-to’ guides, including
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images
video introductions to this software. These guides will show you how to
edit and use images in different ways.
Using mobile phone cameras

In order to assess the quality of a mobile phone camera you need to
know how many mega-pixels the camera function offers. The more
mega-pixels a photo taken with mobile phone camera contains, the
better the resolution. A two mega-pixel camera will allow you to take a
photo which will make a fair-to-good quality (150 pixels/inch) print at
8” by 10”. A three or four mega-pixel camera on your phone will signifi-
cantly improve the image quality.
Most cameras on mobile phones will allow you to take pictures
of good enough quality to use in screen format on a blog or a website
if you are intending to use small images. Before you use the camera for
anything significant, it’s a good idea to do some test shots and transfer
them to the format you are planning to use.
For more information about getting mobile phone photos off
your camera and using them, see the Mobiles section of the Message
in-a-box website or see our Mobiles in-a-box toolkit (http://mobiles.
tacticaltech.org/)
Printing images
If your images are to be printed, you need to pay attention to image
resolution (the number of printed dots per inch, or DPI) and size. If
your images are in colour, you should find out whether you will be sepa-
rating the colours into RGB (red-green-blue) or CMYK (cyan-magenta-
yellow-black); these are two different ways of separating the colours in
an image in order to reproduce them accurately. It’s important to get
this right, as it will effect the quality and look of the images.
Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black are the four colours of ink used
to print a colour image on paper. Each one absorbs part of the light
reflected from the page, using what is called a subtractive process. If you
are printing an image with a professional printer, they may ask for the
images in CMYK format. Red-Green-Blue is used to reproduce colour
on computer monitors or TVs. RGB adds red, green and blue light to a
black background and so is called an additive process.
Don’t assume your image will look the same in print as on a screen.
There is always some difference between the way an image looks on a
computer screen and how it looks when it is printed, especially in the
rendition of colour.
Make sure you lay out your work at the right size if you’re planning
to get the publication done by a printer. This helps to ensure that the
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copyright & other legal issues
text and images will look as you intended them to. For books, be sure to
take the spine-size into account. A hard-bound book has rigid covers,
and the place where the stitching that holds the pages together meets
the cover is called the spine.
Whether you decide to use images or not also depends on what
images are available, and on whether they suit the format you plan to
publish in. Consider the size, colour, type of paper and the equipment
your your publication will be printed on. Ask yourself whether adding
images will cause delays or increase the costs.
Copyright & other legal issues

Don’t forget to read the copyright section of our Strategy chapter
(p. 18). You might also need to think about privacy and security (for
people in photographs, for example) – see p. 142 for more about this.
Find out whether you have permission to reproduce each image.
You can always remove an image from a blog, but if it was a national
poster campaign that was based on an illegal image, would you really
want to risk it? Unless the images have been specifically given to
your organisation with the intention of allowing you to reproduce
them, make sure you ask for permission to use them, even when they
belong to a friend or supporter of your organisation. When request-
ing permission, you could stress that your publication is not-for-profit
or that authors are not paid for their contributions. Mention your
print-run and readership, especially if your content is for educational
purposes. Under these circumstances, some copyright holders may
reduce or waive their fee. Otherwise, it may make more sense to rely on
copyright-free images.
Take care while photographing objects that might be covered
by copyright. By taking and/or using a photo of a work that is under
copyright, you could be violating the copyright. This is true of paintings,
some sculptures, craft items, architectural works, jewellery, clothing,
toys and works of art.
Sharing images & copyright

If you aren’t able to create your own images you could consider using free
‘sharable’ images that are available on the internet. Campaigners generat-
ing content online often convert their work into a ‘sharable’ document
that can be easily circulated via e-mail or downloaded from the internet.
If the licence invites sharing and the document is compelling it will be
circulated almost as if it has a life of its own. Such texts, sounds and im-
ages can be freely used, distributed and modified by the general public,
without the restrictions imposed by traditional copyright. This can be
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images
done either by adopting an Open Content licence, as seen at http://cre-

ativecommons.org/ , or by following commonly-accepted practices.
Copyright-free images
A great many images (primarily photographs but also illustrations,
simple animations, cartoons, video and art) of many subjects are avail-
able with open content licences on sites like Flickr.com,
To find images, use the advanced Flickr search: http://www.flickr.
com/search/advanced/ , then select ‘Creative Commons Copyright’ at
the bottom. If you need permission to reproduce an image, contact the
Flickr.com photographer by visiting their profile (via their photo at the
top left of the page) and sending them a message.
Other photo-sharing or royalty-free image websites
o http://www.freepixels.com/
o http://openphoto.net/
o http://www.freephoto1.com/
o http://www.sxc.hu/
o http://www.imageafter.com/
o http://bit.ly/GjaSB
Grassroots comics
This comic about a female A successful multi-lingual anti-nukes

construction worker was used to comic book done in manga style for
generate discussions in women’s Greenpeace Southeast Asia. The online
groups in India about women’s publications uses http://issuu.com/, a
issues and rights. free online publishing site which allows
viewers to ‘flick’ through the pages.
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grassroots comics
Tell your story simply, quickly, to anyone

Although political cartoons have been a powerful form of social satire
and comment for centuries, the use of comics as a campaigning tool for
grassroots organisations is a more recent success story. This guide out-
lines how and why you might use grassroots comics, how to get started
making comics, and some ideas for distributing them.
What are grassroots comics?

Comics are stories which are told with images and text that contains a lot
of speech and dialogue. They become “grassroots” comics when they are
made by an NGO or by activists about issues that are relevant to their
particular constituencies or communities. Such comics deal with local
issues, and use local languages, local visual culture and local metaphors.
Comics have an authentic feel that encourages debate in the
society depicted, and they can be made by groups and individuals (not
necessarily professional artists) who normally have little or no access to
the media or to media production.
Grassroots comics can be produced and used as a communication
tool by any group with an identity, a message and a target audience.
What resources do you need?

The technology involved in making grassroots comics is not very compli-
cated. Pen, paper, ideas and a way to reproduce and distribute the comics
is all you need. Very diverse groups with differing levels of literacy and
technical sophistication can, with some encouragement, learn to produce
comics that are of great interest to their groups or communities.
You can also create comic strips from pre-existing artwork using
http://www.bitstrip.com/ , http://www.stripcreator.com/ , or http://
www.toonlet.com/ .
Each has a different style, so look at all of them to see what suits
your organisation, audience and strategy. All of these sites will allow
you to share the comics you’ve created online. You may have to pay for
a premium membership or make a donation in order to download your
comic in a format that can be printed.
Visit the World Comics website http://www.worldcomics.fi to
learn more, including simple ‘How To...’ downloads to guide you
through the process.
Why use grassroots comics?

Grassroots comics are created by ordinary people and especially by
community activists, so they give a first-hand view of the issues facing
the community. They are a form of expression that gives ordinary
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images
people some power as it allows them a chance to direct debate. Com-

ics can also promote communal understanding across ethnic lines:
when people tell their own stories on a local level, they can reach out
to groups in their society that have false ideas about them. Genuine,
heartfelt stories are convincing and they have credibility.
Grassroots comics have been successfully used in campaigns
involving human rights, health education, corruption, environmental
concerns, and many other issues. They can be employed at different
levels of campaigning, from peer group distribution within a local com-
munity to mass distribution.
Since comics stand out, they are attractive to NGOs, which always
have to look for innovative ways of communicating with their target
audiences. What’s more, comics are cheap to make and distribute.
Most of the time grassroots comics are directly related to the
activities of an NGO, rights advocate or community group, but they are
also made by individuals who just want to tell their own stories. Chil-
dren often make comics to depict the issues that affect their lives.
Formats
All grassroots comics formats use simple, widely available duplicating
methods, such as:
o Photocopying
o Screen printing for more than one hundred copies
o Offset printing for more than two or three hundred copies
Comics can be converted for publication in newspapers, maga-
zines and brochures; it is a good idea to consider this when choosing
the format.
Wall poster comics
Wall posters are the most common and most cost-effective comics
format. The advantages are obvious: you can reach the population of a
whole village by pasting two or three photocopied wall poster comics in
strategic places.
Wall poster comics are concise, telling a story visually in four im-
ages. Many messages can be converted into such a story. Many of the
traditional development communication posters have only one message
or a slogan; you can put a lot more information and feeling into the wall
poster comic because the story can contain drama and a narrative.
Black and white photocopying, using A4 paper, is widely avail-
able throughout the world, even in rather remote areas. Therefore the
simplest wall poster format is two A4 photocopies stuck together. This
makes a wall poster of A3 size, which is big enough to be noticed from a
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grassroots comics
distance. Such a wall poster can comfortably be read standing up, from a
distance of about one metre. If a bigger (A3) photocopying machine is
available, then the copies can be made directly at this size.
When you need a large number of wall posters, photocopying
becomes an expensive option. There are small print shops in most
towns that cater to the business printing needs of the area; most of them
can make inexpensive print runs of a few hundred copies. The printer
may want to work from an original that meets certain requirements, but
these should not be too difficult to master.
The Education of Girls, by Koko Katunzi. This story is about a girl who wants to
go to school but needs to convince her family and community to allow her.
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images
Booklets
Comic booklets are useful because the stories in them can be much
longer than in a wall poster comic. This means you can introduce more
characters, and make the story more complex and more dramatic. A
comic booklet can be distributed to participants in meetings or semi-
nars, to people that are motivated to take a stand on an issue, to visitors
to an NGO office, and in many other ways.
The basic booklet is an 8-page story produced from one double-
sided photocopy. The pages are placed in the right order and photo-
copied, four to a side of the same sheet of paper, which is then folded
and cut into an 8-page booklet. You can also make a 16-page story in the
same way, using smaller images. This is the format to use when you need
to make a longer story without having to draw a lot of detailed action.
See the World Comics instructions ‘How to make 8-page booklets’ at:
http://bit.ly/1aakdZ
Accordion mini-comics
Accordion comics are folded like an accordion and read either as a
long strip or a mini-booklet. The format is especially useful for discreet
distribution because the outside covers are blank.
The simplest accordion comic is made from a photocopy of a
story that is drawn in eight panels on one side of a sheet of A3 paper, in
landscape (horizontal) format. The paper is cut in half lengthwise and
the two halves are joined end to end with a piece of tape. Although this
means doing some work by hand, the size of the panels is easy to work
with and this format is easy to photocopy as you only need to copy on
one side.
A mini-accordion can be made if you have access to a photocopy-
ing machine that can reduce the original to 50% of its size. Take the
original 8-panel story (A3), reduce it by 50% and make four copies onto
A4. Cut them into strips and assemble them on an A3 sheet of paper so
that the story runs four times as strips, in landscape (horizontal) format.
Then copy the A3, fold the copy into an accordion, cut it into four
parts, and you have four accordion mini-comics. See the World Comics
instructions at: http://bit.ly/15kG1H
Comic strips
You can convert comics into strips to be published in magazines,
newsletters and brochures, but you must remember that the reduction
from the original size can be drastic: ensure that the original artwork
has sufficiently thick lines and big enough text that they don’t become
unreadable if the quality or size is reduced.
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guerrilla marketing
Distribution – local focus, local action

One thing that distinguishes these comics from professional material is
the fact that they are made mainly for local distribution. The comics are
generally posted in public spaces such as community centres, bus stops,
shops, offices, schools, notice boards and electricity poles. The readers
usually know of the organisation that has put up the comics.
This familiarity is important: the readers are close to the source of
the communication. The comics will show that someone in the com-
munity feels so strongly about an issue that they make local campaign
material themselves, rather than rely on materials produced by distant
campaign professionals from the capital or even from abroad. The mes-
sages on wall poster comics will get attention and create local debate.
Broadening the audience

For more concerted campaigning work, the available resources will
always be a determining factor. You can put your comics to work in
many different ways; for example, by sending comics to the local press
at the same time as you post them on the streets. This will multiply the
publicity for the issue at hand.
Creating understanding
Grassroots comics from different groups and countries can be exhibited
or published in order to give an insight into how members of a particu-
lar group look at their lives and which issues are important to them.
Such exhibitions and publications convey a lot of local cultural informa-
tion, which might otherwise be difficult for a mainstream audience
to access. Even when the comics are not professionally drawn, their
passion and confidence in their messages comes through.
Guerrilla marketing
Guerrilla marketing means making unconventional interventions in
public or commercial space in order to spread your message to an
extended audience. This section will present you with basic principles
and provide you with some ideas and examples to consider when using
this medium.
Guerrilla marketing could take the form of a personal letter inten-
tionally left on the back seat of a bus, a billboard altered to subvert its
message, a banner hung from a bridge, or a costumed hero handing out
bundled letters of protest, tied with a bow. Guerrilla marketing captures
attention and imagination because it is out of the ordinary.
It can use different approaches:
o Quiet and personal
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images
o Large and bombastic

o Humorous and satirical
o Simple and sober
Because creativity, imagination and resourcefulness are more
important for successful guerrilla marketing than big budgets and access
to mass media, it is particularly suited to NGOs and rights advocates.
Guerrilla marketing can be low-tech and require very little initial invest-
ment. It can work in conjunction with other types of campaigning,
but is particularly attractive when other media or forms of demonstra-
tion are not feasible, accessible, or affordable, or when other kinds of
campaigning have been met with apathy. It’s also a way of circumventing
controls; for instance, when protest is not permitted, guerrilla marketing
can make a message heard in other ways. It can embolden people who
are sympathetic to your message but may not have the courage or means
to declare their sympathy publicly.
While guerrilla marketing may initially reach people who witness
an action first-hand, it can reach many more as stories of unexpected
encounters spread through word of mouth, on the internet or even
through reporting in mainstream media.
Activists travelled to China and
hung this banner from the Great
Wall. It parodies the official slogan
of the 2008 Olympic games held in
China, “One World, One Dream.”
We the Women (http://www.

n7nudrive.com/) is a campaign
focussed on the issue of women
driving in Saudi Arabia. People are
encouraged to download stickers
and fill them in with their own
messages. The campaign’s modest
goal is to support a discussion in
Saudi Arabia, both in public spaces
and online, about women driving.
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guerrilla marketing
What forms can it take?

Guerrilla marketing can take a variety of forms: brush and paint, spray
can and stencil, photocopy or colour printout, wheat paste, perfor-
mance art, flash mob, etc. Guerrilla marketing can also be interactive,
asking participants to complete an action, for example:
o Tearing off a piece of paper to reveal the image underneath
o Sending an SMS text message
o Wearing a certain colour and converging at a predetermined location
o Cutting out a stencil template that you have made available and paint-
ing it around town
There’s no one way to do it. Let your imagination run wild, then
relate your ideas to your strategy. Humour is a particularly powerful way
of touching people who may initially disagree with you as well as those
who might usually ignore such messages. Parody, caricature and satire
can puncture the aura of reverence and gravitas around the powerful
and open the door to criticism.
If you have access to computers and the internet, online dis-
tribution is a great way of sharing printable resources. Images and
printable templates for stickers, stencils, or posters can be posted on
your website to be downloaded by sympathetic viewers and further
disseminated. You could also print up a large amount of such mate-
rial and send out a call via e-mail or SMS for help with disseminat-
ing it. Organisations can sponsor ‘open calls’ for poster, stencil or
action ideas.
Where should you use guerrilla marketing?

Guerrilla marketing works best in densely populated public places
where people will encounter your message: city streets, campuses, shop-
ping malls, toilet doors, public parks or plazas.
Planning guerrilla action? Please consider…

Before undertaking your action, it makes sense to review a few ques-
tions.
o Who is your target audience? Where is the best place to reach them?
What is the best time of day or season?
o What is your desired outcome? What do you want your audience to
experience or do?
o Do you have the resources and capacity to undertake your action? Do
you need help from outside professionals or volunteers?
o How visible is your target location? Different types of people
frequent different neighbourhoods, and different locations have dif-
ferent safety, security and accessibility concerns.
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images
Go viral
Viral marketing relies on members of the public to spread your message
by sharing it with their friends and on social network sites. The term
derives from the way the message is spread: when a person sends a mes-
sage to a group of friends, and those friends pass it on to their friends,
the message spreads exponentially, like an infection, and quickly reaches
a large audience.
Humorous, outrageous or simply strange messages are more likely
to be passed on. While viral marketing usually refers to forwarding mes-
sages or links via e-mail, it can also cover the sharing of messages via fax,
photocopy, video, text message or other media. Making media easy to
share and encouraging sharing can help make campaigns viral.
Breaking the law

In many cases, guerrilla marketing may be illegal and put at risk:
o Members of your organisation (caught in the act)
o Members of the public (found in possession of illegal materials)
o Property owners (say, a shopkeeper or homeowner on whose wall a
mural is painted)
Before undertaking your action, consider: what is the law and what
is the penalty for breaking it?
In some cases, it may make sense to apply for permission or per-
mits to implement an action, though sometimes official permission may
be too expensive, or take too long; it may not even be possible to obtain
permission.
Plan your actions scrupulously, and take precautions. Before your
action, fully inform all participants about the law and the possible con-
sequences for breaking it. Brief participants on what to do in the event
of arrest, or of conflict with the authorities. Think about arranging legal
representation in advance. Set up a system of communication to verify
that your participants are all safe.
Including or not including contact information

Once people have seen your campaign, how can they get in touch? In
some cases, it may make sense to display contact information, perhaps a
phone number, website address or anonymous e-mail address. In other
cases, it may make sense to leave any identifying information off of the
materials, particularly if there is a risk of prosecution. Many organisa-
tions focus on making a splash, without planning a way to follow it up.
Providing a website address where people can get more information, or
a time and place for a follow-up meeting or protest may help channel a
witness’s reaction into meaningful action.
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simple animation
Document it
Public interventions, particularly oppositional ones, may be quickly
dismantled or covered up by the authorities. But actions that last only
a short time can live on if documented in photos or on video. Be sure
to document your action, both for your own records and to publicise it.
Of course, depending on your situation, be careful to consider the legal
issues involved in retaining ‘evidence’ of an illegal action.
Publicise it
In some cases, guerrilla marketing actions are best kept underground.
However, in many cases, it may make sense to publicise your action
by notifying the media or an extended community of supporters. The
internet is a cheap and accessible way of publishing photos, stories and
video.
Simple animation
Animation can be a great tool for advocacy communications, bringing
life to your story and presenting your ideas quickly and attractively. Ani-
mation is a huge subject; this guide only touches on the ways in which
very basic computer animations can support your advocacy campaign –
it does not cover sophisticated Flash or computer animation.
Why simple animation?

Animation can add an expressive element to your message. Animation
can take the form of a slideshow with floating text or it can emulate a
short movie. Colour, movement, expressions and action can be effective
in attracting the viewer’s attention in ways that text cannot. Animations
can also evoke responses from diverse audiences, helping to overcome
cultural or linguistic barriers. The messages they convey can be light and
entertaining or serious and powerful.
Simple animations are great for advocacy work:
o They can be funny.
o They can attract attention more effectively than a still image or photo-
graph does.
o They can be used in lots of different spaces and shared and distrib-
uted in different ways: via e-mail as attachments, on a website or even
via mobile phone.
o Small banner animations are a great way for you to publicise your
blog or campaign; you can put an animated banner on your website,
and ask others to include it on their site.
o They can help you talk about sensitive issues through fictional
characters.
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images
GIF is an internet standard for displaying animation. Because of

this, all the major internet browsers (and even mobile phones) are
capable of displaying it; users don’t need to install plug-ins or other ap-
plications to see animations created in this way.
Simple GIF animation doesn’t require complex software or
amazing graphic skills. At the same time it is best not to become over-
ambitious at first – even short GIF animations can take a long time to
create. A GIF animation is usually created using traditional methods,
where multiple versions of a scene are drawn, with objects or characters
changing their position in each successive frame so that the sequence
of frames, when displayed quickly enough, gives the illusion of motion.
Each individual frame of the animation has the display time set in frac-
tions of a second. These frames are displayed in a sequence that can be
looped (repeated) once, infinitely or a fixed number of times.
The basic process is simply to create the frames and then animate
them using the GIMP graphics package. You can draw the images your-
self, scan them or use photographs. Animating text is a simple way to
start creating effective animations.
All the images you want to use to create your animation must be of
exactly the same size. The best way to do this is to save your first image
under as many different names/numbers as you will need frames, and
then make changes to each of them individually. That way you can keep
your images the same size and also make sure that static elements, such
as background, stay still when the foreground is moving.
Checklist
o Think about the purpose of your animation. Is it intended to tell a
story, to draw attention to something or to reinforce your organisa-
tion’s visual identity or ‘brand’?
o What is the most important visual element of the desired anima-
tion – is it a certain message? Is it a specific object or character or
text? Once you decide what that important element is, then you must
decide how you want it to move: quickly? Slowly? Do you want it to
move from one part of the frame to another?
o Think about how long you want your animation to run for. Do you
want it to run just once or be repeated a few times? Animations can
become annoying if they run on an infinite loop.
o Think about whether you want your animation to be part of your
website or whether it will be distributed as a stand-alone animation.
o Start with something simple – for example, try to make a dot move
from one corner of the frame to another, or make an analogue clock
move its hands. Start by using just a few frames, and when you get
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images case studies
more confident you can add more frames to make your animation
smooth, attractive and flowing.
o Download some existing animations and look at them frame by frame
to see how they work.
o Make your GIF images as small as possible – remember that the
browser will load one GIF after another and if the GIFs are very large
files it will process them very slowly and your animation won’t look
as good as it could.
Animation resources
o For tutorials to create simple GIFF animations see the Message in-a-
box DVD or the Gimp website (http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/
Using_GAP/)
o If you are looking for something more advanced, look at these anima-
tion tutorials to use free and open source 3D animation software,
Blender: http://bit.ly/BKCV3
Images case studies
“Conflict diamonds” campaign

Organisation: Amnesty International USA
Goal: Spread awareness about the sale of “conflict diamonds”
in USA
Audience: Supporters of Amnesty International and the general public
Format: Flash animation
Animation can be a very

effective way of getting a
message across quickly and
simply. The short Flash ani-
mated video created by Free
Range Studios for Amnesty
International USA addresses
the sale of conflict diamonds
in America. $200 million of
annual profits from the sale of
diamonds in the international market helps to fund the continuing civil
war led by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone.
The animation, through a series of simple images, concise text and
a provocative soundtrack tells the story of a diamond’s journey from
Sierra Leone to someone’s finger in the US. It is at once enjoyable, for its
slick and cleverly put together format, and uncomfortable to watch due
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images
to its content. It encapsulates the unjust brutalities meted out against

civilians and mine workers at the hands of the RUF in their quest to
control the diamond mining regions of Sierra Leone in a few short
cinematic seconds. The animation ends with a plea for action from the
public with specific instructions to contact a member of Congress about
a ban on conflict diamonds entering the country. This an excellent
example of how just by capturing your audience’s attention for a brief
moment, a problem, and a realistic means for individuals to contribute
toward a solution, can be communicated.
Video http://www.amnestyusa.org/diamonds/d4.html
Homelessness awareness campaign

Organisation: Bob Maguire Foundation, Melbourne, Australia
Goal: Raise awareness about homelessness
Audience: The general public
Format: Stickers on rubbish bins
An Australian organisation,
the Father Bob Maguire
Foundation, targets home-
lessness. With the aim to
spread awareness about
the plight of the homeless
to the Melbourne public
in unexpected, day-to-day
spaces, they started a gue-
rilla marketing campaign
using public bins as their
medium. Stickers of a knife,
fork, spoon and serviette
were affixed around the top opening of the bin, framing the contents of
the bin to look like food on a dinner plate. Brett Williams, who worked
on the campaign, says that this transmitted a hard-hitting message to pe-
destrians: “The campaign was placed on the top of public bins to remind
people that there are those who must consume what they are discard-
ing so frivolously.” The message was driven home with the slogan and
request: “for the homeless, every day is a struggle. Donate today and
help us feed the homeless”. The local council agreed to let the founda-
tion sticker 50 city bins for a period of two months. This campaign is an
example of how a relatively inexpensive format can be used in an unex-
pected way to produce a strong visual impact and a thought-provoking
message.Father Bob’s blog: http://frbob.efront.com.au/
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images case studies
Posters against on child labour

Organisation: Good50X70, web-based Amsterdam, Netherlands and
Milan, Italy
Goal: Spread awareness about child labour and the use of
design for humanitarian causes.
Audience: Supporters and partners of Amnesty International, AM-
REF, Greenpeace, LILA, World Wildlife Fund as well
other NGOs and the wider design community.
Format: Photographs and images on posters
“There’s no more instant

form of communicating
a message than a poster”
say the people behind
Good50X70, a web-based
organisation that aims to
use design for effective
social communication
and activism. They run
an annual contest open to individual artists, activists, designers and
photographers, to create a poster design addressing one of seven global
human rights issues submitted by a group of NGOs including Amnesty
International, and Greenpeace. The selected posters are then collected
in an exhibition and made available for charities’ own campaigns. These
posters are easily distributed on the internet and in public spaces, pro-
viding a valuable resource for charities who wish to use them.
This selection of images form part of the 2009 contest and are all
centred on the theme of child labour and share the message that ‘work’
is incongruous with the importance of education in children’s develop-
ment. These examples demonstrate how simple design – all of them
use just photographs and computer-generate images – can produce
eye-catching material and a poignant and empathetic message. In this
way, images can speak for themselves without depending on text-heavy
descriptions.
More images available at http://good50x70.org/2009/gallery/
child-labour/
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audio
Audio
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audio
AUDIO – Your message in sound
Putting together recordings of sounds to make audio content is no

longer the preserve of experts. The use of audio for campaigning and
advocacy is a growing phenomenon. In this chapter you will find out
how anyone with a plan, an idea, some basic equipment and a little back-
ground knowledge can create and distribute engaging and good quality
audio. This chapter will enable you to create audio content that is power-
ful and relevant, and to distribute it to audiences using radio, CDs, public
spaces and the internet. It also provides a number of case studies that
show the many ways audio can be used in human rights advocacy work.
Zapatista radio station in Mexico. Photo by Oriana Eliçabe
How can you use audio recordings?

You can make audio recordings and play them in public places, use
them to enhance your website and broadcast them on the radio; you
can distribute them as CDs, as mobile phone ringtones or as podcasts
that listeners can download from the internet. Audio recordings can be
educational or campaigning; they communicate in many ways.
Audio work which is broadcast via radio or podcast can be both
intimate and far-reaching; both private – because people often listen by
themselves while getting on with their lives – and public, because many
people may be listening to them at the same time. This sort of transmis-
sion can be heard by large numbers of people who may not otherwise
be exposed to your message, and provide them with compelling infor-
mation while connecting them with diverse experiences and voices.
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material resources
Audiences
Producing informative and entertaining audio is an effective way of
reaching the large and varied audiences who listen to CDs, radio sta-
tions and online broadcasts. Rural audiences tend to use radio more
than any other medium, particularly if it is in their local language;
people who are not literate also find audio a powerful way to access
information and learn. Increasingly, people who have internet access are
‘switched on’ to online audio, particularly young audiences.
What resources do you need?

The cost of making audio is relatively low. You will need to have access
to an audio recording device – preferably a digital one – and then ac-
cess to software for editing the sounds you record into a distributable
audio piece. It is also possible to record sound using old-style analogue
tape recorders (such as a ‘Walkman’, which records onto cassette tapes),
and then feed this analogue sound into a computer, which converts it
into digital sounds for editing. You can learn how to do this and more in
the guide to using Audacity on the Message in-a-Box CD and website,
under Audio.
Audacity is the free and Open Source audio editing software
provided in this toolkit. Audacity is an easy-to-use audio editor and
recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating
systems. You can use Audacity to:
o Record live audio
o Convert analogue tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs
o Edit sound files in different formats together
o Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together
o Change the speed or pitch of a recording
What skills do you need?

For making your initial audio recordings all that is required is to
capture the sound as well as possible, by listening carefully to your in-
terviewee or subject and adjusting the sound input levels as necessary.
The editing stage requires more skill, but is also increasingly accessible
to the beginner.
How long will it take to make your audio piece?

Audio pieces normally range in length from 30 seconds (the length of
most radio or TV ads) to five minutes (the length of most news items
on a radio programme). Documentaries and longer features, however,
may be up to half an hour in length or more. Radio producers tend to
consider that one hour of work is required for every five minutes broad-
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audio
cast. This rule is not a scientific assessment but one based on experi-
ence; of course this will vary enormously with the nature of the audio
piece and the experience and resources of the maker/s. At least half of
this time is spent sourcing and recording the piece; the rest is taken up
with editing, and with distributing it to listeners.
Material resources
Recording devices
Although digital recorders are increasingly the norm, either an analogue
or a digital recorder will do the job. Whichever you use, when you put
your audio recording into your computer it will be converted to digital
data, which you can then edit with digital sound-editing software. You
can use a MiniDisc recorder or any other type of digital recorder (DAT
or hard disc), a professional-quality analogue tape recorder, or a simple
‘Walkman’-style analogue cassette recorder. If you plan to pitch your
piece to on-air radio broadcasters, you should not use an analogue cas-
sette recorder if at all possible, because the sound they produce is not
considered to be of broadcast quality. Nevertheless, if you have made an
audio document of newsworthy events, even cassettes may be played.
If your recording device has a time counter, and allows you to adjust
sound input levels, so much the better: neither is absolutely necessary,
but both are extremely helpful.
Note that you’ll need a special converter to transform your
analogue sound into a digital format as you put it into your computer
for editing. The type of converter varies according to the format of the
original and to your computer and software.
Mobile phones
Mobile phones typically record sounds using a file format called .AMR,
which is primarily designed for phones. Audio data recorded on a
phone should be transferred onto a computer and converted for editing
in order to be incorporated into your advocacy communications. Once
the sound files are on the computer they can be converted, using a
freeware tool like Mobile AMR converter (http://bit.ly/H6izs), into
the .WAV or .FLAC format, which can then be edited on the computer
using a sound editing tool, such as Audacity.
Ways of transferring sounds from your phone to your computer:
o Bluetooth
o Wifi
o USB cable
Bluetooth is a technology which allows two phone handsets, or a
handset and a computer, within close proximity of each other to transfer
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making an audio piece
information to each other. Bluetooth generally works over a range of

approximately 10 metres.
To connect your phone and your computer via Bluetooth you
should follow the instructions on your computer about ‘pairing’ a
device via Bluetooth. You’ll need to switch Bluetooth on, on both
devices, and then follow the instructions. If you are transferring
data this way, always remember to switch Bluetooth off when you
are finished.
A microphone
It’s best to have an independent microphone for recording, rather than
one which is built into your recording device, so that you can put it as
close to the sound source as possible. Any standard microphone, di-
rectional or omnidirectional, will do. Many recorders have a built-in
microphone that is often more than sufficient for non-broadcast quality
recording but may not produce clear enough sound for most radio sta-
tions. If you have to use a recorder with a built-in microphone, be sure
to hold the recorder as close to the source of the sound as possible – if
it is an interview, hold it fairly close to the person’s mouth, but be aware
that too high an input will create distortion. If you plan to hold your re-
cording device in your hand, be aware that the angle at which you hold
it may also have a significant effect, and that moving your hand while
recording will cause noise.
Headphones
You will need a set of headphones to check sound levels as you record.
Headphones enable you to hear what is actually being recorded: what
the audience will hear. Before you start, it’s a good idea to do a sound-
check by recording a minute or so of your target sounds in the space
you plan to use, and then to listen back to it on headphones to check for
problems such as noise, distortion or insufficient level, making adjust-
ments if necessary. Enclosed headphones, which surround and cover
your ears, give you a much better idea of levels, as they exclude some of
the ambient sound.
Making an audio piece

Planning
Creating effective audio content is not only about sound levels. The
vital first step is to plan your production, and you should revisit your
plan throughout the process of making your audio piece, to make sure
that you are still working in the right direction. Look at the Strategy
chapter, p. 7.
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audio
Who are your audience/s? Once you’ve identified your audience,

ask yourself what message you want them to hear. How do you want
listeners to learn and feel ? What would the barriers be to this audience
hearing this message?
Choosing a format
Choose the right format, or type of audio piece or programme, for
your audience and message. Here are a few common formats for you to
choose from:
o Panel discussion – featuring an interviewer with two or more con-
tributors.
o Phone-in – live or pre-recorded; usually used in a studio context.
Note: be careful about legal restrictions on recording people via
telephone lines; this is illegal in some countries, even when the caller
has given permission.
o Single interview – with an interviewee and interviewer.
o Feature – with voice, background sound, narration and other ele-
ments mixed together.
o Drama – this is a broad category and can include theatre, music and
other entertaining formats.
o Informative/documentary – a piece that primarily conveys
information, in the same way as a public service advertisement or
announcement provides educational information.
o Endorsement – using a well known person, such as a leader or a
celebrity, to convey a message (which may be quite short).
In radio programming, mixing audience participation with pre-
recorded audio is a powerful way to engage and involve people in your
campaign or advocacy work. Your target audience can be encouraged to
call in to a live programme and have their say, and if well-planned this
format can be combined with, and enhance, pre-recorded and studio-
based segments.
Choosing a style
Choose a style for your audio piece that suits both your audience and
your message.
o Formal or informal – do you want to use humour and familiarity as
tools to reach your audience, or do you want to convey information
by invoking authoritative sources and ‘experts’? The most obvious
example of the formal style is a news item, in which the emphasis
is put on the authority of the information. An informal audio piece
might be an audience discussion or a vox pop, where members of the
public give their responses to the issue under discussion.
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o With a narrator or without – do you want to let the voice/s of

your contributor/s speak for themselves, as many oral history
productions do, or do you want to incorporate a presenter’s voice or
voiceover to pull together a clear story for the audience?
Setting up the recording

Whether you are doing an interview or capturing raw sound, you need
to take time to test the sound levels before you actually start recording.
Background noise, such as the hum of an air conditioner or the buzz of
a mobile phone signal, might seem insignificant because our ears tend
to discount such noise, but once you have your headphones on you may
realise that it’s very intrusive when recorded.
Some background sounds can add to the atmosphere, but many
are distracting. Remember that listeners won’t be able to see the person
speaking, so they rely on their ears for all the information that they
receive. If the noise is a problem, ask for it to be switched off (if possible),
or else move to another location. It would be a shame to come back with
unusable recordings simply because the person making the recording felt
too awkward to do anything about it at the time! If the raw material is not
well recorded, the quality of the whole project will be compromised.
If you are doing an interview, take the time to make trial recordings
to check your contributor’s voice for loudness and clarity. Then listen to
the trials and make any necessary changes, such as adjusting the sound
levels, repositioning the microphone, or changing the seating arrange-
ment or general environment – then check again!
You can use this sound-check as a way to help contributors; people
are often nervous about being recorded and uncomfortable speaking into
a microphone, but you can take steps to ensure that they are as relaxed
as possible. Welcome them, perhaps make a joke, and then tell them that
you will ask a few ‘trailer’ questions. ‘What did you have for breakfast?’ is
a standard first question to break the ice and test voice levels.
For some sorts of interviews, you may want to prepare the
interviewee/s in advance by discussing what sort of questions you are
going to ask. This is time well spent, especially if the piece is going out
live, or if you hope to use the interview without much editing.
Reviewing your material

One of the most important steps in producing audio work is to listen
back to your recording and make notes or a full transcript, or log, of
what was said and where the good sounds are located. This step takes
time, and a frequent mistake made by audio producers at all levels of ex-
perience is hasty logging. This can result in a great deal of wasted time.
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audio
Time spent reviewing and logging your content is time well spent. You
can play back your recordings on the machine that you recorded them
on, or put them into a computer (converting the data from analogue to
digital if necessary), and log them from the computer sound files.
A log can take a number of forms depending on what works for
you, but as a minimum, be sure to record the time of each new para-
graph or new sound (make sure to start your playback at 00’00”), and
the time of each good bit of speech or background sound. Note the start
time of the parts you may want to use, the first few words, the last few
words, and the end time. For example: INTRO (00’20”): IN: “I believe
the most important aspect is …… OUT: ……everyone should know
this” (00’50”)
If your recorder does not have a time-counter, you can use a
stopwatch to capture these times. You might also want to include notes
to help you remember what part of your story each particular sound
relates to.
If you set up your log as a table, you can make a column for such
notes, and if you do a fuller transcription you can just insert the notes in
the text with a consistent flag. However you choose to do it, think of this
step as identifying the building blocks that you are later going to go back
to when you edit or mix.
Editing
Once you have identified your building blocks, you can use sound-
editing software such as Audacity to start putting your audio piece
together. This may entail recording additional clips of narration to
bridge certain themes.
Even if your piece has only three sections; for example, a three-
sentence intro, a two-minute interview, and a conclusion pointing
to where listeners can learn more, you’ll need to identify these three
pieces and think about how they’re going to fit together. At this stage,
it is important to refer back to the priorities you identified in your plan,
in order to keep yourself on track. Remember that if you are using any
pre-existing recordings, such as music, you will have to trace the owners
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of the copyrights and get permission. See the Strategy chapter for more
on copyright.
Usage & distribution

If you create an interesting and engaging audio piece, you can make
it available to radio stations as well as to online distributors, such as
advocacy websites or podcast services. The internet enables online
audio to be used and accessed around the world, usually at no extra cost
to the distributor or user. This makes it a powerful advocacy tool that
is difficult to block or censor. An audio piece can have a long shelf life,
particularly if it is not dated by a reference to a time or event.
The ability to reuse an audio piece is a strength of this kind of re-
source. Audio content can be archived in an online audio database, and
it can be repeated on radio shows in new and different configurations. In
order to successfully distribute audio content, both to online and on-air
sources, advance research and relationship-building is necessary. Look
at the section on distributing video (p. 151) for more ideas; for more
about distribution via the internet, see p. 92.
Evaluation
It can be a major challenge to evaluate the success or impact of an audio
piece. You can obtain data about who listened online from programs
that tally website hits and downloads (see the Internet chapter for more
on this), and radio stations also have tools to assess audience size. But
evaluating the impact and effectiveness of the content of your audio
piece requires focus groups, questionnaires and other methods applied to
groups of listeners, if they can be identified and such data collection ar-
ranged. You could prearrange for a number of people to listen to the audio
(individually or as a group) and give you their feedback, or ask for feed-
back within the piece itself; for example, at the end of the piece, providing
an internet or telephone contact. Radio listening groups have also been
used very effectively in some countries to bring people together to listen
to and discuss audio content and to provide feedback on their responses.
These groups can also become ‘action groups’ that respond to the content
you make in a local context and contribute to your audio programmes.
Common mistakes
Here are a few common mistakes to avoid:
Straying from your plan
Getting lost and creating something very different from what you
planned can be a common problem in creating audio because there
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audio
are some factors that are not under your control; for example, an
interviewee may not say exactly what you expected them to say, or
they may be less articulate than you hoped, or background sound may
have been a problem.
Not following your instincts
Listen to your instincts: if it sounded good to you the first time then
it will probably sound good to your listener. It’s a common mistake to
ignore these feelings when you feel you need to include more content or
topics. But if your recorded material doesn’t sound right you shouldn’t
use it. If you need to, use narration rather than trying to stretch or mix
up sounds that just do not work. ‘If in doubt, leave it out’ is an old say-
ing in radio broadcasting that every new producer is taught.
Producing earnest but boring content
A common mistake is to make earnest, dull audio pieces, especially if
the issue in focus is particularly serious. Just because the topic is seri-
ous does not mean the audio piece needs to be dull. Use music, sound
effects, and actuality (background sound) to spice it up. Un-attributed
clips of comments by people on the street – called ‘vox pops’ – are
popular in broadcasting and can add colour and diversity.
Integrating audio with other content

One of the best things about audio programming is that it can be used
to supplement and support other output. Your campaign strategy may
include events such as public meetings, as well as printed products; for
example, ads in newspapers, flyers or brochures. Audio can support and
amplify all of these: it can repeat and reinforce the printed information,
it can be a feature at an event, or it can extend the reach of the event by
allowing you to record it and make this documentation a part of future
media output.
You can use multiple platforms to get your audio content out to a
larger audience; for example, loudspeakers in public spaces, distribution
on CD, airplay from local or national broadcasters, podcasts available on
blogs, written transcripts of the audio on your website. Using multiple
platforms will help amplify your message.
Audio distribution on the internet

Until recently, only the few people with access to expensive media
production tools were able to make and distribute audio recordings to a
global audience. Technology now makes it easier not only to record and
edit sounds, but also distribute audio throughout the world using new
technologies such as blogs and podcasts.
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audio distribution on the internet
This section will provide practical tips on how to get your audio
broadcast on the internet, and how to use existing distribution channels
to reach the audiences that will appreciate it most. Examples of non-
profit organisations which have incorporated this technology into their
advocacy work are also provided.
Podcasts and blogs

A podcast is audio content, published online, that people can sub-
scribe to. People that have a podcast ‘feed’ can be updated by email
or via an RSS Reader every time you publish a new episode. It’s
like subscribing to a newspaper and having it delivered to your door
instead of having to remember to go to the shops to buy it. People
can listen to your show in their own time, on their computer or on an
MP3 player.
In the Audio section of the Message in-a-box website, you can find
out how to choose a podcasting system and how to set up a podcast
using WordPress.
Blogs are personal or collectively managed websites which are
simple to create and update (see the Internet chapter, p. 92). As access
to broadband internet and the distribution of large files have become
faster and easier, attaching audio files to blog posts has become a viable
way to distribute audio content.
One of the biggest advantages of distributing audio through the
internet is that your audience can be far-flung yet very specifically
targeted. An audio blog or podcast is a great way to provide potential
supporters with ongoing status reports on your work. Establishing an
editorial focus on specific content can help attract listeners, keep them
committed and engage potential collaborators.
Podcasts are a good tool for outreach. An informative podcast or
audio-blog post can be re-transmitted by community radio stations or
used in conferences or debates, thus becoming a useful resource for oth-
ers and reaching further networks and contexts.
There are plenty of services that will publish your audio programme
online free of charge. If you want a more customised solution, you can
register an internet domain (your own internet address) and use free and
Open Source software such as WordPress (on the Message in-a-box
website under Internet) to publish the files on your own website server.
Be sure to add a written description to every audio file you upload,
and if possible tag it (categorise it) accordingly. Audio files are not as yet
indexable or easily searchable through the internet. Having an easy-to-
find text description of every file you upload makes it more likely that
new listeners will be able to find them through a search engine.
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audio
Promoting your podcast

It’s important to publicise your podcast. You can do this by posting
messages on relevant blogs and websites and by asking organisations to
include a link to it on their website or in their newsletter. It is also helpful
to have a small ‘RSS feed’ graphic button that allows people to subscribe
to your programs if you are regularly updating them. See the Internet
section for more information on how to do this (p. 100). There are on-
line tools which allow you to enter the address of your Media RSS feed
and create a button to go with it; for example, http://bit.ly/11pPKI
These online podcasting websites allow you to upload your audio
o http://www.Ourmedia.org is a non-commercial free service that
offers you a homepage where you can feature your own audio
and video.
o http://wordpress.org also offers a free service but a small fee is
required to upgrade to a Pro account which allows you to upload
large files.
o http://Blip.tv is a commercial service that allows you to upload
audio and video for free. It has very user-friendly podcast features
Audio case studies
Online radio for international migrants

Organisation: The December 18 Campaign
(http://www.december18.net/)
Goal: To promote and protect the rights of migrants
Audience: Radio stations and their audiences, migrants, migrant’s
rights organisations
Format: Website that supports podcasts
Frequency: Annual
In 2006, The December 18

WWW.DECEMBER18.NET
Campaign developed an audio
campaign to celebrate Interna-
tional Migrants’ Day. Nearly 50
radio stations from 27 countries
participated, and over 40 programmes were gathered in languages as
varied as Chinese, Baha, Spanish and Kazak. The campaign secured
over 1700 visitors to the website on December 18 2006, and hundreds
of audio files were played and downloaded from the site. This marathon
has become an annual event. Radio marathon coordinator Myriam
Horngren is convinced that audio is extremely useful for advocacy,
especially on migration issues. “There are many migrant and diaspora
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audio distribution on the internet
radio stations or programmes around the world both online and offline,
which shows they are fulfilling a need.” she says. “Most people in the
world have access to radios (unlike television or the internet) and most
radios in the world communicate in the local language which means it’s
possible to reach a wide audience.”
In 2008 all kinds of radio stations, from community stations to
commercial radios, from national and international broadcasters to on-
line radios, participated in the December 18 radio marathon promoting
migrants’ rights. A world map on the front page of the website displays
all the participating organisations.
A simple ringtone startles president

Organisation: unknown origin, viral
Goal: To highlight supposed evidence of vote-rigging
Audience: General but especially popular with web-savvy
young people
Format: Ringtone made available free online
Frequency: One-off
In the Philippines, part of a conversation

alleged to have taken place between the
Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcil-
lano and President Gloria Macapagal-
Arroyo in 2004 become a hugely popular
ringtone on mobile phones. The ‘Hello
Garci’ ringtone started circulating online
days after tapes of this supposed conversa-
tion about vote-rigging surfaced in the
media. One internet site that offered the
‘Hello Garci’ tune crashed as Filipinos
clamoured to download it.
The 17-second greeting went to the top of the charts as people
downloaded it onto their phones. The authorities barred the media from
broadcasting any portion of the message, saying it was illegally made,
doctored and part of a plot against the president. Even public transport
drivers were warned not to adapt the ringtone to the horns of their
vehicles. The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ)
offered the ringtone on their site but also invited their readers to send
in their own re-mixes. They also provide the full tape conversations,
transcripts and links to in-depth analysis of what happened.
(See: http://bit.ly/ZzVMI)
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audio
Podcasts for farmers – practical action (Peru)

Organisation: Practical Action (http://www.solucionespracticas.org.pe/)
Goal: To deliver targeted messages that will support the
livelihoods of farmers
Audience: Farmers in Peru
Format: Multi-format for maximum reach: podcast, CDs, radio,
local archives
Frequency: Usually weekly
In Peru digital audio distribution techniques have

been used to deliver targeted messages to farmers
in their local languages. It’s free for users to sub-
scribe to the service. To make each podcast more
accessible to the wider farming community, local
information centres with internet connections
make audio CDs or copy the files onto digital audio players (DAPs),
which enable farmers to listen at a time that’s convenient. The podcasts
are also broadcast on radio, offering the opportunity for people with
traditional receivers to hear the same information. It was this mix of old
and new technologies that contributed to the success of this project.
Read the article at http://bit.ly/29IWPb
Links & resources

o AMARC – The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters
is an international network of community radio members:
http://www.amarc.org/
o Indymedia – A network of individuals, independent and alternative
media activists and organisations:
http://www.indymedia.org/
o Itrainonline’s Multimedia training Kit – A free collection of train-
ing materials for audio producers:
http://bit.ly/NNodd
o OneWorld Radio – This is a network of NGOs and community
radios; for example,
http://southasia.oneworld.net
o Pambazuka News is a pan-African weekly electronic newsletter that
uses regular podcasts to complement its content:
http://bit.ly/LYgs
o See this FLOSS manual for more information on creating a podcast:
http://bit.ly/1zaJJX
o How to create your own mobile podcasts:
http://bit.ly/6Qlub
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internet
Internet
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internet
INTERNET – global, local and low cost
Unlike traditional media, the internet isn’t a one-way channel, but a par-
ticipatory space. Communicating on the internet is about engagement,
getting people involved. If you do it right, people will become advocates
for your message and start promoting it themselves.
The Internet chapter of Message in-a-box will take you through
the processes involved in all sorts of web-based communications. It
covers planning, maintaining and hosting a website or blog, micro-
blogging, RSS feeds, social network sites, email marketing, evaluation
tools and more. Special attention has been paid to security and the risks
to privacy of using internet-based tools.
Why use the internet for advocacy?
The internet is:
o Always accessible, around the clock – anyone, anywhere with ac-
cess to a computer and the internet can interact or inform themselves,
and get your message, at any time (but, if your target audiences don’t
have internet access, this may not help you achieve your goals).
o Cost effective – nearly everyone, no matter where they are in the
world, can create and maintain a dynamic online presence, with no
mailing or printing costs.
o Flexible – unlike printed communications, you can update online
information very quickly from anywhere, anytime, even from your
mobile phone (see the Message in-a-box website under Mobiles >
update blogs and websites). It is also possible to remain anonymous.
o Ideal for dialogue & collaboration – you can engage your stake-
holders, including local and global media and policy makers, in
important conversations that bring you closer together and increase
understanding.
Tools & how-to guides

On the Message in-a-box website and CD under Internet you’ll find
help to get you started, with technical help on how to use:
o Firefox – for browsing the internet
o WordPress – for creating websites and blogs
If you’re using a computer that does not have much processing
power, you could look at kompozer, which is an easy way to create
websites that requires a less powerful computer than WordPress does.
If you are thinking of creating big coalition network sites, you
could also look at the guide to Content Management Systems (CMS)
such as Drupal, SPIP and Joomla on the Message in-a-box CD and
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plan your website
website. WordPress also has its own Content Management System,

which might be enough for your needs.
Integrating your internet strategy

In the other chapters of Message in-a-box you can also find out how to:
o Bring video (p. 119) and audio (p. 65) into your blog/website
o Use powerful images online (p. 42)
o Distribute print publications (newsletters, posters etc.) via your blog,
website or email (p. 35)
Plan your website

This section will take you through the stages involved in building a
website, starting with analysing your audience and goals, then deciding
how to structure your website, how to get it hosted and how to set up
your own website address or domain.
You’ll learn about the website development process, about the
important issue of maintenance, and about keeping your content fresh
in order to keep people visiting your site.
Luckily there are a number of tools that make starting and running
a website and/or blog relatively simple. For example, using our Word-
Press guide you can have a free website built around your choice of
blogging template up and running within five minutes (prior to adding
your own content), with a built-in Content Management System which
just about anyone can use. Find out more on the Message in-a-Box
website and CD under Internet > Content Management Systems.
Audience & goals

The secret of a successful website is knowing which audience/s you
are trying to reach, and designing site content that furthers the goals of
these audiences and the goals of the organisation.
It may seem obvious, but websites are for their users. Your website is
about providing your users with information that they want or need, and
people will not make a habit of visiting your website if it doesn’t do this.
When designing your website you need to understand that you will
have different users, with differing needs. Don’t presume that new users
understand your organisation or the issues you are working on.
What are the goals of your website?
A good way to start the design process is to identify what the goals of
your website are. They might include the following:
o To educate and inform
o To create an organisational identity
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o To expand your base and mobilise your supporters

o To improve media outreach and engagement
o To campaign
o To influence decision makers and people in power
o To serve as a trusted news source
o To provide specialised data, research or information which relates to
your advocacy
o To support a conversation with your audience around a particular issue
Find out more about how to define your communications goals in
our Strategy chapter on page 9.
Who are your website’s users?
If you already have a website, think about who its users are. They might
include the following:
o Supporters/members
o First time visitors
o Press
o Funders (small donors or other, larger, funders)
o Other organisers and activists
o Opponents and targets of your campaign
o Decision makers
Having an understanding of your audience’s age range, education,
language/s and gender balance will help you to create content that
speaks directly to them.
Once you have identified your goals and the site’s users, you can
start identifying the goals of those users: what are they trying to find or
do? What information or resources can you offer to people visiting your
site that will meet their needs?
In order to help people using your website to understand the issue
you are working on you should design a ‘frame’. A frame is the way you
tell your story to people in terms of geography, personal/public narra-
tive and tactics.
Design your website for your target audience
and participant communities
If you are just beginning to establish a website, see Strategy for more
information on how to define your target audience/s and participant
communities. To ensure your website will meet their needs, you can
conduct an audience definition exercise:
o Who are your audiences?
o Name them and rank their importance; for example, primary, second-
ary, tertiary
o Name three other sites they use regularly
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plan your website
For your highest priority audiences ask the questions:

o What do you want them to learn or do?
o How do they get to your site?
o What are they trying to find?
o Where do they click on the front page?
o What do they do next?
For each of your core audiences you can create a ‘click path’, a set
of links that you want them to click on and follow. Click paths allow
multiple audiences to have their needs met with one page design; for
example, if your goals with a supporter would be: to get them to take
action, to show them how their actions matter and to get them to recruit
others, they might click on a ‘Campaign updates’ or ‘Take action’ link,
and one of the actions that you offer them could be to recruit others.
Stand-alone campaign site?

Consider whether you should create a stand-alone campaign site or
an integrated campaign and organisational site. Stand-alone campaign
sites are generally about a single subject whereas integrated sites have a
campaign fitting into a broader organisational website.
If you want to make a stand-alone site for a particular campaign
your audience might expect the following:
o Specific and focussed information
o An issue that is currently under the spotlight
o Regularly updated information about the issue
An organisational site, on the other hand, will contain general
information for first-time visitors who are learning about the issue/s or
organisation. It may cover many different issues.
The following examples of websites built either for specific cam-
paign or for organisations in general have been chosen because they run
on small budgets and are highly effective.
Specific campaign websites:

www.350.org/ is a global campaign site focussed on mobilising
people to address climate change, in particular by applying pressure in
time for the world leaders’ Copenhagen talks on climate change.
http://www.icbl.org/ is a website that represents an international
consortium of organisations; it is focussed on banning the production
and use of landmines.
http://www.revenuewatch.org Revenue Watch is an aggregation of
organisations that are working toward the responsible use of environ-
mental resources.
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http://www.mizzima.com/ is focused on disseminating up-to-date

news about Burma.
Organisational websites:
http://www.newtactics.org/ New Tactics in Human Rights are an
organisation that supports ‘a community of people committed to human
rights’. They enable dialogue and support knowledge sharing while they
also provide training and other services. Their website is made using the
CMS Drupal.
http://www.sexworkeurope.org/ This website supports the rights
of sex workers in Europe and it uses the CMS Joomla, while this sex
workers support website for Central & Eastern Europe and Central Asia
(http://swannet.org/) uses the CMS Drupal.
Website contents
The structure of your website will obviously vary depending on
your organisation and what you want to use the website for. Here
are some ideas about standard pages for a website and what they
might include:
About Us
The About Us area of your site might include the following:
o Mission statement
o Staff and board biographies
o Contact information
o Annual reports
o Jobs & volunteering
o History & victories
o FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
Campaign updates
If yours is a campaigning site then you should provide information and
updates relating to the strategy and tactics of your campaign. Think
about your campaign as a story – where are you in the story? You might
also want to include the following:
o About the issue/s. It’s important to frame the issue in easy-to-under-
stand terms that relate to personal experience. Beware of providing
too much information and instead think of the one thing you want
users to grasp.
o Event reports
o Pictures, audio or video documentation
o Legislative updates
o Link to ways for users to get involved
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plan your website
Get Involved / Take Action

This area of your site will show ways in which site visitors can engage
with your campaign or organisation, either online or offline:
Online involvement
o Sign up for email newsletters
o Action alerts/Petitions
o Contact the media/Letter to the editor
o Contact your representative in government
o Tell a friend
o Donate/Become a member
Offline involvement
o Volunteering opportunities
o Events
o Local groups
o Toolkits/Action resources
Press room
This is an area where the press can go to get information on your organi-
sation or campaign. It might contain press releases, contact information
for the person in your organisation who is responsible for talking to the
media, or media resources such as images or audio and video recordings
for use online or in print. It might also contain details of news coverage,
speeches or reports.
Donate/support
If you have a donations strategy within your organisation, make it easy
for people to give you money or offer volunteer help. Allowing people
to give in-kind donations such as office equipment is also an idea. If you
want to keep this simple, just supply an email address that people can
write to if they have something to offer.
Development process: static or dynamic?

Decide what type of site you are creating: is it a static website that
won’t change very often and will act like an online brochure for your
organisation, or is it a dynamic website that will change often and hold
a lot of content?
Try to be realistic about this. Most organisations would love to
have a dynamic website, but simply don’t have the time to keep it up to
date or the capacity to keep generating useful content.
Decide who will be responsible for designing and publishing
your website’s content. The people involved in website development
might be designers, writers, web developers and project managers.
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Some of these may be internal while others may be external consul-

tants. Using volunteers (as long as you are willing to monitor their
work) is one positive way to gather dynamic content, create diversity
and build relationships.
Set aside some time to plan in advance how content will be
updated. If this is going to be a significant challenge for you, think about
developing your website in stages, starting with something small and
allowing it to grow.
o Static websites are simple websites that hardly change and don’t have
a lot of content. You can build something like this in software such
as kompozer which doesn’t require the installation of a database. In
order to edit static websites you need to edit the HTML (the code that
enables the text to be displayed in your internet browser) directly in
kompozer or other software and then re-upload the content to your
web server.
o Content Management Systems allow you to build more dynamic
websites, with the potential for including a lot of content that can
be changed frequently and easily. These require a database such as
WordPress, Drupal, Joomla or Plone. These systems offer you more
flexibility, and features such as permissions which mean that different
members of staff can update different areas of the site. They also offer
an easy-to-use online interface to edit website content, which means
staff members don’t need to use HTML.
A dynamic website with a Content Management System is nearly
always the best choice. Even very small organisations with little previous
knowledge can set up these flexible websites free of charge or at very
little extra cost, using the built-in templates provided.
Graphic design process

The graphic design of your site will convey your organisational identity.
Most sites will require two basic designs, one for the home page and a
second for lower-level pages.
A standard process is as follows:
o Create wireframe sketches of your page layout. These wireframes will
allow you to finalise the page layout, without any artwork or content
placed. This means you will already have decided on the page struc-
ture and how interactions will work before you work on the graphics.
o Work on how users will interact with the content. Will you have one
menu at the side of the content? Or, will you split the content up into
sub-menus? Think about how users will find your content, and how
you will be adding to it in the future.
o Choose a colour palette and graphics that convey the goals and per-
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hosting & domains
sonality of your organisation and match with your other publications

or branding. Work with a graphic designer to establish a look and feel
for your site, or if you feel confident try it yourself.
o Generate templates from the final design that can be filled in with
content.
Hosting & domains

Hosting your website on your own server can be very demanding for an
organisation and may require a lot of technical know-how and on-going
support. In most cases, it is best to choose an external service. Shop
around and ask allies for recommendations.
Your domain (for example, yourorganisation.org) is vital internet
real estate – register it yourself and consider buying variations of each
domain you own, if you can: your country identifier (for example, .za
for South Africa or .th for Thailand), .org, .com and .net; this will stop
your opponents or ‘squatters’ buying them. It’s a good idea to buy your
domain name for as many years as you can afford.
It’s important to take good care of your domain: keep the domain
registration and contact email addresses up to date and don’t loose your
user names and passwords for accessing these.
Getting a domain
Getting a domain name, like myorganisation.org, isn’t as hard as you
might think. Many website hosts will register your domain for you when
you set up an account, but you can also register your own domain name
before you even set up your site. Businesses like godaddy.com or net-
worksolutions.com are two examples of places where you can buy your
domain. If you need to set up a website and you have security concerns,
there are also anonymous hosting services that won’t show who the
owner of the domain is; some of these allow you to pay with a Western
Union transfer instead of a credit card.
If you get a domain from your website host, read the contract to
ensure that you’ll be able to take your domain name with you if you
change hosts. Having your own domain name means that you’ll be able
to move your website if you become dissatisfied with the service you
are receiving.
Activist & NGO-friendly website hosts

Website hosts, also called Internet Service Providers or ISPs, have
access to your content and all the information about who visits your
website. For this reason, if you are handling sensitive information or
working with a high-risk community, you need to be aware of the poli-
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cies of the ISP that is hosting your website, because they are obliged
by law to keep detailed information about your website (who owns it,
who uses it and what content is there), and present this information
to the authorities on request. If you are working on particularly sensi-
tive issues you may want to consider hosting your website outside
your home country. This is not a secure solution but does reduce the
ease with which your government or local authorities will be able to
demand to see this data.
When looking for an ISP, consider who will implement software
and content updates and provide technical maintenance to your site.
Will you need your ISP to handle that for you? If that question has you
scratching your head, you probably want to start with an ISP that can
handle updates for you. If, however, you have technical staff available or
a good relationship with a technology assistance provider or volunteer,
you can ask them about their capacity to manage updates and maintain
the Content Management System you are planning to use.
Another thing you may want to consider is finding an ISP that
guarantees easy access to your content for the user. For example, band-
width affects the speed at which the website can be downloaded by us-
ers and how many users can look at it at the same time. This is especially
important if you are intending to use multimedia content.
Below are a few organisations that provide free or inexpensive
hosting services to activists and organisers, using Free and Open Source
Software tools. This is just a small selection, there are many more we
haven’t listed here. We’ve divided them up by continent as it’s often
easier to stay in contact with an internet service provider that is close to
your time zone.
You may also want to ask allied organisations about website hosts
they’re using and what their experiences have been.
Africa
o http://www.kabissa.org – a US-based organisation focussed on Af-
rica that provides hundreds of grassroots organisations with internet
services and training, including email lists and websites.
o http://www.interconnection.org – US-based non-profit that gives
African NGOs free or discounted space and recycled computers.
o http://www.thedevelopmentcafe.org – offers website develop-
ment and management, training and consulting services to NGOs
among others.
o http://www.hrinfo.net – provides limited website hosting services
to human rights activists and NGOs in the Arab world, especially in
Egypt, Sudan and Tunisia.
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website maintenance
Asia-Pacific
o http://www.jinbo.net/ – provides computer communication
services including internet service and training services for Korean
NGOs.
o http://mahiti.org/ – provides simple and affordable ICT services
based on Free/Open Source Software to civil society (India).
o http://www.c2.org.au/ – is a non-profit website hosting and online
publishing systems provider for progressive networking activities in
the Australasia region.
Europe
o http://www.xs4all.nl/ – a Dutch-based ISP providing secure com-
munications infrastructure for business and activists.
o http://www.autistici.org/it/ – creates free means of secure com-
munications on a large scale, including website hosting, email lists,
blogs and more (Italy).
o http://www.gn.apc.org/ – is a progressive community working for
peace, the environment, gender equality and social justice, through
the use of Information Communication Technologies.
Latin America
o http://rits.org.br/ – is a Brazilian non-profit organisation
whose mission is to serve as a virtual network of information
focussed on strengthening civil society organisations and
social movements.
o http://www.sarava.org/ – is a multidisciplinary Brazilian collec-
tive whose objective is to optimise activists’ use of technology.
Website maintenance
There is a common misconception that creating your website is most
of the work, but maintaining and developing your website is a larger
challenge in most cases. Content and graphics should change on a
regular basis to sustain website traffic – stale websites are a liability for
an organisation. This requires organisational commitment.
Best practice
In terms of staff:
o If possible, budget both time and money for ongoing maintenance.
o Make sure a specific staff member has responsibility for website
maintenance.
o If you are not able to have one person specifically responsible for the
website, make sure the responsibility for updating different sorts of
content is clearly divided between a few people.
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o Have organisational ‘check-ins’ on a regular basis about the direction

and content of your site.
In terms of content:
o Ideally, you should have ‘quick response’ content ready or planned if
you are launching a big campaign, so that you are prepared to make
updates as events unfold even if you do not have time to write and
prepare new content.
o Make sure you remove out-of-date events or action alerts, especially
if they are on the front page.
o Think about simple devices that could keep content fresh on the
webpage. Are there easy ways to keep a small part of the information
on your website up to date and changing more frequently? Could
you integrate a blog with updates from a range of people? What user-
generated content could you include?
Plan your ‘blog’ or ‘easy-to-change website’
Screenshot of the blog of Abahali baseMjondolo – a grassroots movement of

shack dwellers in Durban, South Africa.
A blog is a type of website that is very easy to publish and to update. The
name comes from ‘web-log’, the idea being that it is regularly updated
with new ideas and events. Here you will learn how to set up and run
your blog, and more about why this can be a dynamic and interactive
way to build up your campaign and get your message across.
One of the reasons that blogging is so popular is that setting up a
blog and adding content can be as easy as setting up a web-based email
account and sending an email message. One of the easiest blogging
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plan your ‘blog’ or ‘easy-to-change website’
tools to use is WordPress. You could also look at Tumblr (http://www.

tumblr.com/), which is even quicker to set up and use, but not quite as
flexible. There is no harm in experimenting as you can always delete a
blog you don’t want to keep.
You can have a blog on its own, accessed through a URL like a stand-
alone website, or you can incorporate a blog into your organisation’s web-
site; this is especially easy if you are using a Content Management System.
A blog can include text, images, audio or video, along with links
to other webpages and related media. You can use it frequently or oc-
casionally. It is easy to create and maintain.
If you are running a small campaign and want to update your target
community and peers about your activities on a regular basis, or if you
are looking for a way to publish small pieces of information frequently,
a blog could be ideal: much easier to set up and keep running than a
website but similar for the user.
What’s the difference between a blog & a website?

A blog is a website of a particular kind; the distinction between the two
can be blurred. A blogging section can be integrated into a website, or
you can create your website from scratch around a blogging template
and Content Management System.
Blogs usually contain regular entries, published like an online
journal. The most recent entry is at the top.
Blogs are a dynamic option for your website; they give it person-
ality and high search engine rankings. There are many benefits to be
gained and you do not have to do it all yourself.
Some characteristics that differentiate a blog from a website:
o Minimal technical skills are required – a blog can be easily
maintained and set up. WordPress allows people to set up a blog in
15 minutes at no cost. However, if you have never used the internet
before you may need some help with setting up your blog and some
help maintaining it at first.
o Posts are published chronologically – a blog automatically ar-
ranges everything you post in date order, with the latest addition
appearing at the top. It allows you to organise your posts by using
categories and keywords that make it easy for you and your readers
to find material on your blog. You can use as many categories and
keywords for each post as you wish.
o Posts are automatically archived – every post you make is auto-
matically stored as an archived entry by date, and, if you choose, by
category. Again this makes finding material simpler for you and for
your readers.
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o A blog can be interactive – readers can engage with you, the writer.
This can be done in many different ways. For example, readers can
leave comments on your blog and you can leave comments on other
people’s blogs. You can make links in your blog posts to other blogs.
Other blogs can also link to yours.
o Content is easy to publicise – because of the way it is designed, a
blog allows you to distribute and publicise your content throughout
the internet.
o Posts are searchable – because individual blog posts are easily
distributed and publicised via the internet, searching for individual
blogs and posts is much easier than searching for a website.
o You can update them remotely – blogs are created and stored
online. This means posts can be made from anywhere that has an
internet connection. Everyone in an organisation can contribute; all
they need is a username and a password.
Why blogs?
Blogs make it easy to update a site regularly, to report local news and to
conduct a local campaign on a global platform. They are also a great way
to allow your audience to add their own comments, thoughts, experi-
ences and resources, via the comments section.
Blogs help document campaigns and share information within a
constituency. They can also be used as part of a focussed strategy for
changing perceptions and myths about people and issues.
One of the reasons blogs are so popular is to do with the way
Google and other search engines rank pages. Content that changes regu-
larly, like a blog, is ranked more highly. The fact that blog entries often
include many outgoing and incoming links between other websites also
gives a higher ranking. See page 100 for more information on Search
Engine Optimisation.
Blogs & the social web

Vast numbers of people are using blogs, social network sites and
photo and video sharing sites, and these are important marketing and
engagement tools. Building your buzz in these spaces is a good way to
recruit advocates to your cause.
Getting the right bloggers to write about your campaigns (blog
outreach) is a good way to reach interested people. If you’re working
in human rights, you could start by contacting human rights-focussed
bloggers.
You can also integrate your own and your stakeholders’ social net-
working media feeds (p. 100) into your blog or website to keep it vibrant.
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Build traffic and search rankings by exchanging links with relevant

blogs and other sites, and remember that a personal request works best.
A good way to start is by commenting on other blogs that are writing
about the same topics as you. It’s also a good idea to have a blog as part
of your website; it’s an easy way to keep the content fresh.
Learn what kinds of blog posts will attract traffic – sometimes
it’s as simple as using the right headline. Try to develop an authentic
voice, and monitor your website statistics to learn what your audience
likes.
Your blog can be a tool for getting your audience to focus on
specific points and perspectives. To accomplish this, it is important to
develop your content carefully. As with any media intervention, care-
fully define your audiences and message.
To make your blog more effective:
o Identify your allies – identify those organisations and groups
which are likely to support and work with you. You can link to them
on the front page of your blog in what is called a ‘blogroll’. You can
also link to their content in your posts, and collaborate with them to
produce content .
o Use categories & tags – blogs allow you and your readers to assign
topic codes to each post. Categories are managed by the blog authors,
and are used to index or organise your posts into subject headings.
You can select any number of headings for your blog; for example,
Environment, Health, Education. Although you can use many catego-
ries for each post, too many can be confusing. Tags are keywords that
you can add which are not fixed, as categories are. Instead of working
like headings, they are used to help searches and inform people about
the content of your post. Tags are used extensively in blogging and on
content-sharing sites such as Flickr and YouTube.
o Choose your language carefully – choosing which language you
wish to use on your blog is an important decision. Consider using ap-
propriate local languages, although this must be weighed against using
languages that may reach a wider audience, such as English, Spanish
or French. In an ideal world bloggers could translate their blogs into a
number of languages, for example a local language and a more ‘inter-
national’ language, but this creates more work and requires a higher
level of technical skill and sometimes additional software.
Blogs are a way for rights advocates to ‘think locally while
acting globally’. They allow you to build visible relationships with
other organisations throughout the world that are working on
similar issues, and together to try and make the global conversation
more inclusive.
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Flexible usage & collaboration

A blog can be maintained by just one person, or it can be run collab-
oratively by as many people as you wish. Different organisations in a
network or coalition can contribute to the same blog. Because of this, a
blog can help to strengthen organisational cohesion and working rela-
tionships. This is true even if your organisation has a wide geographical
reach. Because a blog can be updated remotely, and even simultaneously
from different locations, you can be very creative and use it strategically.
Building a community through blogging

In many countries independent journalists and activists are creating an
alternative form of media in the ‘blogosphere’, using it to organise and
to build communities. This is particularly important in countries where
there is a lot of censorship.
In Egypt, the blogging community gives the opposition move-
ment a key space in which to organise and tackle political and human
rights issues that mainstream media do not cover. The Omraneya site
at http://www.omraneya.net/ serves as a central hub for the Egyptian
blogosphere and citizen journalism community.
The Mzalendo blog in Kenya, at http://www.mzalendo.com/
about/ , was co-founded by the blogger Ory Okolloh. Its mission is to
‘keep an eye on the Kenyan Parliament’.
In the Malaysian blogosphere recent developments have shown how
influential bloggers can be in the political sphere. Jeff Ooi is a Malaysian
IT consultant and activist who writes a popular blog known as Screen-
shots. Jeff was recently elected to parliament, partly because his popularity
was enhanced by his successful blog: http://www.jeffooi.com/
The role of blogs and the popularity of blogging may change over
time as social network sites and micro-blogging tools like Twitter be-
come more widely used as tools for enabling conversations.
Checklist – best practice for effective blogging

o Choose your blog name carefully. If you use a name other than your
organisation’s name, make sure it fits in with your organisation in
some way. Changing your blog’s name is like starting all over, so be
sure to get the right one.
o Create an ‘About’ page with information about your organisation, the
purpose of the blog, a list of contributors and any other key organisa-
tional information.
o Keep your design simple; do not clutter your blog. You want to focus
on content. Don’t add flashing icons or music, and choose two or
three colours and a simple layout that is easy to follow.
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o Post often. It will take time for your blog to become known in the
blogosphere. The more you post, and the more comments you make
on the blogs of other people or organisations, the more your blog will
become known. If posting often is not possible try at least to be con-
sistent and organise a posting schedule so that your readers will know
to expect new posts every couple of weeks or once a month according
to the schedule you decide. Erratic posting loses readers.
o Write good quality texts that readers can benefit from.
o Try not to make your posts too long. Remember people are reading
on a computer and not on paper. If you need to publish a long docu-
ment you can set up a separate page on your blog for downloadable
documents, which you can link to, and users can print out.
o Revisit old posts. If you are writing about a particular issue, return to
previous posts and build on them.
o Get to know your readers. Treat them like friends, even those who
do not necessarily agree with you. If they return it’s because you are
reaching them in some way.
o Do not force people to register on your blog in order to comment.
Most people won’t bother and will just go away. Keep your blog open
and use comment moderation instead.
o Read other people’s /organisations’ blogs and make comments. This
will help to publicise your blog. By building relationships with other
bloggers, whether locally or internationally, you create a community
that will support you in your advocacy and campaigns, and you in
turn can support them.
o Publicity is important, which means you need to register your blog
on a blog directory and contact sympathetic bloggers to inform them
of your blog or even of particularly important posts. Bloggers are
generally helpful, so do not be afraid to ask for support.
o Change your blog in response to changing needs, audiences, politi-
cal climates – or just because sometimes it’s nice, like changing the
layout and colours in your home.
o Do not use technology just for the sake of it. Use appropriate tech-
nologies. If your bandwidth, or that of your audience, is low, then do
not use video. Use a podcast only if you believe audio is the best way
to communicate a particular piece of information.
o Support other blogs by adding badges and banners or by cross-link-
ing to relevant posts.
o Include a ‘Contact Me’ form in your blog or give your email address
in your ‘About’ page so that readers can contact you. Always write out
your email address in order to avoid spammers; for example, me@
yahoo.com should be written: me at yahoo dot com.
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Blogging case studies
Oro Sucio (http://www.orosucio.madryn.com/) follows the topic of

mine exploitation and its political and environmental impact in Argen-
tina. The blog publishes documents that are the result of collective field-
work. They also keep in contact with people and organisations that are
involved in environmental activism in Argentina and across the world.
Sabbah’s Blog (http://sabbah.biz/mt/) is an informative blog created

to highlight human rights violations against the Palestinian people as
well as to highlight the reality of Palestinian lives in the Occupied Ter-
ritories. It contains reports, commentary and video.
Sokwanele (http://www.sokwanele.com/) is a Zimbabwe-based

single-issue activist blog that uses commentary, news reports, video and
photography to highlight the human rights abuses and repression in
Zimbabwe. It provides an example of how blogs can be used anony-
mously in countries and situations where revealing your identity could
be harmful and a risk to your safety. Sokwanele is successful because it
has been consistent and makes regular posts that are informative and
based on their campaign. They have consciously built a network of sup-
porters, both bloggers and readers.
Abahlali baseMjondolo (http://abahlali.org/) is a grassroots social

movement of shack dwellers in Durban, South Africa. Their blog has
internationalised the struggle of the shack dwellers against police
harassment and municipal evictions through news reports, declarations
and opinion/commentary articles. The Abahlali blog is both a source
of information on land rights and informal settlements in South Africa,
and a means of mobilising international support and funds for organis-
ing campaigns for land rights. They have used their blog to highlight the
plight of informal settlers in other countries such as Zimbabwe, Haiti
and Kenya, and have also built links with social movements in these
countries. Abahlali uses a mix of text, photos and video on its blog.
Black Looks (http://www.blacklooks.org/) is a Pan African multi-

issue activist blog that covers a range of issues around human rights
and social justice. It is a highly successful, award-winning blog that
is based on regular (almost daily) posts that use a variety of styles
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twitter & micro-blogging
(informing, opinion, reporting, action alerts and in-depth analysis) and

cover a range of topics. By using a range of social networking tools and
maximising the use of available technologies, Black Looks facilitates
networking with other activist bloggers from across the continent and
the Diaspora, and builds strong personal and organisational relation-
ships across geographical and other dividing lines.
Jackie Tumwine (http://blogsofbainbridge.typepad.com/jackie/)

is a ‘dedicated tobacco control advocate’ from Uganda. By reporting
country by country on anti-smoking legislation, as well as on gender
and child rights issues around tobacco, she works to fight the toll that
tobacco takes on people’s lives and to magnify the work that disparate
groups are doing to make a difference. Jackie’s blog is an excellent ex-
ample of how a one-person blog focussed on a single issue can become a
continental resource and part of a campaign.
This Is Not My Country (http://deviousdiva.com/the-roma-series/)

Devious Diva has used her blog to highlight the lives of the Roma com-
munities in Greece: the racism they experience, their marginalisation,
the poverty of their lives, their lack of access to health and education
and lack of rights within Greece.
Twitter & micro-blogging

Twitter (http://twitter.com/) is a service that allows users to send
‘updates’ (text-based posts called tweets) up to 140 characters long via
SMS (text message), instant messaging, e-mail, the Twitter website or
any application that can connect to these services. Twitter will allow
you to send updates to one person, to a closed group of contacts or as
public messages that can be seen by anyone. These updates are displayed
on the user’s profile page and also instantly delivered to other users
who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to
members of a circle of friends, or allow delivery to everybody, which is
the standard default setting.
One of the advantages of Twitter is that it can be effective in urgent
situations because it can be easily updated by mobile phone and broad-
cast to many people simultaneously. Twitter has been used for a range of
advocacy purposes – for example, Egyptian human rights activists have
used it to let people know whether they are safe or have been arrested
(http://bit.ly/EIRA0) and Iranians used it to draw attention to and
publicise protest events after the 2009 election (http://bit.ly/ihdBH).
‘#hash tags’ provide a way for people using Twitter to search for
updates that have a common topic. If you are at an event, you can tell
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people to use a specific #hash tag so that all of their updates will be ag-
gregated. This may also happen more organically, as it did when people
began using the tag #iranelection after the 2009 elections in Iran, or
#hiroshima to mark the anniversary of the day an atomic bomb was
dropped on Japan by the US, killing an estimated 200,000 people.
Twitter’s great disadvantage at the moment is that using it via your
mobile phone will incur the cost of an international text message unless
you are in the US, the UK, Canada or India. There is some concern
about privacy and authentication methods on Twitter. You are advised
to be cautious about putting sensitive information out over Twitter. See
http://bit.ly/Dxrko for more information about this issue.
Twitter will also allow you to create a ‘badge’ for your website,
which automatically displays your Twitter feed. These are available for
Blogger and Typepad but are also available as customisable ‘widgets’
that Twitter claims will work on any webpage.
The Asia Pacific Network of Sex workers, which works with sex
workers on health and human rights, has set up a Twitter feed (http://
twitter.com/apnsw) and has been using it to publicise its campaigns;
for example, it used Twitter to publicise its campaign against the new
Suppression of Human Trafficking Law which equates all sex work with
trafficking and has led to massive closures of brothels and widespread
human rights abuses against sex workers in Cambodia.
Further reading and resources for Twitter
For more information about how Twitter has been used by news provid-
ers and journalists see: http://bit.ly/E3k and http://bit.ly/COlK2
For more information on how Twitter can be used to help com-
munities, go to http://bit.ly/3nfb and http://bit.ly/4pCXVb
Support for bloggers & online social networkers

There are groups working to support individuals and organisations that
use blogs to further their causes. Most of the resources listed below are
available in many languages.
Global Voices Advocacy (http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.
org/) is a project of Global Voices Online which seeks to build a global
anti-censorship network of bloggers and online activists from the de-
veloping world, dedicated to protecting freedom of expression and free
access to information online.
Their Blog for a Cause! (http://bit.ly/17lZiJ) explains how activ-
ists can use blogs in their campaigns against injustice around the world.
They also produced the guide to Anonymous Blogging with WordPress
and Tor, which is included in the Message in-a-box DVD and website.
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rss (really simple syndication)
Rising Voices (http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/) aims to

extend the benefits and reach of citizen media by connecting media ac-
tivists around the world and supporting their best ideas. An Introductory
Guide to Global Citizen Media (http://bit.ly/11mHIz) offers context
and case studies which show how citizens world-wide are increasingly
using blogs, podcasts, online video and digital photography to engage
in an unmediated conversation which transcends borders, cultures and
language differences.
Reporters Without Borders (http://www.rsf.org/) produce
a Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents (http://bit.ly/1anWVm)
which gives tips and technical advice on how to remain anonymous
and get around censorship. It also explains how to set up and make the
most of a blog, how to publicise it and how to establish its credibility by
observing basic ethical and journalistic principles.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

RSS feeds are an easy way of keeping track of new content and headlines
in your favourite websites and blogs. RSS means your audience can be
automatically updated whenever you make a new post on your website
and they will be able to find this new post easily, even if it is not on the
front page. It will also enable people to visit your website at critical
times; for example, before an action or event; this will help them par-
ticipate more in your work. Make sure your site is putting out RSS feeds.
Most Content Management Systems will do this as a standard feature,
and all major blog services now support RSS feeds.
If you are not using a blog service or CMS for for your website, you
may need some technical help to add RSS feeds by hand. You can also
use RSS to syndicate your content to other sites, allowing them to pull in
your headlines, which is a good way to promote your content automati-
cally and have it appear on other sites. Many websites use RSS to aggre-
gate news (for example, http://www.humanrightstools.org/news.php),
making it easy for people to keep up with the issues that interest them.
RSS also makes it easier for others to use your data for mash-ups,
where data from two or more sources is combined in a way that cre-
ates something new, as in these examples from Kenya and Zimbabwe:
http://bit.ly/EhciS
Creating search-friendly websites with SEO

Now that you’ve created your website, you need to make sure people are
looking at it. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the process of ensur-
ing that your webpages are accessible to search engines and are built in a
way that improves their chances of being found.
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The best way to get people to your website is through a search

engine such as Google. Search engines enable people to find what
they are looking for on the internet by typing a key word or phrase
into a search field. The search engine will compare the keyword to the
websites listed in its index and return a list of websites that are most
relevant.
Search engines work in various ways, and each has a different
logic. The world’s most popular search engine, Google, is a crawler-
based search engine, which means that it ‘crawls’ the internet collecting
keywords and references, and presents the searcher with what it finds.
Google then uses a complicated set of criteria to decide the order in
which sites are listed. The most significant of these criteria is whether
your site is linked to by other sites. Other criteria are whether the search
term/s appear:
o in your domain name
o in your title and description tags
o in your headings
o elsewhere in the text of your page
While Google is the most popular search engine, it is worth
remembering that there are lots of other search engines, such as Yahoo
and Altavista, and that these use different logics. For example, search en-
gines such as the Open Directory project are ‘human powered’ and take
submissions from individuals; they also have entries created by editors.
This section covers ways in which you can improve the chances of
your content being found through search engines. As different search
engines have different logics for how they prioritise webpages, it’s useful
to know how they work and what to focus on. Although there are ways
of buying placement on search engines like Google, for most NGOs it’s
better to try and optimise your website so that it’s higher in the rankings
without having to do this.
If your organisation’s website is being built by an outside contrac-
tor they may attempt to charge you extra for search engine optimisation.
However it won’t take you long to submit your site to the main search
engines. Building your organisation’s linking strategy requires specialist
knowledge of your field, so as an insider you are probably best placed to
do this.
You can submit your site to search engines at Alltheweb (http://
bit.ly/zyifQ) and Google (http://bit.ly/5TLQn).
Who is looking at your site?
The most accurate way to measure the success of your website is to look
at your website’s statistics and study the behaviour of its visitors. This
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creating search-friendly websites with seo
is a really helpful way of working out what you are already doing right,
and what you could do better. The tools you use to do this are called
web analysis tools. There are various free tools available for doing this,
including Google Analytics (http://bit.ly/LhPL) and Woopra (http://
www.woopra.com/).
The most important information to examine is the number of visi-
tors or unique visitors, since this figure gives the most accurate impres-
sion of a site’s audience.
The site analysis will also show you the number of hits your web-
site receives, but this number can overestimate the popularity of a site
because it counts the loading of every item on a page, not the viewing of
a page overall.
Other information which your website statistics will offer:
o Referring search engines – details of which search engines deliv-
ered traffic to the website.
o Referring keywords – details of which keyword phrases were used
to find your site. If people are using keywords to search for your site
that you aren’t using in your site content or metadata (the keywords
you use to describe your webpage), then you could use this informa-
tion to identify new keywords to include in future.
o Unique monthly visits – it’s good practice to monitor this on a
monthly basis and measure it against the number of search engine
referrals, so you know if your traffic is coming from people who knew
your site already or from people using a search engine.
o Site paths (entry & exits) – this shows how many users entered a
site per page and how many left per page. This is useful to check the
effectiveness of high-ranking webpages. For example if a particular
page on your website, such as your homepage, is used 100 times as an
entry page for your site and only 10 users clicked beyond that page,
90% of the possible visitors were lost.
Metadata
Metadata is a set of tags used to describe a webpage. It provides infor-
mation such as page author, creation date, what the page is about and
which keywords represent the page’s content. An internet browser, such
as Firefox or Internet Explorer, does not display metadata but the com-
puters accessing the page can read and efficiently record it. Many search
engines use metadata for the creation of their indexes.
Make sure each page of your site contains the following metadata:
o Title tag – text that appears on webpage title bars and search engine
results pages. This should be about 60-80 characters.
o Description – the short line of text that is displayed in the search
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results of most search engines. This should be 100-200 characters.

o Key words & phrases – these need to be relevant to the content
and separated by commas. Avoid repeating a keyword more than
three times.
o Alt tags – including keywords in alt tags can help your search results.
Keywords – some words are better than others 

Keywords are words that users enter into search engines to describe
what they are looking for. Make sure that you find keywords for your
site that are relevant to your organisation and to the field you are work-
ing in. Look through the online and offline content produced by your
organisation to find inspiration for this.
Don’t choose terms that are vague or generic, as there may be
many websites already using these terms, and this will make your con-
tent harder to find. Ensure that you include words that are being used by
your target audiences in search engines. You can use website statistics to
find this information.
There are some free tools to help you choose keywords:
o http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com
o Google’s keyword tool at http://bit.ly/8r2NJ/
Search-friendly guidelines
Whether you create your organisation’s site yourself or work with out-
side contractors, try to stick to the following guidelines:
o Relevant, easily accessible content is the key to attracting and retain-
ing your audience. Use simple language. The content of your site
should be as easy to read as possible and shouldn’t use jargon from
the sector your organisation works in.
o If your site is created using a Content Management System such
as Drupal, ensure that pages can be indexed by search engines by
giving them URLs (web addresses) that use a directory structure
rather than URLs that contain ‘query strings’ or characters such
as question marks which will not be indexed. So for example a
URL that ends /news/document/latest.html is more likely to
show up in search results than one that ends /news/
document/?23950.html.
o Important pages should have permanent URLs.
o Avoid using Flash as search engines are unable to properly index
Flash-based content.
o Search engines have trouble indexing pages from sites with frames so
try and avoid using frames in your site design.
o Content quality is especially important for entry pages such as the
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homepage, which are linked to from other sites. Ensure that entry
pages contain lots of the keywords that you wish your site to be
known for.
o Community-created content is very popular with search engines, so
consider including comments, blogs and wikis, which are created by
site visitors.
o If you are working with an outside contractor to create your website
make sure they are prioritising search engine optimisation.
o ‘Semantic mark-up’, such as heading tags that can be made using
HTML or functions in your Content Management System, tell the
search engine that some pieces of content are more important than
others, so try and use them.
Accessibility
Making your site accessible to a broad range of users, including those
with disabilities, is not only good practice, but can also improve your
search engine listings and make your internet content more accessible
in general.
The accessibility guidelines to follow are those created by The
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which you can read online at
http://bit.ly/wiGI
There are many resources available online to help improve the
accessibility of your site such as  http://wave.webaim.org/ , which is a
free website accessibility evaluation tool.
Linking strategies
As well as optimising the way your website is programmed you should
also ensure that your site is being linked to from other sites, as this will
boost your search rankings. In particular, search engines are looking
for links from reputable, high quality sites. If you want to find out how
many sites are linking to your site just type your website’s URL into
Google. This will bring you back a page of details on who is linking to
your site. You can use this to help identify more organisations that you
could ask for links.
You can also try:
o Offering to exchange links with partner organisations, or finding
organisations to exchange links with by searching for keywords that
describe your area of work.
o Encouraging your supporters to link to your site from social network-
ing sites and blogs.
o Commenting on other people’s blog entries and including links to
your site in your comments.
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Resources
The following websites will help build your understanding of search
engine optimisation:
Idealware: being found on search engines
http://bit.ly/wCFkf
An article from Idealware, a leader in the NGO technology support
field, which shows how the content and structure of your website can
have a dramatic effect on how easily people can find you via search en-
gines. It covers ten steps that can help search engines find and prioritise
your website content.
Idealware : CMS features for search engine optimisation
http://bit.ly/2zMXWJ
More information from Idealware on how to make sure the content
management system used by your organisation to maintain your site is
helping with your search engine optimisation.
Introduction to SEO: The non-profit’s SEO guide
http://seo.grassroots.org/guide
Good keywords – find the best keywords for your

webpages
http://www.goodkeywords.com
Good Keywords is free Windows software for finding the perfect set of
keywords for your webpages.
Introduction to search engine optimisation – search
engine watch
http://bit.ly/3VgLIJ
An in-depth guide to search engine optimisation from one of the lead-
ing websites in this field
Google’s own site for webmasters
http://www.google.co.uk/webmasters
This website introduces tactics that can enhance and increase traffic to
your site and connect you with your visitors.
Social networking & web 2.0

Social network sites
You can use social network sites to build a list of ‘friends’ to whom you
can send messages promoting your website. Social networks also have
a viral aspect: people may sign up to your cause because they’ve seen it
in a friend’s news feed or on their profile on a social network site. You
can make it easy to sign up by including links to your social networking
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profiles to your website homepage. See http://n7nudrive.com/ and

http://www.aspirationtech.org/ for examples of how this can be done.
Social network sites work best when you put a lot of time into
them. They are informal social spaces, so the more personal & friendly
you can be, the better. People in social networks will tend to ignore
corporate-style communication.
Think carefully about who you are trying to attract when using so-
cial network sites. In some societies social network sites are mostly used
by a younger audience but they are gaining popularity with different de-
mographics. It is important to remember that it may not always be good
idea for people to associate with your cause openly on social network
sites, where what you are doing may pose privacy or security risks; for
example, where you are uncovering rights abuses, or promoting rights
(such as same-sex marriage, for instance) for people whose activities are
deemed illegal by repressive governments.
Be aware that different cultures tend to use different social net-
work sites. The majority of Orkut (http://www.orkut.com) members
are in Brazil, and it is also popular in India. China has QQ (http://
www.qq.com/), Japan has Mixi (http://mixi.jp/); Cyworld (http://
us.cyworld.com/) originated in South Korea. Youth in Kosovo and the
Kosovan diaspora use Hi5 (http://hi5.com/) rather than MySpace or
Bebo. Across the Middle East the picture seems varied: while there are
Iranian MySpace and Facebook pages with thousands of friends, Saudi
Arabians seem keener on Orkut, and there are MySpace look-alikes such
as MuslimSpace (http://muxlim.com/).
Other types of social network sites include voting sites such as
Digg (http://digg.com/) and Stumbleupon (http://www.stumble-
upon.com/). If enough people have rated your content on one of these
it can lead to big spikes in traffic to your site, so one method of online
promotion is to encourage your supporters to vote for your stories.
Promote & connect

Recent innovations in digital technology have produced a range of
social networking tools (often called social web or web 2.0 tools) that
you can use to publicise your blog, to network with other blogs and to
add more content to your blog. All of the following are powerful ways to
make your blog accessible to as wide an audience as possible:
Syndication
Blogs can be syndicated by using Really Simple Syndication, or RSS
feeds (see p. 102). This is done automatically if you create your blog
using WordPress or Blogger.com.
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Social Bookmarking
Tools that allow you to save blog pages or webpages that you feel will be
useful, and which you want to share with others. It is the same as using
the ‘bookmark’ or ‘favourites’ feature on your internet browser, but
this allows you to publish your favourite sites for others to see. Some
examples are: 
o Delicious – http://delicious.com/
o Blogmarks – http://www.blogmarks.net
o Furl – http://www.furl.net
o Simpy – http://www.simpy.com
Blog Directories allow you to register your blog on sites that draw
together communities of bloggers around issues of concern and interest,
for example:
o Technorati – http://www.technorati.com
o Blogdigger – http://www.blogdigger.com
o Blog Pulse – http://www.blogpulse.com
Aggregators are sites that automatically check for new posts from
particular blogs, and list these in real time as they are posted. Some are
topic-related; others are regional or issue-based.
Blog aggregators with a national and regional focus in Africa are:
o Afrigator – an all-Africa aggregator, essential if you are running an
African-based blog. http://www.afrigator.com
o Kenya Unlimited (also includes East Africa) –
http://www.kenyaunlimited.com
o Blog Africa – http://www.blogafrica.com
o Blogalaxia – http://www.blogalaxia.com This one is particularly
useful if you are publishing in Spanish.
Many countries and regions have equivalent aggregators. A more inter-

national example is:
o Global Voices – http://www.globalvoicesonline.org provides lists of
blogs and topics from across the world.
Online Communities allow you to publicise your blog and become

part of a community with other bloggers:
o MyBlogLog – http://www.mybloglog.com
o Facebook – http://www.facebook.com
o Tribe.Net – http://www.tribe.net
o MySpace – http://www.myspace.com
o Friendster – http://www.friendster.com
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Online Media Storage sites allow you to store, share and view a range
of media such as digital photographs, videos and audio files such as
podcasts:
o http://www.Flickr.com A digital photo storage and sharing site
o http://www.radio4all.net/ An audio storage and sharing site
o http://ourmedia.org/ For storing text, video and audio files
Web-Rings are communities of blogs that you can join or create your-
self. There are thousands of web-rings covering all sorts of issues. See
www.webring.com.
Social / Community News sites allow you to submit and share your
blog posts or posts from other organisations or individuals.
o Muti – an African social news site: www.muti.com
o Newsvine – a global news site: www.newsvine.com
o Digg – a global technology news site: www.digg.com
o Indymedia – a global news site focussed on grassroots political organ-
ising: www.indymedia.org
Carnivals are weekly, fortnightly or monthly roundups on a particular

issue or topic, such as the Carnival Against Racism or the Carnival of
Positives. You can set up your own carnival and invite other blogs to join
in. Don’t expect your carnival to take off immediately – it takes time and
perseverance for it to gather momentum. http://blogcarnival.com/bc/
See the Quick ‘n Easy Guide to Online Advocacy for more informa-
tion about choosing the right social web tools to meet your needs:
http://onlineadvocacy.tacticaltech.org/
Comments & spam

One of the biggest mistakes bloggers make is not protecting their site
from spam, or unsolicited, unwanted, irrelevant, or inappropriate com-
ments and contributions, especially commercial ones. WordPress.com
has an inbuilt spam protector that allows you to enter specific words
that will filter out spam. It also allows you to use comment moderation,
where any unwanted comments can be deleted. Comment moderation
should really only be used if someone is using offensive language, not
because you don’t agree with the comment; if you use it too frequently,
you will deter participation.
Email marketing
Email can be an effective way to reach decision-makers and get your
message across to thousands of people. Many experts think email is
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still the key tactic to use in communicating your cause. In this section
we’ll show you how to make the most of this tool by designing an email
campaign, making your email messages clearer, creating and sending
e-newsletters and managing your contact lists.
Email has the potential to:
o Reach decision makers directly, with a personal communication.
o Propagate your message and build awareness. A successful viral
email campaign, where people pass the message on to others, has the
potential to reach thousands.
o Keep interested individuals and organisations up-to-date and in-
volved with your activities via e-newsletters and ad-hoc emails.
o Save money.
Best practice for email marketing

o Don’t show all recipients in the ‘To’ box. When sending an email,
rather than entering all the email addresses of the recipients in the
‘To:’ box, put them in BCC (Blind Carbon Copy). That way recipi-
ents cannot misuse the other email addresses.
o Don’t pass on viruses. It’s very important to check that the computer
you use has a proper virus protection programme. See http://secu-
rity.ngoinabox.org/ for more about computer security.
o Don’t spam.  Don’t sell or pass on email addresses to people who
might use them for indiscriminate commercial emails (known as
spam). This can get you blacklisted, and result in your emails being
blocked by the recipients’ ISPs.
o Make sure you keep your mailing list  up to date. It puts people off if
you get their personal details wrong.
o Have a privacy statement in the footer of your email and give
people the opportunity to unsubscribe. Whether or not your
country has a data protection law, you should have rules about
how you store and use data. Always include an email address at the
bottom of any email you send that enables people to unsubscribe.
For example: ‘If you no longer wish to receive emails from us please
send an email to unsubscribe@advocacy.org with ‘unsubscribe’ in
the subject line’.
o Take steps to ensure the security and privacy of your list of email
addresses. Make sure you keep email addresses secure, particularly if
you are working with sensitive information.
o Always include a link to your website. Provide people on your mailing
list with a way of learning more by including ‘for more information’
and a link to your website.
o Target your emails as accurately as possible. While email gives you
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email marketing
the ability to reach thousands of people with the click of a mouse, the
more you personalise your messages and target them to the interests
of each reader, the more effective they will be. Think about ‘pressure
points’ in your campaign and be strategic about how and when you
ask people to participate.
o Ask the recipient to forward your message to others who may be
interested. Encourage the people that your are emailing to pass your
message on to appropriate friends, without encouraging them to
become spammers.
Links and resources:

o Action Alerts: Best practices from Online Networking for the Envi-
ronment Northwest (ONENW) http://bit.ly/lWGn9
o How to Gather email Addresses From Your Members, and What To Do
With Them from ONENW – http://bit.ly/ToItR
o Put email to Work (Without Becoming a Spam Artist) from Grassroots
Fundraising Journal http://bit.ly/17V5Lw
o 14 email Dos and Don’ts from TechSoup
http://bit.ly/16yiKi
Build your email campaign

Be clear about your objectives. Your email campaign should be a tactic
that is used within a larger advocacy strategy. You will obviously be
using other tactics as well and your email campaign should fit into your
strategy and have clear desired outcomes. Consider other forms of com-
munication such as phone calls and postal letters, and make sure before
you begin that email is the right tool for reaching your target audience.
Know your audience. Consider your readers when you compose an
email. Be compelling, use language your audience will respond to, and
keep it clear and concise. Make sure you clearly state what you would
like the recipient to do as a result of receiving the email.
Instigate partnerships with other organisations that already have a
strong reputation. This will increase the chances of people reading and
acting on your email.
Have a follow-up plan.  Plan what you will do if people respond
to your emails, and what you’ll do to follow up if they don’t. Make sure
that you decide how and when you want to follow up on your messages.
Always record how many emails you’ve send out for each campaign or
message in a series, and how many responses you receive to each email.
Over time this will help you get a measure of what works.
Plan for your message to be forwarded. It is very easy for a recipi-
ent to forward an email. Make sure that your email contains necessary
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background information, links to your website and ways for new people
to get involved.
Get people to read the emails that you send them

If you want to use email for an advocacy campaign:
o Use a clear & compelling subject line. This is probably the most
important part of the content of the email since this will determine
whether recipients read the body of the email. Don’t use a heading
that may be filtered out as spam, such as ‘urgent’.
o Send your email as plain text. Your email programme or browser will
have the option to email in plain text or HTML format (which is laid
out more specifically with images, colours and stylised headings like
a webpage). It’s better to send a message in plain text format because
plain text messages are often regarded as more personal than HTML.
What’s more, ISPs (internet service provider) sometimes screen out
HTML messages as spam.
o Personalise the greeting: ‘Dear <name>’
o Make sure the main points you wish to make are viewable in the
first part of the email – called ‘above the fold’, as people often make
a decision about whether to continue reading based on this part of
the email.
o Break your paragraphs up so none are more than four lines in length.
Email systems
Building a list
One of the benefits of email is building a list of people who are sympa-
thetic to your campaign and may support it. Ask anyone who provides
you with contact information for their email address. Explain exactly
how you will use it; for example, to keep them up to date with your ac-
tivities.  Use email campaigns to build your emailing list: when you have
an important message, ask supporters to forward your email messages
to colleagues and acquaintances.
Only add people to your email list who have expressly agreed to
receive email from you. Be careful not to send spam.
Managing databases
Email programmes have address books with the capacity to store a
variety of information about each contact. In the initial stages of devel-
oping the list this capacity could be used to build up information about
contacts. Using personalisation such as first names in emails increases
response rates.
As your list grows you will need to consider how you store the
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email marketing
contact and response details of your supporters. Using a database to

store the details or manage your contacts will give your organisation
extra flexibility. You could use a spreadsheet to track these and your
exchanges with them if the number of contacts is very small.
If you are trying to manage a large contact database over time, you
will fine a CRM system (client relationship management system) very
useful. This will not only allow you to keep track of contacts, but also to
keep track of your interactions with them and to target them specifically
according to groupings you create or subjects that they have expressed
interest in.
One Open Source CRM worth investigating is CiviCRM (http://
civicrm.org/). CiviMail (http://civicrm.org/civimail) is the mass-
mailing component for CiviCRM, which allows you to engage your
constituents with personalised emails and newsletters. It works along-
side internet Content Management Systems like Drupal and Joomla
too. With CiviMail you can:
o Target mailings by including or excluding any number of CiviCRM
groups, or previous mail recipients.
o Personalise your messages using mail-merge tokens.
o Track when recipients open your message.
o Track click-throughs.
o Manage bounces and unsubscribe requests.
You can also manage event registrations and donorship programmes
with CivilMail. If CiviMail doesn’t meet your needs, have a look at
commercial services that can help with managing your email marketing
campaigns for a reasonable price. The time you will save and the results
you get might make the expense worthwhile. Remember the potential
security risks of a third party having access to your communications.
E-newsletters
Communicating regularly with supporters, funders and advocates
ensures your message stays uppermost in their minds.
o Establish a schedule, sending an e-newsletter on a regular basis.
o Keep your newsletter fairly short, equivalent to a couple of sides of
A4 paper.
o Give concrete information about current activities.
Be sure not to abuse your mailing list. Bombarding people with
emails can result in people signing off your list or putting it on to
automatic spam. Plan your regular communications carefully over the
year. You need to gauge your audience and their level of interest in your
work; be aware that a single well-targeted and -conceived email will be
much more valuable than a large number of emails people may not be
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interested in. If you have specialist information that some of your audi-
ence may be interested in, try targeting a smaller group of people with
this more detailed information.
When to email?
An effective email campaign means sending your messages at the right
moment. The timing is similar to that which applies to issuing a tradi-
tional media release; for example:
o When you have a major announcement to make
o Some crucial information has come to light
o When you want people to take action
o For the launch of a new campaign or initiative
Remember always to include links to key pages on your website (if
relevant) and a call to action.
Viral marketing
Viral campaigns are an established part of online marketing. Viral mar-
keting usually refers to creating content that you hope people will want
to forward via links or email.
There’s a thin line between viral marketing and spam, but you can
reach so many people this way that it’s a good tactic when sheer num-
bers are important.
One of the most common forms of viral marketing to attract traffic
to your website is using a video that is funny or shocking. As well as
creating the video you will need to spend a lot of time seeding it, that
is putting links to the video on all sorts of relevant sites and discussion
forums. Be prepared for a low percentage of sign-ups – it’s not uncom-
mon to get 10,000 viral video views and less than 100 people signing up
to your campaign as a result.
You can learn more about creating and distributing videos in the
Video chapter of this toolkit (p. 151), including material on where you
can host your video online.
Simple online games are another good way to generate traffic from
something that people will share with their friends.
The essence of a viral campaign is that it’s something that people
will feel motivated to share, and this need not depend on fancy video
or flashy games. Some of the earliest viral emails (also circulated via
fax and fliers) were from the Zapatistas during their uprising against
the North American Free Trade Agreement in early 1993. These were
simple communiqués, straight from the source, and they served as an
alternative to the traditional media at a time when information from the
activists themselves was extremely hard to come by. See http://bit.ly/
NRpKI and http://bit.ly/WbNAU.
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evaluation
Evaluation
The internet promises what traditional PR & marketing never could: the
possibility of measuring engagement (see http://bit.ly/y4tIb).
Whereas real world impact can be very tricky to measure, the na-
ture of the internet makes it easy to track and count things, whether it’s
the number of visitors to your website or the percentage of people on
your email list who take action. You can use this to help your reporting
and accountability to the public, funders or sponsors. The main use of
analytics should be as an ongoing evaluation of your tactics and tools:
what worked, what did not?
How can you see if your social marketing is working?
One way is through buzz monitoring; that is, trying to track how and
where people are talking about your campaign. A simple tool that you
can use for free is Google Alerts. You can set this up by going to the
Google website (http://www.google.com/alerts) and specifying which
key words you want it to alert you to when they are used on a website.
Google Alerts then emails you when these keywords are mentioned
in online media & blogs. Keywords should be very specific, otherwise
you will get a lot of email that won’t allow you to track your particular
campaign or issue.
You can track blog mentions via Technorati and by using tools
tools such as Blogpulse (http://www.blogpulse.com/ ), and there are
now some great tools for Twitter, such as http://search.twitter.com
and http://twitter-friends.com/ .
o Is your homepage encouraging people to sign up to your e-newsletter?
o Who refers to your website and what are the most popular search
terms?
o Are your email subject lines increasing the number of people who
open them?
For your website, the main tool will probably be Google Analyt-
ics (http://www.google.com/analytics/) or Woopra (http://woopra.
com); these are free tools which provide a lot of detail about your
website statistics (you may need some help installing them). Remem-
ber that the IP address of site visitors will be collected by a third party
when you register your website for analysis, which may not be ideal if
your users need privacy.
You can get a lot of useful statistics when you use email marketing,
or from your email or social network accounts, such as the number of
friends you have, the number of comments, and the number of video
views. Make sure you review these statistics regularly. They will tell you
a lot about who is using your site, where they are coming from to reach
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your site and what they are looking at. This will tell you who you are
reaching now, and help you plan for the future.
Engagement & collaboration

The social web changes marketing and advocacy work by making it
participative. You don’t just want to get people interested; you want to
get them involved (http://bit.ly/2tpxFO)
o At the very least, encourage people to bookmark your site in social
bookmarking services like delicious (http://www.delicious.com).
o Give people opportunities to rate, vote and comment on your con-
tent, on your site or elsewhere.
o Create fan communities on the social network sites, and encourage
your friends to promote your cause.
o Tell people to use specific tags so you can aggregate (bring together)
all content they create that relates to you.
o Online marketing can be a good place to experiment with user-gen-
erated content (text, images, videos or other material created by your
website’s users which they put online to share with others). Need a
logo? Ask your users to upload designs. This pattern can be applied to
campaigns themselves.
Ultimately, this can become a process of open innovation, where
you are using the internet to open up your campaign so that it becomes
a collective endeavour by you and your supporters.
Campaigns that have harnessed the creativity
and content of users:
o Climate message in a bottle was a Greenpeace collaborative video
made for the Bali climate conference (http://bit.ly/h5SU2)
o Courage Campaign (http://bit.ly/4ujVEr) asked people who would
be affected by a government bill that sought to ban same-sex marriage
in the US to send in their photographs and messages.
o The Blank Noise Blog in India asks readers to tell personal stories
about their experiences of sexual harassment:
http://blog.blanknoise.org/
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video
Video
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video
VIDEO – be seen, & heard
Creating video for advocacy might mean making a high-impact, tightly

edited one-minute piece made up of moving images and sound, an
hour-long documentary, or a short piece of unedited footage showing
a key moment. Video is versatile, need not be costly or very difficult
to produce and can be distributed in many ways. This is the longest
chapter in Message in-a-box because of the great variety of approaches
to and uses of video. It will introduce the medium: how to make videos,
how to use them to support your work and how to distribute them,
with examples, case studies and useful online resources. This chapter
also tells you how to make a video in support of your activism while
taking steps to ensure all participants are safe and secure, and avoiding
unnecessary risks.
See http://bit.ly/Hr2zM
Advantages of video Disadvantages of video

It is a powerful medium, which Video is not right for all audiences:
can convey high emotion and it requires access to viewing
personal stories. technology (internet, DVD or
VCD player, etc).
Video is multi-sensory – it is It’s not best for content such as
seen and heard. maps, charts and lengthy text.
Production and distribution Video may be more expensive than
are getting easier and more other media, it requires technical
accessible. knowledge.
It is good for audiences with Video can put allies in danger.
low literacy levels. Some Burmese monks were
identified via video during the
2006 ‘Saffron Revolution’ and were
then killed by the military junta.
Video advocacy techniques

Video advocacy can take many forms:
o Providing evidence before a court, meeting or tribunal
o A grassroots educational and mobilising tool for communities, indi-
viduals and groups
o Viral, humorous short animations
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planning your video project
o Mash-ups made of pre-existing material (video, audio, photos),

remixed
o Footage that illustrates and documents your campaign actions
o Public service announcements
o Documentary
o News broadcasts and archive footage
o Focussed and action-oriented videos, screened for decision-makers
Look at some real-life examples of these different approaches
on the Message in-a-Box website under Video > Video Strategy >
Examples.
Planning your video project

WITNESS is a USA-based NGO that uses video and online technolo-
gies to expose human rights violations. WITNESS aims to empower
people to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools for
justice, public engagement and policy change. Some of the information
in this chapter is based on the work and experiences of WITNESS. Its
Video Action Plan maps out a series of questions to consider when you
are developing a plan to integrate video into human rights advocacy.
Look at it to help create a tailor-made plan for your campaign, even if
you only answer some of the questions: http://bit.ly/cCLKa
Planning your video project is essential. Even a simple project
will go through each of these main stages, and many of the steps within
each stage.
o Pre-production
Planning – see the Witness Video Action Plan (http://bit.ly/cCLKa)
and the Guide to Video Advocacy (http://bit.ly/WPlQd).
Preparing a budget
Preparing a script – see the Witness Video Action Plan
Story-boarding
Identifying which equipment, locations, interviewees, facts and
figures, images, graphs, logos, archive footage etc. are required
Checking copyright on any pre-existing sound or images you plan to
use, obtaining permissions if necessary
o Production
Filming
Sourcing and obtaining archive or other pre-existing footage
o Post-production
Logging and transcribing footage
Editing
Titles, subtitles and credits
Translation (where required)
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video
Screening a rough cut for feedback

Final adjustments and checks
Sound mixing
Preparing your video for online and offline distribution
o Distribution
o Promotion
All of these steps need to be considered and planned in advance;
for example, promotion might require still images to be taken on set
during production, and your distribution method could influence the
style, length and content of your video. Don’t leave it too late!
Making an effective video requires creativity and dedication,
so one or more people should commit themselves to overseeing the
process from the planning stage right through to distribution. De-
cide in advance how much time can be dedicated to completing the
video. If you need it in time for a particular event, plan backwards
from that date, allowing plenty of time for any technical hitches or
other contingencies. Generally speaking, the time needed to make
a well-produced video piece can be estimated as one day for every
minute of edited video time. Planning is the first stage of making any
video, and well over half the total time will need to be dedicated to
editing and to distribution.
Define your audience and decide which are the best media and
distribution channels to use to reach them BEFORE you start produc-
tion. Advocacy video is most effective when used strategically as part of
your campaign, which means you should never be producing your film
and then wondering what to do with it. Bigger is not necessarily better.
When your distribution strategy is linked to grassroots campaigns and
communities it may have a greater impact on the people that see it than
would a programme on television that an audience has casually flicked
over to.
Don’t be afraid to ask more experienced film-makers for advice;
you can also learn a lot by helping out with other peoples’ projects
before starting with your own.
What resources and skills will you need?

The cost of making a video is now very low compared to even five or ten
years ago, but there are a few things you will need access to, depending
on the type of video project you are planning:
o A video camera – this can be simply a mobile phone or digital stills
camera with a video function. If you are planning to edit together
existing materials without creating new footage, then you will not
even need a camera.
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o Software – this toolkit will direct you to free Open Source Soft-
ware tools where they are suitable and accessible to most users, and
to proprietary tools where no free tools are available.
o A computer – if you plan to do any editing (it is possible to avoid
this, or to contract editing out to others), the most expensive resource
needed will be a fairly powerful computer. Most medium-range new
computers these days will be able to handle basic video editing. If
your project is large or your computer lacks the necessary resources
you might need to be creative and find a way to access a computer
through a large NGO, university or community media centre.
o Production and post-production funds – other expenses to
consider are production costs (related to shooting the video), and
editing and distribution costs (related to printing and distributing
DVDs, for example).
Skills
For gathering video, being able to use a camera effectively and get the
sound recording right is all that is necessary. You can also put together
pre-existing footage or even use still images combined with sound
and music.
Editing requires more skills, but is also increasingly accessible to
the beginner. You also have the option of finding a volunteer editor who
has more experience, or of paying a professional.
Distribution & screening can be done by anyone with access to
copies of the video, screening technology (e.g. computer, projector)
and/or a screening venue.
Some of the skills you’ll need to have, access or develop are:
o Planning and budgeting
o Liaising and coordinating with interviewees, funders and any other
people involved
o Camera work
o Sound recording
o Video and effects editing
o Managing licenses, permissions and copyright
o Music and sound mixing
o Transcription and translation
o Encoding for internet and DVD
o Packaging design and promotion
Story, style and synopsis

The habits of your intended audiences and the resources available to
them should influence the style of your video, as well as your method of
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video
delivery and distribution, the length and language/s of your video, and
whether you decide to make an ongoing series.
Do your audiences have access to the internet? Do they have fast
broadband or slow dial-up access? DVD players? TVs? Do they attend
public gatherings? For instance, if you’re reaching out to workers who
may not have internet access, a twenty-minute DVD about labour rights
might be appropriate. If you’re raising awareness about over-fished seas
among college students, you may opt to create a two-minute humorous
animation, distributed over popular video sharing services and social
network sites.
For more information on what to think about before filming,
download the PDF at http://www.messageinabox.tacticaltech.org/
node/428
Imagine you are in an elevator with a potential donor for your video
project. You have only ten floors, or 30 seconds, to give your ‘elevator
pitch’, a brief description of what your video is about, what the viewer
will see and why it is important. Are you ready?
This is an important exercise to enable you to express concisely the
message, story and storyteller of your video. Try writing a brief guiding
paragraph or synopsis that explains what viewers will actually see and
hear in your video. This should not be a summary of the video’s message
or an analysis, but a description of how you visualise the story unfold-
ing. Every word should relate to something one will see or hear in the
video. Your synopsis can also describe the style and feel of the video; for
example, a fast music-video style, a more slow-paced story or a series of
stark images interspersed with title-cards.
Start by identifying the most important key messages of the
video. Once you have done this, focus on the details, such as who your
storyteller(s) will be, and what tools you will use to unfold the narrative.
Sample synopsis
Here is an example of a synopsis of a video on internally displaced
people in Burma:
This video shows the continuing insecurity faced by people displaced

by the military government at the end of 2005. We open with a fast
series of graphic images of the government’s offensive. We review the
facts of the action, including how many people were displaced, using
a series of title-cards. Then the villagers show us how they live in a
community hidden in the jungle, relate their experiences and personal
stories, and talk about their hopes and fears for themselves and their
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children. These interviews and conversations are shown alongside

sequences of daily life that demonstrate the continuing challenges fac-
ing villagers in the war zone in 2006. They stay in small groups near
their fields, living in temporary homes and avoiding their villages in
the plains. They have very little food, no opportunities for education,
limited healthcare, and no security. We travel with them through the
jungle as they walk day and night to get away from the attacks; we are
with them as they hide their food supplies, pack what they can carry on
their backs, and prepare to set off again to escape a renewed offensive.
The video closes with an explicit call – in the video as well as in an
end title-card – for support, as well as for pressure on the government
to stop the attacks.
About narration
Remember that compelling personal stories make for powerful
videos. Evaluate how your primary audience would respond to your
storyteller(s), while being mindful that an ‘expert’ interview may give
credibility, and may help to elaborate nuanced legal or policy obliga-
tions. Often a balance between the voice of personal experience and
that of expert opinion will be best.
This balance is influenced by your overall treatment; for example,
whether facts and figures are narrated (spoken) or displayed (shown),
and whether they come before or after personal accounts.
If you plan to use a central narrator in the film, who would be
your first choice of narrator and how will you get access to this person?
Narrators can play a very useful role in helping to structure the film, and
to fill in gaps in information. However, for some audiences, narration
may be perceived to be manipulative or indicative of a particular point
of view or opinion. Other issues to consider when choosing a narrator
include credibility, gender, national origin, celebrity recognition, and
availability/accessibility.
Which style best supports your goals?
o Interviews – the resources needed to create a video interview can
be relatively minimal. Armed with a simple camera and microphone,
basic shooting technique, and thoughtful questions, you can create
an engaging piece of media that can be used to introduce a person, an
idea, or even to spur viewers to take action.
o Covering Actions – examples of this type of video are varied, from
secret recordings that highlight injustice to video documentation of
a march or gathering. Such documents can often be simple to record,
but be aware of the possible ethical, privacy and security implications
of releasing this type of video publicly (see p. 142).
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video
o Testimonials – can engage both the individual testifying and the au-
dience watching. They can be used to build solidarity, to spur groups
to action or to promote your organisation.
o Drama/Fiction – people often assume that activist video has to be
non-fiction. But fiction or drama can be emotionally engaging tools
that ask real questions of their viewers and offer new insights.
o Humour – is a good way to get people to see the absurdities in a
policy, idea, or stance. Obviously it can be mixed with many of the
other styles mentioned here.
o Animation – Some types of animation require special skills, tools,
and software. However, it can also be achieved very simply with a
digital stills camera, a marker pen and a white-board. Making ad-
vanced animations can be a slow process.
o Music Video – Combining engaging visuals with music can have
powerful results. Consider adding text if your message is too subtle.
Remember that most pre-existing music is covered by copyright.
Sequencing your video

A sequence is a series of shots that you put together to cover a particular
idea or action. Try to prepare an outline or list of the sequences you
need to tell your story. When this outline includes drawings giving a
rough idea of what the shots will look like, it’s called a storyboard. Make
sure to describe what the viewer will see and hear: who is doing what,
and what are they saying?
Visual elements
There are many visual elements or techniques you can use to tell your
story. Here are some that you may choose:
o Images of things happening – people doing things, perhaps talking
as they go, without commentary.
o Landscapes & ‘general views’ – locations and inanimate objects
that are part of the story or its context.
o Conversations observed – people talking while aware of the cam-
era, but not being interviewed directly.
o Hidden camera – conversations or people talking to each other,
with the camera unobtrusive or even hidden. Note: there are ethical,
privacy and security questions to be considered (see p. 142).
o Re-enactments – factually accurate recreations of scenes that could
not be filmed, or that happened in the past. Remember that there
may be credibility problems with this in the human rights context,
particularly if the reasons why a scene could not be filmed, or needed
to be re-enacted, are unclear to the audience.
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o Expressionistic shots – often symbolic or artistic, to represent a

concept or provide visuals where you do not have access to the loca-
tion; in historical interviews, for example.
o Manipulation of imagery – using slow motion, fast-forward and
other effects.
o Still photos, maps, graphs or documents – filmed with a static
camera or panning, tracking or zooming.
o Text – including on-screen titles, headlines, names/affiliations and
graphics used for creative and informational purposes. Subtitles for
the hard of hearing and translations to foreign languages have also tra-
ditionally been added in the editing stage, but are increasingly treated
more efficiently as separate digital files. See Translating Video (p. 140).
o Archive footage – this could come from a professional archive, or
personal memorabilia, and possibly from other films. Remember
footage from a commercial source is usually expensive and it’s com-
plicated to get permission to use such footage.
o Blank screen – used to separate images or sequences and help the
viewer to reflect on what they have just seen or heard, to prime them
for what is next, indicate a change of sequence or location, or to
emphasise sounds.
Audio or sound elements
o Interviewee speaking – you can use audio recorded separately or
use the audio from a video interview, or use both the video and audio.
o Conversations – either recorded with the participants’ knowledge
or unobtrusively/secretly.
o Narration – this could be a ‘voice of god’ voice-over, or be spoken
by the filmmaker or by a participant in the story, either onscreen or off.
o Synchronous sound – sound recorded while filming, and therefore
synchronised with the actions in the image. This kind of sound is very
valuable to help smooth out an edit.
o Sound effects – particular sounds, not necessarily synchronised,
which can be recorded while filming, or at a later point, or found in a
sound effect library.
o Music – this is usually added during editing.
o Silence – the absence of sound can indicate change of mood or place,
or prompt the viewer to refocus on the screen.
Pre-production planning
Once you have determined your key messages, your story and your
storyteller/s, you need to identify any gaps you may have in your
research. These questions can help you get started; however, you should
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video
also include additional questions that are relevant to your specific

organisation and video advocacy plan.
o What footage is already available, and how can you use it?
o What are the audio and visual components that you hope to include
in the video?
o What do you currently have access to and what do you need?
o What security and privacy risks may be involved in using footage?
For each of the elements below, consider what is the material, how
will you obtain it and whether there are any copyrights in place, which
would mean negotiating with the owner of the rights in order to use
the material.
o Video or audio interviews produced by others
o Footage shot by your organisation
o Footage shot by television stations or other videographers
o Photos
o Music
o Other sound sources (not music or interviews)
o Printed material related to the subject of your video
Archive video and photo material, as well as music, can be difficult
and expensive to licence. However there is a range of ‘Open Content
licensed’ material available. See Searching for Open/Free Content
(p. 142) to help you find free or inexpensive material.
Resources
o WITNESS Video for Change book: http://bit.ly/WPlQd
o WITNESS Video Advocacy Institute – intensive training for budding
video advocates: http://bit.ly/Hq5Db
o Make Internet TV (http://makeinternettv.org/) For a simple look at
planning internet video projects, see: http://bit.ly/Ogs8Y
o YouTube’s Reporters’ Center has some good resources for making
citizen journalism-focussed videos: http://bit.ly/iVHoS
Creating video
Once you’ve made your plan, you need to get your footage. You don’t
have to have expensive cameras, computers, and gadgets to create a
compelling piece of video.
This section covers shooting on simple devices like mobile phones
and digital stills cameras, as well as the more standard camcorders. It
also reviews how to get video footage from DVDs in order to mix it
into your productions. We then show you how to prepare your content
through editing and translation.
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Recording methods
o Mobile phone – depending on the type of phone you have, these can
be great for brief sound-bites or clips, covert recordings, or regular
interviews. Learn what your phone is capable of, and how to extract
the video from it after shooting, before you rely on it for recording
anything important.
o Digital camera – there are many types of digital camera, and most
of the limitations and possibilities of using mobile phones for video
apply to digital cameras too. Test your equipment first.
o Digital camcorder – if you’re distributing your media on DVD or
want to achieve a professional-looking final product, this is a good
choice. It is worth being aware of all the benefits and disadvantages
before investing in this technology. Many of these devices are large,
and unsuitable for covert recording. However, they are essential when
higher-quality footage is wanted.
o Found footage – existing photos and video can enhance your videos,
and are also useful when you don’t have access to a video camera of
any sort.
Picking tools for recording video can be daunting. Often it’s best to
begin with the simplest technology possible.
Every year the quality of these devices is improving while prices
are dropping, so be sure to get up-to-date information.
Think about whether you will be distributing your video online or
offline, or both, and look at our Distribution section (p. 151) for more
information regarding this vital issue, which will have an impact on your
decision about which technology you choose for recording your video,
and on the planning of your project.
It’s always best to get accurate advice from someone who really
knows  about making videos before investing in new equipment. If pos-
sible, borrow equipment  to try it out before making major purchases.
Consider visiting a local  university, community media centre, or tech-
savvy supporter for advice.
Camcorders
Digital Video (DV) Camcorders generally give a much higher quality
and level of control over both picture and sound than equipment like
phones or digital cameras. However, they are usually physically larger
and your footage has to be digitised (converted to data files from the
disc or tape that it is recorded on) to be edited on the computer once
it has been shot, whereas digital cameras record files that can simply
be dragged and dropped onto your computer screen. You also need to
budget for accessories such as tapes, microphones, larger batteries and
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Type of equipment Advantages Disadvantages Quality*
7 Video.indd 129
Mobile phone Allows you to upload video to online sites Images and the location and times that Very low to high
Increasingly they in- directly from the cell-phone network. Once the phone is switched on are traceable (a
clude digital camera and set up, it’s simple, very small and light. Inex- security issue), phones are somewhat diffi-
video functions. pensive (if you needed a phone anyway) or cult to set up for filming and uploading.
cheap. All-in-one device. Handy.
USB camera Simple, lots of recording time, easy to use, Poor audio quality, and it’s another Low to medium
for example: Flip Video, small gadget to carry around, charge up, insure,
Vado Pocket Video Cam maintain etc.
Digital camera   Once set up, it’s simple to use, very small Older cameras may have a short recording Extremely low
Most digital still cam- and light. Can be inexpensive. All-in-one time limit, poor audio quality. to very high
eras have a video mode device. Handy.
Camcorder  Highest quality, robust technology, long Can be bulky, footage must be digitised Very high to
Eg. Digital-8 or MiniDV recording time onto computer (you’ll need a big hard extremely high
(look for a USB or drive and Firewire port, and a video card),
Firewire port) it’s another tool to look after.
Quality key
Low – view in a reduced screen on computer or other device. Good for streaming.
High – can be suitable for DVD distribution  
Very to extremely high – can be suitable for TV broadcast.  Note: the higher the quality (or resolution), the larger the data file for distribution
via the internet, meaning more time and bandwidth will be required for users to download it. Medium to high quality is best for films distributed
129
via internet download.
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so on, which can add to your load. Despite these disadvantages, if you
need the improved image and sound quality, a camcorder is worth your
while. Camcorders are great for any project that needs to look crisp on a
full screen computer, TV, projector, or DVD.
Purchasing a DV Camcorder
o Standard or High Definition (HD) – HD is unnecessary for most
web-based video projects. Instead, get a better-quality microphone
or better lights. If you have got the funds to buy a High Definition
camcorder, see http://bit.ly/JMHB1
o Recording medium – if you’re getting a DV Camcorder and want
to edit your footage, we recommend models that use mini-DV tape.
Some camcorders record to DVD or hard drive; they will compress
your footage into a format that may not be compatible with your
editing software.
o Compatible computer port – your computer needs to have an
input port that matches the port on your DV camcorder, so make
sure you check what ports your computer has in advance of making
a purchase. Your computer should have either a USB 2.0 port or a
Firewire port (also known as i.Link or IEEE 1394). Many PC laptops
and some PC desktops do not have a Firewire port, while all Mac
computers have Firewire ports.
o Battery life – DV Camcorder Review Sites are a good source of
realistic estimates of battery life (manufacturers often report opti-
mistically high operation time). If you plan to record outdoors for
extended periods, consider buying a spare or higher-capacity battery.
o Image & sound quality – you can find examples of the image
quality produced by various machines on DV Camcorder Review
Sites. Some sites even review the internal microphone quality. If you
want good sound quality, you’ll need to use an independent external
microphone. Make sure your camcorder has an audio input jack to
receive the sound from the external mic.
Advanced features
Here are some advanced features to look for if you want superior sound
and video:
o Manual gain control – for better audio, find a camcorder with the
option to turn off Automatic Gain Control (ACG). ACG means the
sensitivity of the microphone changes automatically if sound levels
change; if there’s s quiet moment, it will become hyper-responsive and
pick up every little noise. In some cases this might be useful, but often
it is better to control the input level from the microphone manually.
o Neutral balance controls – for more control over the colour
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video
balance in your images, look for a camera with neutral balance (some-
times called white or grey balance) settings. Manual neutral balance
helps ensure that colours are reproduced accurately in the existing
lighting conditions, and makes skin tones look more natural. If you’re
using a professional editing suite, you can neutral balance to some
extent during editing.
o Ergonomics & user interface – even if you buy online, we recom-
mend trying a few brands of DV Camcorders in shops before you
buy. Hold a variety of models and brands to see which shape is most
comfortable, or ergonomic, for you. Look into the viewfinder and
make sure you’re satisfied with your ability to hold the picture steady.
If you travel a lot, make sure the camcorder is a comfortable size.
Digital stills camera

A digital stills camera is small, very easy to operate, and can be kept
handy at all times. It is not intrusive and is great for doing interviews.
You can quickly and easily publish digital camera footage without
editing it. However, there are two main problems with digital cameras:
some stills cameras have time limits for video recording, and some
models record in formats that are not readily compatible with free and
popular editing tools such as Windows Movie Maker.
Purchasing a digital stills/video camera
o Video resolution – resolution is the number of horizontal pixels by
vertical pixels in the image captured by a camera. More pixels equals
better quality images. Many digital cameras shoot 320x240 pixels of
video, but some shoot 640x480 pixels.
o Frames per second (fps) – the number of video frames captured in a
second. Many digital cameras capture 15fps, but some capture 30fps.
o Short recording time – some digital cameras can only record video
for a short time (30-45 seconds) before they must stop and write the
footage to memory. Others can record until the memory card is full.
Check these limits before purchasing your camera.
o Battery life – independent digital camera review sites, such as
http://www.dpreview.com/ are a good source of realistic battery life
estimates for digital cameras. If you plan on recording outdoors for
extended periods, you might consider buying a spare battery.
o Proprietary batteries – some cameras require proprietary
batteries, while others operate on standard AA or AAA batteries.
Proprietary batteries may provide longer life, but they often require
a recharging station and cost a great deal more to replace. They can
become obsolete and be hard to replace. Standard batteries are more
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creating video
affordable and available almost anywhere in the world, but might not
provide as much shooting time.
o Image quality – some digital camera review sites post footage shot
using specific digital camera models. Otherwise, you’ll need to rely
on the resolution, frames per second, and mega-pixel count for a very
rough estimate of picture quality.
o Ergonomics & user interface – even if you buy online, we recom-
mend trying a few different digital cameras in shops before you buy
one. Hold a variety of models and brands to see which shape is most
comfortable. Try putting it in your pocket or bag (to check the bulk,
not to hijack it).
o Sound quality – don’t count on good-quality sound from a digital
stills camera; get as close to your sound source as you can. It is also
possible to record audio externally and synchronise the picture with
the sound after making the recordings, during the editing process, but
this is fiddly and time-consuming.
o Storage space & format – most cameras come with a low-capacity
memory card, which you’ll probably want to upgrade. Make sure
you get a card in a compatible format. The amount of shooting time
you can record to a given card varies between different camera
models, and also according to the resolution and compression
settings you choose.
Mobile phone video

Mobile phones are relatively cheap, widely available and accessible, and
you can create, distribute and sometimes edit video content from the
same device. They are small, unobtrusive and easily carried, so you can
film discreetly and clandestinely. Mobile phones can be particularly use-
ful in repressive media environments where filming with a video camera
may not be safe or possible. You can send videos directly between
phones free of charge using Bluetooth. While it is possible on some
mobile phones to edit and send videos straight to the internet (this
depends also on the service provider agreement), it is more common
for mobiles to be used only as recording devices.
Mobile phone video quality is fine for creating short videos for
broadcast on video sharing websites, but only a few very high end
phones are capable of producing anything approaching broadcast qual-
ity video which is 25 to 30 frames per second, 640×480 pixels resolu-
tion. Such phones are very expensive.
Mobile phones can be used anonymously in most countries if
they are prepaid, rather than on a contract, and unregistered. How-
ever calls on mobile phones and the phone’s location (whenever it
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is switched on – you don’t have to be using it) can be traced through

the mobile network provider. If your phone is seized it may contain
personal information such as contact details, call logs, texts sent and
received, and photographs, which may be a security threat to you and
your contacts.
Resources you’ll need
o Mobile phone – any mobile device which records video will do.
Generally, the newer the phone, the better the lens and the chip
(which records the video). Some phones have simple video editing
programmes that allow you to add and shorten clips, add photos, text
and a soundtrack. Different models of phone have varying limits on
memory, maximum file size for playback and recording and resolu-
tion limits.
o SIM card – the SIM card is used to store information on your
mobile phone, including its phone number. An unregistered, prepaid
SIM card provides the most anonymity. In some countries you do
not have to register when you buy a phone. The SIM card must be
registered to a mobile phone network before you can send video.
However, you can record video and transfer it by Bluetooth or USB
cable onto a computer without registering with a phone network.
o Memory card – memory cards provide your phone with extra
capacity for storing video recordings. They are compact, rugged and
easily swapped when full. They come in several types, such as SD,
miniSD, microSD, M2, microM2; be sure to check which kind your
phone needs.
o External microphone – the mobile phone’s built-in microphone
may not give high audio quality when recording video, as it is
designed for making phone calls. It works best for very close sounds,
and it is generally pointing towards the camera person rather than
at what is being filmed. You may be able to use an external micro-
phone when recording. This could be the microphone on the phone’s
headset, connected either by a cable or by Bluetooth. More expensive
phones may allow you to attach a self-powered microphone, usually
with a phono adapter to the phone’s AV socket.
o Memory card reader – a memory card reader allows you to transfer
data quickly from the phone to a computer. The memory card is
taken out of the mobile phone and put into the card reader, which is
attached to a computer with a USB cable.
o USB cable – many mobile phones have a USB socket. A USB cable
allows you to transfer data quickly, directly from the mobile phone to
a computer.
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creating video
Basic steps to mobile video usage

o Film the event or interview. This may be one single shot or several
shots. A simple video could consist of a single-shot interview
lasting 3-5 minutes. The videos are usually saved in 3gp format, a
simplified form of the MPEG4 codec, made for mobile phones.
This compresses the videos heavily to reduce the file size and the
bandwidth requirement.
o Transfer content to a computer for editing or distribution. The sim-
plest way to do this is by connecting the mobile phone to the com-
puter with a USB cable. You can also do this using Bluetooth, infrared
(IR) or via a card reader. Once you have connected the mobile phone
to the computer, the phone will appear on the computer screen as an
external drive. You can then browse the phone to find and transfer the
video clips.
o Edit the video on the phone or on a computer. The most common
approach is to edit on a computer, which allows for more sophisti-
cated editing, such as working with longer pieces, adding subtitles or
voiceovers, and incorporating effects. Once the video clips are on your
computer, you can edit them with software like iMovie, Windows Me-
dia Maker and Open Movie Editor for Linux. If you want to distribute
the completed video by mobile phone, you must save it in 3gp format .
o Distribute the video. Read more about Distribution on p. 151.
YouTube Mobile will allow you to upload videos directly from a
mobile phone. Generally you are given an e-mail address to which
to send the video so your phone must have internet capabilities, and
the costs of data transfer can be high. There are a number of services,
such as Qik, (http://qik.com/), Flixwagon (http://www.flixwagon.
com/) and LiveCast (http://www.livecast.com/), that allow you to
stream live video from your phone. This can be useful in an urgent
or fast-moving situation. You must register in advance and install an
application on your phone.
Top tips for mobile video
o Choose the highest quality setting your phone can handle. Each
mobile phone will have a range of video settings, usually found under
‘Camera’, then ‘Settings’. The most common, from the highest to the
lowest quality, are:  GA 640×480,  VGA (quarter VGA) 320×240, 
QCIF 176×144,  SQCIF 128×96
o Save to a memory stick or memory card, not to the phone. The set-
ting for this is usually found under ‘Camera’ then ‘Settings’.
o Set the phone to be silent. If you are filming clandestinely, make sure
your phone is set to silent and does not beep or make a shutter sound
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video
when you are filming. Note: some models of phone will not allow
silent recording.
o Get in close: cameras on mobile phones are designed for filming
people a few metres away.
o Shoot in good light: these cameras work best in natural light without
strong contrast. The picture tends to be particularly poor at dusk and
at night.
o Avoid zooming: the quality of the image deteriorates markedly.
o Get close to the sound you want to record, particularly in interviews.
If you use an external microphone, place it close to the sound you
want to record.
o Keep video files small, especially if you are planning to send your
videos to or from phones.
o Do a trial run: make sure you can shoot and upload videos without
any technical hitches.
Security with mobile video
In some situations, filming may compromise your safety. Here are some
steps you can take:
o Preserve your anonymity – use a pre-paid, not a contract phone, and
an unregistered SIM card and top-up cards. Supporters can buy top-
up cards on behalf of the phone user.
o Supporters should send the phone user the top-up access code by
voice or text.
o Protect your personal information – if the phone may be seized, do
not store personal information such as contacts, photos, call records
or outgoing text messages. It may be sensible to have two phones and
use one of them just for filming.
o Delete backed up videos – once the video clips have been transferred
to a computer or another phone, delete them from your own phone
or swap the memory card.
o Hide your location – a mobile phone has functions other than
recording video. When it is switched on it connects to the mobile
network provider’s base station and reveals its location. The
phone may have a GPS application. Keep the phone turned off
with its battery removed when not in use, and don’t enable the
GPS application.
See the Mobiles section of the Message-in-a-box website for more
about using mobile phones to support your activism, or see our Mobiles
in-a-box toolkit (http://www.mobiles.tacticaltech.org).
For information about keeping your digital information secure,
look at: http://security.ngoinabox.org/
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filming
Filming
Unfortunately, many low-budget videos suffer from bad camera work. A
few easy techniques can make your video much easier to watch.
Shooting
o Single hand – one technique is to hold your camera with one hand
and support that elbow with your free hand. Keep your elbow near
your body, as this will allow you to hold the camera for long periods.
o Two hands – sometimes it’s more comfortable to hold a camera with
both hands. Again, keep your elbows near your body for improved
leverage and stability.
o Above your head – if you’re shooting crowded events, you might
need to hold your camera over your head. If you have a swivel
viewfinder, this is no problem, but if you’re using a camera without an
adjustable viewfinder it takes a lot of practice.
o Stabilising your camera – keep an eye out for architectural or natu-
ral features that can help you stabilise your shots. Walls are good for
leaning against, and if you’re able to use a tripod, it’ll make your shots
much more stable.
o Video Blog-style interviewing – if you’re using a small camera,
you can hold it, facing you and at arms length, and capture yourself
and your interview subject. This technique is tricky and definitely
requires practice.
o Keep recording – it’s smart to record a little more than you think
you need, as this will give you more to play with when you’re editing.
Aim for a minimum of ten seconds per shot.
o Zooming – avoid making your viewers motion-sick with excessive
zooming and/or panning. We recommend that you turn off your
camera’s digital zoom feature. Because internet video is often viewed
in a small window, stay tightly framed on your subject. Some digital
cameras and phones show a marked deterioration in image quality
when the zoom is used.
o Dollying – physically moving the camera while it is fixed to an
object. We recommend using wheelchairs, cars, skateboards, tricy-
cles, or improvising using anything with wheels. Have the camera
person sit on the vehicle or object while someone else pushes it
and them.
Common Mistakes
o Shooting too much, and the wrong things – be clear about exactly
what you want to film before starting.
o Not paying attention to the sound – badly recorded or poorly mixed
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sound can ruin an otherwise excellent video. Use an external micro-

phone if you can, and check the sound levels are even before releasing
your final edited product.
o Lacking essential equipment – check you have everything you need
– the day before the shoot, if possible, so that you have time to obtain
replacements if necessary. Check that your camera and microphone
are working, your batteries are charged and essential cables are
packed in your camera bag.
Batteries & tapes

o If possible, carry at least one fully powered spare battery, and a
charger, for each camera and microphone you are using.
o Recharge your batteries whenever you can.
o If travelling abroad to film, ensure you have the necessary plug adap-
tors for any chargers.
o Carry as many tapes as you can. Don’t run out of tapes in the middle
of an important shoot.
o Try not to use the first and last minute on a DV tape.
o Be careful to avoid ‘time code breaks’ in your footage, and worse,
taping over your material. This is easiest if you resist the temptation
to play your footage back while still in the field.
o As soon as you have filled a video tape (or other storage medium),
label it clearly but briefly with what is on it, and the date. You may
wish to mark the tape with the name or a code for the project it was
recorded for, and a number in sequence as soon as you are using
more than one tape or disc.
o Keep your tapes safe, dry, cool, away from magnetic fields and out of
direct sunlight.
o When you have a chance, make clearly labelled backup copies of your
tapes or discs, and keep them in a different location for security in
case anything happens to the originals.
o Keep all your video equipment in a strong, padded and waterproof
bag. Keep recorded tapes separate in case the camera is stolen;
thieves are not interested in your material, but you are, and unlike an
(insured) camera, your footage is irreplaceable.
o Avoid unnecessarily rewinding your tapes.
Audio & lighting

Sound quality is sometimes considered less important than visuals, but
experienced videographers would disagree. Bad sound can spoil an oth-
erwise great production. See the Audio chapter for more details about
sound and how to record it (p. 65).
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editing
Audio tips
o Stay close for good audio – always get your microphone as close
as you possibly can to the sound source you want to capture. If your
microphone is internal or attached to your camera, move everything
up close.
o Hand-held or external microphones – when using an external mi-
crophone, it’s good to attach headphones to your camera. If there is
a problem with the microphone or connectors, you’ll hear it through
the headphones before it’s too late to sort it out.
o Getting the best sound possible – decide which sounds you want
to capture and focus on isolating those sounds as best you can. Con-
sider moving your subject away from any unwanted noise.
Lighting tips
o Shooting outdoors – generally, you will want to keep the sun behind
your camera, shining towards your subject. When possible, avoid
shooting in full noon-day sun, as it casts harsh shadows. At noon, you’re
better off shooting in full shade and optionally bouncing extra light into
the scene with white cardboard or other reflective material. Outdoor
lighting can be great in the morning or evening, just remember that
your lighting won’t be consistent over time, and will eventually get too
dark or too light. Cloudy days are best for getting even lighting.
o Shooting indoors – keep the strongest light, whether it’s a win-
dow with sunlight or a lamp, behind the camera and shining on the
subject. If you’re only using artificial lighting, try to get as many lights
on as possible – you can use distance between subject and light to get
things looking more evenly lit.
Editing
Once you’ve shot your footage you’ll need to edit it.
Label & log your footage

Documenting and getting to know all of your material is the first step
towards making a good video. Collect and label all the material you will
be working with, and make sure it is all in a format you can use. Make a
log to help you note and find particular shots when you need them.
How to log:
Watch all of your tapes, making notes in three columns as you go:
o The start and end time code of the shot
o What is happening on the screen and in the audio
o Any comment; for example, whether a shot is worth using, the sound
is bad, etc.
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video
You can structure your log in various ways, and log your material
more or less thoroughly, but whatever you do, make sure it is consistent,
and label each page clearly.
Plan your edit

Once you’ve got your footage together and logged it, it’s time to pick
out key elements and put them together in a sequence that commu-
nicates your message. If you’re making a journalistic piece, be sure you
put ‘who, what, where, when, and why’ at the beginning. You can also
plan to add music, graphics, and transitions to smooth out the story
and make the viewing a more enjoyable experience. If you have a clear
plan, called a ‘paper edit’, before you begin, you’ll be better able to make
decisions along the way.
Basic editing
To begin, you only need to do basic cutting: re-arrange footage, clip the
unusable beginnings and ends off of shots, and add simple titles and
transitions. Basic editing systems, that often come free with a computer
operating system, are usually well-suited to these tasks.
For Windows there is Windows Movie Maker (http://bit.ly/
Qw1B), for Mac there is iMovie (http://www.apple.com/ilife/im-
ovie/). Both come with comprehensive ‘how-to’ guides. For Linux we
recommend the Open Source Kdenlive (http://kdenlive.org/); please
note that this doesn’t have many features.
If you have to add a lot of titles, it may be more useful to use sub-
title software to create separate digital subtitle files after the edit than to
‘burn’ the subtitles into the image during the edit – which will get in the
way of any other language subtitling you need to do later. See Translat-
ing Video (p. 140).
Advanced editing
Non-linear editing suites are more complex and far more expensive
than the basic editing solutions available by default with Windows
and Mac. If you require multi-track editing, more complex titles or
special effects, you might consider non-linear editing software. Op-
tions include:
o Adobe Premiere Pro: http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/
for Macintosh or Windows
o Final Cut: http://www.apple.com/finalcutexpress/ for Macintosh
o Sony Vegas: http://bit.ly/8bCgH for Windows
o Cinelerra: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinelerra for Linux (not
recommended for beginners, but it is Free and Open Source)
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Tips to remember
o Keep it short – the most common problem that new editors run into
is that they can’t bear to leave anything out. Don’t be afraid to ask for
help with cutting away excess. Be especially wary of poor footage,
incomprehensible speech, repetition and distracting or irrelevant
sounds and images. To make your video interesting and appealing,
make a very short project the first time around.
o Tell a story – whether you are making a feature, documentary, or art
piece, remember to tell a story that engages the viewer.
o Don’t overdo the effects – Where possible, let the images, the
sounds, and the people themselves tell the story.
o Be creative – consider the rhythm of your piece. Pauses in the
speech allow the audience to reflect on a powerful point, to enjoy
dramatic footage or a joke.
o Be patient – don’t get discouraged if the edit goes slowly. It can take
time, but will get easier as you gain more experience.
Get feedback
Once you have a rough cut of your video, watch it from your intended
audience’s point of view. Better still, arrange a test screening for a few
people from your intended audience, and encourage them to discuss the
video so that you can collect feedback to improve the final version.
Questions for yourself & the test audience:
o Does everyone understand all the language?
o Does anybody’s speech need subtitling?
o Is there too much information, or too little?
o Do the audience understand what is happening (who, what, where,
when, why)?
o Does it keep their attention?
o Does it make people laugh? Should they be laughing at that point?
o Is there any important information missing?
o Will it move people to action?
o Will they know where to go for more information?
For more on what to do after filming, see the WITNESS After
Filming Guide on the Message in-a-Box website > Video> Editing.
Translating video
For your video to reach the maximum number of people, it needs to be
accessible to people from other parts of the world and to people who
who are hard of hearing. You should therefore transcribe it, and, if you
can, have it translated into the languages of your target audiences.
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Original language transcript

The first and most important step in translating video is to create an
accurate digital transcript of all the words in the final edit of the film.
This should contain all the spoken audio, plus any text titles on screen,
written out in a text document in the original language.
Each phrase or sentence should be written on a separate line, with
the start and end time code (hour:minute:second:frame) at the start of
the line, like this:
00:01:10 to 00:01:20 This is a film about people resisting water
privatisation in Bolivia
00:01:23 to 00:01:32 and the repression that they suffered
You can create such a document easily using free software such as
Jublr, an Open Source program for creating video subtitles, and save it
as a .SRT file.
Using/sharing the transcript or subtitle file

Your original-language transcript can be uploaded with your film, and
included for distribution on any DVD or other offline format. It can also
be attached, using the VLC player, to digital copies of the film, even in
its original language, as closed captions for the hard of hearing and for
screening in noisy environments. You can also upload it to dotSUB to
allow anyone to translate it (http://dotsub.com/).
Your transcript can be sent as a text file to translators for easy trans-
lation – even those who cannot watch the film can help. The translator
simply replaces the original language phrases on each line with a direct
written translation, keeping the timecode in place to ensure the right
phrase goes in the right place. This new file can then be used as a subtitle
file in the same way as the original-language file.
Even if you don’t have funds for translation, you should still
create an original-language transcript and share it when you pub-
lish the video; people may autonomously translate your film into
their language.
For more, see the guides to Making Subtitles with Jublr and using
VLC to view subtitles on the Message in-a-Box website under Video >
Tools for Creating Video.
Additional resources
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Subtitle_Workshop
Making advocacy videos without a camera

Some of the most powerful advocacy videos that have been created in
recent years have been made without a camera. Short three and four-
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minute videos, such as those made by Avaaz (http://avaaz.org/), have

reached enormous audiences around the globe through video sharing
sites such as YouTube.
One of the leading exponents of this method is Sami ben Gharbia
who, with his colleague Astrubal (http://astrubal.nawaat.org/), creates
‘mash-ups’ using found footage, remixing techniques, graphics, anima-
tion and screen captures to produce videos with a focus on human
rights advocacy in Tunisia. The fact that YouTube and other video shar-
ing sites have, at times, been blocked in Tunisia (http://bit.ly/GRE4E)
is, in part, testimony to the power of such subversive videos.
Sami feels that using video is a great way of reaching younger
people who might not be interested in more conventional campaign-
ing techniques, and points to the comments on his YouTube channel
(http://bit.ly/13nR9N/) as proof of this.
One of the most innovative videos made by Astrubal used Google
Earth to track the use of the Tunisian presidential plane to expose how
it had been used at taxpayers’ expense for unofficial shopping trips and
holidays (http://bit.ly/Lq4GQ).
Searching for open/free content

You can find video that is available for re-use by looking for material
using open content licenses through the Creative Commons website
(http://search.creativecommons.org).
Tips for video creation using existing images:
o Use well-known icons or images that have resonance in your culture
or in popular culture.
o For simple and effective video use screen capture to record what you
are doing on your desktop computer. This way you can, say, build
something based on Google maps or Google earth and then animate
the navigation of the software. One Free and Open Source option for
this is http://camstudio.org/
o Sami recommends tools such as QuickTime Pro, which make it really
easy to animate still images using simple copy and paste techniques
and then to add text and filters.
o If your target audiences have slow internet connections, use more text
in your videos and use compression (see Message in-a-box website
under Video > Tools for Publishing Video) to make the file smaller.
Video security
Video is a powerful tool for rights campaigning, but it can also intro-
duce serious risks. Before embarking on a sensitive video project, you
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must consider your own safety and that of your subject/s and sources.
You must be alert to potential hazards and think hard about how to
minimise risks to everyone involved.
Find out from your organisation or discuss with your group what
your policy is on security and on consent as it relates to people who
are interviewed or filmed for your human rights documentation. If
in doubt, talk to colleagues and share the responsibility of decision-
making. In all situations, there is no substitute for trust, respect, clear
communication and being sensible.
If you are covering sensitive issues or think you might be working
in a difficult security environment, this section will provide some key
things you should consider.
The first rule: do no harm

The first questions when assessing risks are:
o What kind of retaliation might you or others face? Is the risk worth
it?
o Could the methods you use backfire and prevent you from attaining
your advocacy goals?
o Is it both safe and useful to record this video with these people at
this time?
o Is it both safe and useful to share this video with these people at this time?
o Is everyone involved aware of all the risks they run? What kind of
consent process and written approvals will you need to go through
with people before you film them?
o What further research do you need to do on the security risks for
people appearing in the film according to whether it is shown locally,
regionally or internationally?
o What permissions will you need for filming in the various locations?
o Is video the best way to obtain and share the information you need
(rather than audio, text etc.)?
Planning ahead
Preparations for filming in any potentially hostile environments should
include a risk assessment. Hazards can occur during filming, during
distribution or at a later date, and include:
o Threats or violence against anyone involved.
o Being discovered filming covertly or without official permission.
o Detention/arrest/kidnap of people filming, being filmed or trans-
porting footage.
o Failure of security arrangements intended to protect information and
material.
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o People failing to realise the risks they may face when they give con-
sent, or failing to take precautions thereafter.
Precautionary measures
o Make sure you have careful, skilful people involved in planning,
research and filming.
o Establish clear protocols for consent (see the next section).
o Use suitable, discreet equipment if necessary.
o Pay attention to personal and information security.
o Make communication arrangements for before, during and after filming.
o Make emergency arrangements for yourself and the people you film,
both during and after the filming.
o Have a clear exit strategy.
Consent
Where possible, video makers should ensure that all the people they are
filming have given free, prior, informed consent to becoming involved
in a film.
A human rights or social justice filmmaker should consider
three levels of permission and consent: written, on-camera and
informed consent.
A written consent form is similar to the legal paperwork that TV
channels require, but with limited legal standing. These ‘release forms’
may be difficult to understand for people with limited literacy or expo-
sure to the kind of language they are written in.
With on-camera consent, the person to be filmed is actually filmed
hearing the full explanation of their part in the project, and giving their
name and clear consent on camera, though this footage is generally not
used in the final piece.
Informed consent is possible only when the subject understands
the possible risks and benefits of being on camera, and makes a choice
to be there, while stipulating what is or is not an acceptable level of risk.
Such stipulations may include the possibility of the subject withdrawing
permission to use the footage if the level of risk increases in the future.
Usually the discussion of risks and benefits, and the process of informed
consent, happen off-camera.
Protecting anonymity
Sometimes people are willing to appear in a video only if they can’t be
recognised. The identity of people on film can be deduced in a number
of ways, not all of which are equally obvious:
o Their face is visible
o Their name is provided in the dialogue or on-screen
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o Their clothing is distinctive

o Their voice is recognisable
o They refer to places, locations or people who are identifiable and
specific
o They are seen in the company of people who can be identified
You can hide the identity of a subject either while you are filming or
during the editing process.
During the editing process your options are:
o Using a digitised effect over the whole face or other identifying
marks, or placing a digital bar over the eyes only.
o Obscuring identifying marks in the foreground, in the background or
on the interviewee (for example, a logo on a shirt).
o Using sound edits to remove names of people and places.
o Distorting voices to make them less identifiable.
o Using only an audio track.
o Not showing faces or any features that can be recognised, for example
big hair, but using other shots, of hands or of a non-identifiable inter-
view location (sometimes with the interviewee seen in extreme long
shot), alongside the audio track of the interview.
In general you have more options if you shoot footage in the
field without compromising the image, and then alter the image in
the editing room (if you are going to be editing). However, security
should always be your main concern. If there is a serious possibility that
your original material may be confiscated either during transport from
the filming site or from an archived location, then it is a good idea to
conceal the identities of your subjects as you film them, and it may be
unwise to have subjects identify themselves on camera, either for the
purposes of consent or for the final cut of the video.
Some ideas to help you conceal someone’s identity during filming:

o Ask the person not to mention specific names or places.
o Ask them not to wear distinctive clothes.
o Use strong back lighting to turn the person’s image into a silhouette,
with them either facing the camera or in profile.
o Purposely make the footage out of focus so that the person’s face can-
not be recognised.
o Don’t light the person’s face.
o Film their hands or another part of their body rather than their face.
o Film from behind them so that their face is not visible.
o Film them with a cap shading their eyes (eyes are the most recognis-
able part of a face).
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Safe handling of video tapes

o Know where all your copies are, and label them with clear instruc-
tions in case they go missing.
o Destroy rough cuts of videos where identities are discernible.
o Ensure public scripts do not reference identities.
o Keep written records and logs separate from tapes to protect identities.
o Label clearly how footage can be used; for example, only as evidence
or for private screenings.
o Make back-up copies of important material and store them in a
secure location (ideally a temperature-controlled archive).
Responsible treatment of video footage

o Maintain clear communication with those involved.
o Honour any commitments made during filming.
o Edit ethically – avoid ‘guilt by association’.
o Remember the power and the dangers of contrast, juxtaposition
and compression.
o Avoid emotional manipulation and over-dramatisation.
o Acknowledge the impact of violent imagery.
o Respect the audience, field and facts.
o Consider the impact of distribution on the people who film or are filmed.
o Be aware of secondary trauma issues.
Appropriate use
Not all video is appropriate to show to all audiences all of the time. If a
video features extreme violence, humiliation or other disturbing mate-
rial, consider providing a warning to viewers before they can access it.
It may be more suitable to keep such material for use as evidence in a
court case than to release it freely into the public domain.
Try to think about the various people who may see this video,
and what uses they could make of it; for example, might security
forces identify individuals for arrest or repression? Might one ethnic
group use the video to misrepresent the actions of another for
the purposes of fomenting inter-ethnic strife? If someone is being
victimised in the video, might replaying it on screen turn them into
a victim again?
Possible Questions for on-camera consent:
On-camera consent can include answers to the following questions:
o Please state your name and the date of this interview.
o Do you understand what we are doing?
o Please explain in your own words, so that we can be sure.
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o Do you consent to your interview being included in this project,

including video and (state various forms of media you may use,
including print, photos and internet)?
o Are you aware of all the people who may see the final video?
o Are there any restrictions that we need to be aware of on using
the information you provide us with, or on how we can use the
video itself ?
o Are you aware that you can stop the filming process at any time: to
ask questions, to take time out or to withdraw entirely?
For more information about security and mobile phones, look at:
http://wiki.mobiles.tacticaltech.org/index.php/Security
For information about keeping your digital information secure,
look at: http://security.ngoinabox.org/
Meet journalists, filmmakers, and human rights defenders who
work undercover, in war zones and in threatening environments both at
home and abroad, in WITNESS’s useful text on Safety and Security in
video making: http://bit.ly/lQr1M
Watch the ‘Before Filming’ video from WITNESS: http://bit.ly/
ChohT
Video case studies

Video to inform & educate
From documenting injustice and recording testimonies, to amplifying
voices, through to short public-service announcements, these examples
highlight how a wide-ranging and dynamic video can raise awareness.
Video bloggers / debate on police brutality (Egypt > Global)   
For many years, human rights organisations have reported that torture
and abuse are rife in Egypt’s police stations. It wasn’t until videos
emerged showing some of the worst of these violations that the spot-
light was really trained on the conduct of Egypt’s police. Bloggers such
as Wael Abbas brought international attention to police torture by pub-
licising these videos that show officers beating and sodomising suspects.
Network: Egyptian Bloggers and Vloggers
Link: http://hub.witness.org/EgyptPolice
Additional videos: http://bit.ly/G1e5
Viral online animation / “Meatrix” factory farming satire

(global)  
The Meatrix is a four-minute online animation that spoofs the Matrix
movies, while educating viewers about the problems with factory farming
and today’s meat and dairy supplies. The film is a humorous and creative
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satire. When it launched in November 2003, this viral film broke new
ground in online grassroots advocacy. It has been translated into more
than 30 languages and is widely considered one of the most successful on-
line advocacy films to date, with well over 15 million viewers worldwide.
Link: http://www.themeatrix.com/
Organisation: GRACE and Sustainable Table: http://www.gracelinks.
org/mission.php  
Animation / chevron “Toxico” campaign
(South America > global)  
ChevronTexaco are known to have dumped over 18 billion gallons of
toxic waste water in the Ecuadorian Amazon, which is the largest oil-
related environmental disaster in the world. Amazon Watch works with
indigenous and environmental organisations in the Amazon Basin to
defend their rights.  
Video: http://bit.ly/XjerA
Video to build your base of supporters

It is essential to link your video to actions that viewers can take to
learn more and build pressure. Many videos link to online petitions or
pledges, which ultimately help build your base of supporters by inviting
them to sign up to your e-newsletter or other form of outreach.
Celebrity campaign / 30 Days for a Million Voices
(US/Burma > global)  
The US Campaign for Burma’s (USCB) 30 Days for a Million Voices
project brought together dozens of celebrities and well-known advo-
cates to call for one million people to join USCB’s global movement to
support human rights in Burma.
Videos: http://www.fanista.com/burmaitcantwait
Campaign: http://uscampaignforburma.org/index.php
Online action – create, collaborate, connect, go viral

Online video advocacy via sites including the Witness Hub, YouTube,
Ourmedia.org, dotSUB and many others allow you to post short video
clips that supporters can then use and share online and via offline
screenings. Sometimes, these clips can ‘go viral’, generating attention
for your advocacy work. They can be linked to websites and email cam-
paigns to encourage people to sign petitions, pledges & statements of
support. New tools also allow you to help people collaborate online to
create and share their own media in support of your campaign. As with
all online work, both your supporters and your general audience must
have internet access.
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Religious harmony / Avaaz –

stop the clash of civilisations (global)  
One of the all-time top videos on YouTube, Avaaz’s video debunks the
myth of a fundamental clash between Islam and the West and exposes
it as a problem of politics, not cultures. http://www.avaaz.org/en/
stop_the_clash
Environment / Greenpeace’s oceans campaign (global)  
Breathe in, breathe out, a silent 60-second video, is one of Green-
peace’s most viewed videos online. http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=tzcGFUsL4HM
Human rights / Amnesty’s ‘the cell tour’ (global)  
This video enables online viewers to see Amnesty’s replica of a cell at
Guantánamo touring the US. See how people inside the cell react to the
experience. Then record your own message and add your voice to the
thousands protesting against illegal US detentions.
Video: http://bit.ly/8VkcN
Offline action – communities watching & acting together

Many videos can be built into grassroots campaigns through public
screenings, with the help of your support network and materials such as
information packs, handbooks or manuals.
Youth-led response to prison system /
books not bars (USA)  
This video documented the inspiring youth-led movement against
the growth of the US prison industry, particularly in California. It was
linked with an Action Pack that provides examples of tangible ways for
youth to participate in the movement to reform the prison system, and
created extensive lesson plans for high school students that examine
incarceration-related issues within a human rights framework.  http://
bit.ly/vfC36
Water rights / stop the privatisation of water (India)  
This video informed slum dwellers that the Mumbai Municipal Author-
ity was planning to privatise their water supply. After the screenings, 300
people instead of the usual 60 showed up for a government meeting on
water and demanded that the officials come clean about the plan and
the costs to slum dwellers. Shortly after that meeting, the government
halted the privatisation plan in that part of Mumbai, and started supply-
ing water twice a day instead of once in that particular area.
Organisation: Video Volunteers – http://www.videovolunteers.org  
Video: http://bit.ly/n95tF
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Video in campaigns about corporate behaviour

For many corporations, their brand is their identity. Once muddied
or tarnished, stock prices and profits can drop, and jeopardise their
strength. Culture jamming with video can turn the table on the power-
ful. This often involves changing mass media images to produce ironic
or satirical commentary about the images and brands themselves, using
the original medium’s communication method.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_jamming for more.
Environment / culture jamming /
Chevy Tahoe’s SUV ad campaign  (US > global)
As part of a cross-promotion with the television show The Apprentice,
General Motors launched a contest to promote its Chevy Tahoe SUV
(an SUV or four-wheel drive is a big car that uses a lot of petrol, usually
owned as a status symbol). At Chevyapprentice.com, viewers are given
tools to create their own 30-second commercials. Naturally enough,
environmental activists stepped in to make the most of the situation.
Among the new spoof ads that soon proliferated across the internet
were ads with taglines like ‘Yesterday’s technology today’ and ‘Global
warming isn’t a pretty SUV ad – it’s a frightening reality’.
 Videos: http://bit.ly/qglUV 
Environment / Greenpeace’s Kleerkut campaign (global)  
Kleenex, one of the most popular brands of tissue paper products in
the world, contributes to the destruction of ancient forests. Greenpeace
does a great job using video in its Kleerkut campaign.
Organisation: Greenpeace
Campaign: http://www.kleercut.net
Video: http://bit.ly/UJRrT
Other examples
o WITNESS case studies:
http://bit.ly/g Jits   
o Videos from the International Rescue Committee:
http://bit.ly/Cwu2y
o Campaigning videos from Action Aid:
http://bit.ly/3HwDd
Mobile video documentation

Myanmar/Burma cyclone, 2008
Mobile phone and camcorder videos of the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis
were compiled into DVDs. These were sold in Burma and smuggled out
of the country:  http://bit.ly/13Zbxz  
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Students for free tibet

In August 2007 a group from Students for Free Tibet rappelled down
the Great Wall of China. The action was streamed live via mobile phone
videos using Skype to New York, then posted online on YouTube:
http://bit.ly/dVMtk
Neda Soltani
In Iran in June 2009, a young woman called Neda Soltani was shot during
protests by tens of thousands of people contesting the outcome of the
recent presidential election. She was filmed on a mobile phone as she lay
on the ground surrounded by people trying, unsuccessfully, to save her
life. Within hours the footage was on YouTube and Facebook, and was
viewed by tens of thousands around the world. While it is too soon to say
what the ultimate impact of this will be, these images have helped bring
home the seriousness of these protests.
http://bit.ly/15NHTp
Publish video
Once you’ve made your video you need to make sure it’s seen. This
section will take you through how to prepare your video for both online
and offline distribution, how to license it, where you can publish it and
how to distribute your video online and offline.
Production and distribution need to work hand-in-hand. The type
of film you make, its length, subject matter and style, will influence how
you distribute it. The type of distribution you are planning can also af-
fect how you make your film.
To create an effective plan for distributing video, first read the
Strategy chapter (p. 7). The more clearly you have defined your
audience, messages and campaign goals, the more effective your
video will be.
Publicise your video

Remember that you will need to promote your video after you have
decided how to distribute it. From email campaigns to posters, you can
work your way around Message in-a-box to make your promotional
plan. Think of it as a mini-campaign and do a simple promotional plan
to decide what to do. For an introduction to Publicising your Video, see
the Message in-a-box website under Video.
Bigger does not necessarily mean better. As in all communications,
the important issue is quality rather than quantity. Making sure your
message seen and heard by the right people is more important than
reaching absolutely everyone.
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Video via internet

The opportunities for sharing your videos have never been greater, but
because millions of videos are uploaded online each day, with content
ranging from dog tricks to documentation of human rights abuses, your
video will be a drop in an ocean of media unless you have a strategic
distribution plan.
To use internet distribution strategies, which can be extremely
effective, you will need some technical understanding of how to create
videos that stream or download easily. Find out more about how to do
that in our Tools for Video Publishing (Message in-a-box website >
Video), where we show you step-by-step how to compress and embed
videos in a range of ways.
If you think your audience won’t have enough internet access
to watch video online, you might need to think again. In Africa, for
example, internet access has increased tenfold in recent years, and
the internet is predicted to become an increasingly powerful tool for
people communicating in developing countries, including rural areas.
Nevertheless, less than 10% of the population of Africa and less than
20% in Asia currently have internet access (see: http://www.internet-
worldstats.com/).
Where on the internet you chose to upload your video and how
you promote it will have an impact on all aspects of your work, from
your rights with regards to your video to the audiences and communi-
ties you can reach online, to their ability to download and distribute
your media offline. Ensure that your video is on a site that meets your
needs and will help you reach your short- and long-term goals.
Tips for video dissemination & publicity:

o Disseminate the same video on multiple online platforms. This is es-
pecially important now that sites such as YouTube are being blocked
in many countries.
o Post a comment alongside a famous or notorious video on YouTube
as a way of directing traffic to your video.
o Link to your video from as many blogs and websites as possible.
You’ll be able to track on YouTube which websites are directing
people to your video.
o Set up an RSS feed of your content and have this feeding directly
to your Twitter and Facebook accounts so that your followers from
these networks can see your work.
o In situations where video sharing platforms are blocked you can
spread video between mobile phones, free of charge, using Bluetooth
connections.
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Video via DVD

Due to censorship restrictions and security issues, to poor internet ac-
cess, or for other reasons, you may still choose to distribute your short
or longer videos via DVD, either giving DVDs to people or organising
screenings. One key benefit of screenings is that they are face-to-face,
and can be a very effective way to build strong relationships and support
between viewers, especially if you are viewing difficult or sensitive mate-
rial. You can also use the events for fund-raising, to recruit volunteers,
and to further other campaign goals.
Hybrid distribution – a bet both ways

Often, the best form of distribution, if the resources are available, is a
hybrid of both online (internet) and offline (physical) distribution,
ensuring that all of your key audiences get your messages.
News items can be posted on websites, with regular updates on a
situation or topic. Short films can be posted on YouTube and on your
own sites, redistributed and linked to. A video containing in-depth
background or analysis might be more suited to a compilation with a
particular theme, so that it sits alongside other videos that explore the
same topic from different angles. It may be better to distribute a feature-
length documentary on DVD, as audiences may be more likely to watch
a longer-format movie on their television than on a computer, and
downloading large files from the internet may be impractical for them.
Note: Be keenly aware of privacy and security issues when
publishing. Be sure to read the Safety and Security section. Look at
WITNESS’s Things to Keep in Mind When Uploading Videos (http://
witness.org/)
Making a strategic distribution plan

Strategic distribution of your video is the key to achieving positive
change.
Videos can be distributed through:
o Private screenings
o Screenings at key events and public meetings
o Conferences, hearings, or briefings
o Using rapidly developing online distribution tools.
Many successful campaigns use different video strategies simultane-

ously, so that one approach builds on another. For example, your video,
in identical versions or in versions edited to suit each audience, might
be released to:
o Television stations
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o Grassroots networks, via screenings

o Online social networks
o Private meetings with decision-makers, along with written reports
and other advocacy tools
You can consider the possibilities for these hybrid online/offline
strategies while analysing the makeup of your audiences, what action
you are seeking from them and what distribution methods are best to
reach them.
Important questions
o What are the time constraints within which your video would be
most useful?
o How will your audience view your video? Does your audience have
access to the internet?
o If so, what are the best online tools and spaces to reach them?
o Will it be useful to develop accompanying materials such as a briefing
pack, action kit, fact sheet or screening manual to go with the video at
screenings, for example on a multi-media DVD and/or in print? If so,
what information would they contain? See our Print chapter (p. 25)
and Offline distribution (p. 164) for ideas and support.
o Who will your allies be in getting the video to your intended audi-
ences both nationally and internationally (researchers, NGOs, action
networks, media organisations, etc.)?
o Are there important groups within your existing audience who have
the connections to reach your larger intended audiences?
o How can you involve these groups from an early stage in your video
advocacy process in order to secure their commitment?
o What online spaces, such as blogs, social networks, online forums,
and video sharing sites, as well as your own website and email list, can
you use to reach your intended audiences?
o How much do you need to develop a presence in each of these spaces?
o What level of mainstream media exposure are you looking for with
this campaign?
o What concerns exist in terms of the current and potential representa-
tions of your subject matter in the mainstream mass media?
Publishing checklist
Once your video is online it will take on a life of its own. Ensure that
your video is on a site where you can append information you want your
audience to know: what the video is about, why it is important, who
made it, how can they learn more and, if it is calling for an action, what
actions they can take. If your video will be seen elsewhere; for example,
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embedded on another site or downloaded for offline distribution, make

sure the essential information is available within the video itself.
Information you should include:
o Title – give your video a clear, informative title (and subtitle if neces-
sary). Attach a license and select a range of keywords that apply to
it. This metadata is important to help your video come up in online
searches.
o Author – use an individual’s or an organisation’s name.
o Date – make sure people know when the video was made.
o Description – a succinct description which will help people to
understand what they will be watching if they click to download or
play. Syndication tools like RSS will only display the first few lines
of your description, so write the text so that the first sentence can
stand alone.
o Keywords – a well-thought-out selection of keywords will help
people find your video.
o License – assign a license to your work so people know how they can
use it.
o Contact – make sure that viewers can reach you if they want to
make contact.
o Further information – provide links to the organisation that
produced the video, and also sources of further information on the
subjects raised in the video.
o Image – select a ‘thumbnail’ image that will accompany informa-
tion about your video - this can be a still from the video or a graphic
of the title.
o Additional Resources – this kind of ‘information about informa-
tion’ is known as metadata. The Transmission.cc (http://trans-
mission.cc/) network has developed a technical standard for this
information - the process is documented at http://bit.ly/121BNs
Publish video online

Online (internet) distribution platforms vary in their nature, specifica-
tions and requirements. Some of the possibilities are:
o Commercial or Non-commercial – is your video sharing service a
commercial business which could be bought or sold? What is the mo-
tive of the owners or creators of the service? Can ads be placed next
to your videos?
o Video time Limit – some sites limit the length of the video to a
certain number of minutes. If you are posting a long video you should
check this.
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publish video online
o File Size Limit – most sites have limits on the size of the video file. If
you are posting a large video file you should check this.
o Videos Embeddable – Flash videos can sometimes be embedded in
external websites and blogs for instant playback.
o Mobile Phone Uploads – some mobile handsets are capable of
recording videos and sending them over the wireless phone network.
The process varies greatly from handset to handset and from service
provider to service provider. See the Mobiles section of the Message-
in-a-box website for more about how to do this.
o Non-Flash Video Formats tolerated – is the user limited to watch-
ing the video in Flash video format? This can limit the distribution of
your video.
o Videos Downloadable – having the video file available to download
from the site can give more flexible access to viewers who might want
to watch offline, or who don’t have the bandwidth to stream.
o Open Content Licensing tolerated – Some sites make it easier to
use alternative and open licenses.
o RSS 2.0 with Enclosures – RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a
tool for pushing your videos out to sites and viewers automatically.
o RSS 2.0 Search Feeds available – this will let other sites pick up
your videos based on tags and search terms.
o Region and/or Issue Based – if you’re working on a particular issue,
you’ll reach more of your core audience if you host your video on a
site dedicated to that issue.
Commercial video-sharing sites

There are hundreds of commercial sites which allow you to publish
your video online. Below is an overview of five popular sites. Be aware
of security issues when publishing on commercial platforms. One of
the major disadvantages of many commercial platforms is that ads are
placed next to your video. Many of these sites operate as online social
networks.
YouTube
YouTube (http://youtube.com) is the biggest video sharing site in
the world, so it’s a fantastic way of reaching a large audience. Ensure
that you have a promotional campaign to direct people to watch your
video. Additionally, remember that as there are so many videos on
YouTube, it might be harder to reach and engage an audience there
than in other spaces.
Some of the problems with YouTube: it can be hard to link
people back to your site, and YouTube have used their Terms of Ser-
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video
vice to remove campaigning videos like those of Wael Abbas in Egypt

(http://bit.ly/2HJl3m). In some places YouTube is often blocked.
Time Limit: 10 Minutes (with basic account)
File Size Limit: 100MB (1 Gig with multi-file software)
Videos Embeddable: yes
Mobile Phone Uploads: yes
Non-Flash Video Formats: no
Videos Downloadable: no
Open Content Licensing: no
RSS 2.0 with Enclosures: no
RSS 2.0 Search Feeds: yes, no enclosures
Region and/or Issue Based: no
How to upload a video to YouTube:

http://www.webvideozone.com/public/308.cfm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFyIT7rVZ0Q
http://youtube.com/user/YouTubeHelp
blip.tv
blip.tv (http://www.blip.tv) is the most flexible of all the commercial
platforms, and has the fewest limitations on how and where your videos
are presented. It also presents your video at a much higher quality than
YouTube.
Time Limit: none
File Size Limit: 1 Gig
Non-Flash Video Formats: yes
Videos Downloadable: yes
Open Content Licensing: yes
RSS 2.0 with Enclosures: yes
RSS 2.0 Search Feeds: yes, with enclosures
Vimeo
Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com/) has a slick user interface and does a
great job of streaming higher quality video. However, it falls severely
short in terms of how the videos can be exported and displayed on
external sites’ aggregators, and of search-friendliness.
Time Limit: no
File Size Limit: yes (500MB per week, total)
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Non-Flash Video Formats: user option

Videos Downloadable: user option
RSS 2.0 with Enclosures: yes, Flash player only
RSS 2.0 Search Feeds: yes, Flash player only
Facebook
If you are already running a campaign using Facebook (http://www.
facebook.com/home.php), then sharing video on the site can be very
powerful. The videos you post on Facebook are, however, largely lim-
ited in availability to the groups or campaigns you’re connected with
on the site.
Time Limit: 20 minutes
File Size Limit: 300MB
Videos Embeddable: no
Videos Downloadable: no
RSS 2.0 Search Feeds: no
Region and/or Issue Based: social network based
Non-profit video sharing sites

There are a number of non-profit video sharing spaces focussed on
social justice, environmental or human rights issues.
The WITNESS Hub
The WITNESS Hub (http://hub.witness.org/) is an online video com-
munity for human rights where you can upload, watch and share human
rights-related videos, images and audio files in a variety of formats. With
each media item you upload, you can provide detailed context and
link to information resources, events and actions that users can take to
protect and promote human rights.
It is a free service designed to serve, connect and mobilise individ-
uals, groups and organisations working to protect and promote human
rights worldwide. WITNESS also offers training, support and resources,
plus RSS feeds and a large and growing archive. In English, French and
Spanish. The Hub also has a toolkit (http://hub.witness.org/toolkit)
section that features video animations about how to incorporate video
into your campaign work and best practice when filming and distribut-
ing your video.
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video
Time Limit: no
RSS 2.0 with Enclosures: coming soon
RSS 2.0 Search Feeds: yes
Region and/or Issue Based: yes (Global, Human Rights)
Archive.org
Archive.org (http://www.archive.org/index.php) contains thousands of
digital movies which range from classic full-length films, to daily alter-
native news broadcasts, to videos of every genre uploaded by Archive.
org users. All of these movies are available for download, often in very
high resolution, and are freely licensed, so it’s also a great place to find
footage for use in production.
Archive.org doesn’t focus specifically on social change issues but it
is a key space used by many advocates and free culture enthusiasts.
Time Limit: no
File Size Limit: none
Mobile Phone Uploads: no
Open Content Licensing: yes, Creative Commons or Public Domain
EngageMedia
EngageMedia (http://engagemedia.org/) is a non-profit collective pro-
viding media tools to activists, campaigners, communities and citizen
journalists. You can upload and view videos about social justice and
environmental issues. Their primary focus is on the Asia-Pacific region,
but video from other places is also welcome. EngageMedia aims to
create an online archive of independent video productions using open
content licenses and to form a peer network of video makers, educators
and screening organisations. Materials are mostly in English, with some
in Asian languages.
Time Limit: no
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Region and/or Issue Based: yes (Asia-Pacific, Social Justice
and Environment)
Estudio Livre
Estudio Livre (http://www.estudiolivre.org/tiki-index.php) is a col-
laborative environment focussed on the production and distribution of
media created independently with free software. Estudio Livre allows
any user to create a live audio or video streaming channel.
Time Limit: no
RSS 2.0 with Enclosures: yes, see: http://www.estudiolivre.org/
el-gallery_rss.php?ver=2&type=Video
RSS 2.0 Search Feeds: yes
Region and/or Issue Based: yes (Brazil, Activism
and Free Software)
Commercial or Non-commercial: non-commercial
Politube
Politube (http://www.politube.org/) is a video and audio sharing web-
site that distributes media from independent media outlets and activists
on politics, society and the environment. In English.
Time Limit: no
Region and/or Issue Based: yes (World Politics)
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World social forum TV

World Social Forum TV (http://www.wsftv.net/) offers hosting for
material relevant to global social movements.
Time Limit: no
File Size Limit: 150-200mb
Region and/or Issue Based: yes (social movements)
Other video-related sites

o Transmission (http://transmission.cc/) – International Network
of Social Justice Online Video Projects
o Clearer Channel (http://clearerchannel.org/drupal/) – an
online video project which encourages viewers to download and
transmit video for social change.
o IMC Video – International independent media
(http://video.indymedia.org/en/)
o pad.ma –(http://pad.ma/) Artistic, experimental site from India,
content documenting people’s lives. In English.
o People’s media Chamsesang – South Korea
(http://newscham.net/)
o v2v – A video syndication network of independent media from
Germany (http://v2v.cc/)
o Oneworld TV – A public platform for filmmakers, video journalists,
NGOs and others interested in showcasing video content focussed
on human rights and social change: http://tv.oneworld.net/
o dotSUB – http://dotsub.com/ – a site which allows users to trans-
late your videos in different languages using subtitles.
Preparing video for the internet

Once you’ve finished editing your video you’ll need to compress it, or
reduce its file size, and encode it into a format that is viewable online.
Files from your editing application are far too large to transport on
to the internet or to be placed on a DVD. It is necessary to compress
these video files to make them smaller so they can easily be uploaded
and downloaded.
Video files originating from mobile phones or digital stills cameras
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offline distribution
will be much smaller than video files from a DV camcorder, but for
certain camera settings you may still need to compress the footage for
distribution online.
On the Message in-a-Box website under Video we look at applica-
tions you can use to prepare your video for online distribution, specifi-
cally Avidemux for Windows and Linux and iSquint for Mac. You can
also do simple exports to the internet using Windows Movie Maker or
iMovie. Features to look for in these applications include ‘batch encod-
ing’ so you can line up many files to encode at once, with settings you
can save and re-use. The more support for various codecs and formats
you are able to offer users, by encoding your video in different versions,
the better. There is a resource containing guides for encoding at http://
www.videohelp.com
Compression is always a compromise between the size of the file
and the quality of the video. High quality = large file and vice versa. How
you compress your video is really a question of who your audience is,
how you intend them to watch it and what you hope they might do with
it. If your audiences have good internet connections, you might choose
to make a large, high-quality version available for download. If your
audiences have more limited net access, you should probably consider
making a lower-quality version that is easier to download or stream.
If you have multiple audiences, consider a variety of types of de-
livery; this will entail compressing your video in different ways: a large
version for screenings, a Flash version for distributing online, another
version for distribution as a DVD etc.
Offline distribution
Television, DVDs, VCDs, screenings and passing files face-to-face are
all important distribution mechanisms you may consider. While there
might be a lot of hype these days around online video distribution, of-
fline methods remain extremely effective and should not be underesti-
mated. The vast majority of the world’s population doesn’t have internet
access, and only a small minority have access to the broadband connec-
tions required for publishing and receiving video online.
This section will take you briefly through creating DVDs and
VCDs, putting on community screenings and ways in which you can
combine online and offline distribution to reach the right audience.
DVD & VCD distribution

DVD stands for Digital Versatile Disc. DVDs can be burned in many
different formats and used to store any kind of data. They can have a
single layer of information burned on one side of the disc (single-layer),
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two layers of information on one side (dual-layer) or have informa-

tion on both sides (double-sided). Each layer or side can contain up to
4.7 Gigabytes of video or other data. DVD-Video discs contain video
encoded in the MPEG2 format.
DVD-Video discs are designed to play back in hardware DVD
players or using DVD playback software on computers with DVD drives
installed. The video is compiled along with graphics and sound for
interactive menus into the DVD-Video format during the DVD author-
ing process.
VCD stands for Video Compact Disc and is basically a CD
containing up to 74 minutes of video, in a format both hardware VCD
players and most DVD players can play back. The video on a VCD is
encoded as a standardised form of MPEG1, an older video compres-
sion format that requires less computing power to play back than
many of the newer and more sophisticated codecs that are available. In
terms of image quality, MPEG1-VCD is comparable to viewing a VHS
video tape.
DVD & VCD - advantages & disadvantages
The advantages of distributing your video on DVD over VCD are:
o Quality – DVD uses a more sophisticated and better compression
standard and can also hold a lot more data than VCD.
o Interactivity – the ability to create complex menus, subtitles and
simultaneous video streams for additional camera-angles etc.
o Familiarity – audiences in some parts of the world are much more at
ease with DVD technology.
The advantages of distributing your video on VCD over DVD are:

o Cost – blank CDs are less expensive than blank DVDs.
o Distribution – as CDs are an older technology, many more people
have CD players installed in their computers than have DVD players.
o Ease of copying – many more people have access to a CD burner
than a DVD burner and can therefore copy your movie for others
themselves.
o DVD player compatibility – the majority of hardware DVD players
will play back VCDs and in many areas of the world VCD players and
the VCD format in general are so popular that they are more widely
available than DVDs.
There are various options for distributing your video on DVD or VCD:
o Submit your video to existing compilations. The producers of the
compilation will look after distribution for you, though you can ar-
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offline distribution
range to be responsible for distributing copies in your own area.

o For small numbers of copies you can duplicate DVDs or VCDs your-
self, if you have a DVD or CD burner in your computer
o If you anticipate distributing a larger number of discs, you can make
a single master disc and have it professionally duplicated. Prices are
continually dropping for duplication.
o You can then choose to either set up an ordering system yourself (on-
line or through the post), or pass the discs on to a mail-order company
that may have their own online credit-card ordering facility to take the
trouble of filling orders and delivering them off your hands.
Making a DVD
o Decide what content you wish to include on the DVD; video seg-
ments may include the programme itself and additional video such
as a trailer or extra footage, while in the menus you can also include
texts about the video and the issues concerned, links to further
information, production stills, logos and some audio loops for
background music.
o One of the advantages of the DVD format is that you can include
sub-titles for different languages, or original-language subtitles can be
activated for the hearing-impaired; prepare translations if you have
the time and resources.
o Work with a graphic designer to create images for menu backgrounds
and buttons, or create them yourself.
o Import your video into your DVD authoring application. Some ap-
plications will let you import the DV file you have exported from an
editing program as it will be transcoded within the application itself,
while others will expect you to have encoded the video as MPEG2
that conforms to DVD specifications.
o Arrange your content within intuitively designed menus that will be
easy for users to navigate.
o Create the DVD master using your authoring application and test
it on a DVD player to make sure it works correctly, including all the
menu buttons.
o Make sure you author your DVD as region-free (known as Region
0), enabling the disc to be played on DVD players sold in different
regions of the world. You will still have to choose to author the DVD
as either PAL or NTSC depending on where in the world you are go-
ing to distribute the discs.
o Copy this master using a DVD burner and a DVD burning applica-
tion, or take it along with graphics for the disc and jacket to a profes-
sional duplication company for bulk copies to be made.
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Making a VCD
o Export your video segments as MPEG1 using the MPEG1 VCD
settings for either PAL or NTSC, depending on which territories you
will be distributing the disc in.
o Import your MPEG1 video files (in the .mpg format) to your VCD
authoring or CD burning application. Many CD burning applications
will allow you to author a VCD as one of their options.
o Choose to burn your CD in the VCD 2.0 format. Each video file you
import will create a separate chapter on the disc that can be skipped
forward or backward to using the DVD player remote control or
media player software on computer.
o Burn your VCD and test on software media players and on your
hardware DVD player.
Software
There are some tools in the realm of Free and Open Source software for
creating DVDs and VCDs. These are adequate but not brilliant. If you
want to make a professional quality DVD with advanced menus and
graphics we suggest you look at proprietary software such as:
o DVD Studio Pro – http://bit.ly/z0C8C for Mac
o Adobe Encore – http://bit.ly/slO3Yfor Windows
If you can’t get these tools, or have more modest requirements, you
might find these useful:
o Windows – http://bit.ly/13k9BX
o Linux – http://qdvdauthor.sourceforge.net
o Mac – http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net
Screenings
Screenings can be a great campaigning tool. Because they bring
people together they can be used to get people to take action. You
can also use screenings to raise money for your cause and to sell
copies of your video.
Advance planning
o Deciding on your aims and objectives first will help with planning the
rest of the event. Do you want to increase public awareness? To raise
funds for your organisation? To mobilise old and new supporters?
o Decide on a good name for the event and write a one-paragraph
description, including information about the film, and what else (if
anything) will be happening on the night.
o Consider who your audience will be: the general public or a specific
community?
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screenings
o Decide what kinds of videos and issues you will be presenting besides
your own, and whether there will be other entertainment (music,
poetry, dance, etc.), or speakers.
o Establish a contact person and phone number for each group in-
volved in the show.
o Decide who will get any money that is raised through ticket sales or
donations. Is this a ‘benefit’ for a particular group? Many venues will
take a proportion of the ticket receipts. Tell people what you plan to
do with any money you raise.
o Line up your participants, groups and videos and establish a mini-
mum of commitment from everyone involved.
o Choose a Host/ess or Master/Mistress of Ceremonies (MC) to
introduce the film (and any other parts of the show). You want
someone confident, informed and outgoing, who can make a real
impression on the audience.
o What can s/he ask people to support or do after they leave your
show? Are there other relevant events to announce at this show? Get
flyers and fact sheets for coming events and related issues to hand out
to people as they come in, to pass around during the MC’s intros, or
to have available at a literature and merchandise table, where you can
also sell or give away copies of the film(s) you are screening.
Venues & schedules
Check what is available at potential venues in terms of:
o Video and audio technology – what is already there, what do you
need to bring?
o Technical assistance, in case things go wrong on the night
o Seating for the audience, visibility of the screen and stage
o Provision of refreshments – does the venue do this?
o Times of opening and closing, what time the screening should take
place
o Any charges for use of the venue or resources
o Whether the location is easily accessible for your desired audience
Other considerations
It may take months to get a slot and to be included on the venue’s calen-
dar, advertising, website and other outreach. If that’s not so important
to you (although good advertising greatly improves attendance), maybe
you can negotiate to put a show on sooner, on an off-night when a cin-
ema, community centre or club has nothing else scheduled.
Find out the deadline by which the venue will need the final de-
scription of the show for use in their calendar, publicity etc. Include at
least one compelling graphic (often a still image from the video).
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video
Consider serving refreshments if none are going to be available at

the venue. Make contact with a local and supportive caterer: this can be
another way to raise money, if you charge for drinks or snacks. Discuss
how any arrangement will work, financially and logistically.
Publicising the screening
Design a flyer, using a description and graphic as a minimum. See the
guide to creating a new file, under Scribus in the Print section of the
Message in-a-Box website, for information on how to do this. Be sure to
include the admission price, if you have one, or a suggested donation.
Write a Press Release explaining the ‘who, what, where, when and
why’ of the show, and suggesting how your screening is connected with
political actions or events, thus helping the media to find an ‘angle’ for
coverage. Send the press release plus flyer to your local media.
Some other tips for publicising your screening:

o Circulate internet and e-mail postings.
o Borrow and build an e-mail list of interested people and organisa-
tions. You can surf the internet for local organisations to send infor-
mation to.
o Postal mailings may be more expensive than they are worth unless
you have some cash, or there is no alternative.
o Make invitations to allied groups who might want to share their
publications at the event. Find out if they need a table or space made
available for them, after making sure that this is feasible in this venue.
o Post flyers at local media and arts centres and also with local organi-
sations and NGOs that would support the event.
Planning your screening
o Watch all videos and plan the order you’ll show them in.
o Check for any audio or video problems, make sure you will have the
right technology to play all the media you will bring.
o Write notes for the host, including a list of speakers, who produced
the videos, action points, other events to flag, and anything else that
might help capture the audience’s imagination or support.
o Decide on final timings, allowing for a short break between the parts
of the show for people to relax.
o Make a Sign-Up Sheet so your audience can get information in the
future. Be sure to ask for Name, Phone Number and Email or postal
address.
o Confirm times and responsibilities with all the people involved in the
screening. Who runs the projector? Who collects any money? Give
them the basic schedule of the night and ask them to turn up at least
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2 hours before the show to help set up (depending on how much they
are involved).
o Determine who will stay after the show to help clean up and gather
your materials.
o Call/text your friends, activists, everyone you know to remind them
about the show. This works.
o Make a follow-up call to your local media contact.
o Set up at least two hours before the show: check that all video and
audio equipment is set up and working, cue any tapes/DVDs/Files.
o You are responsible for the show. That means you need to stick
around to help clean up cups and papers and other trash left on the
floor, that you make sure you get the money from whoever was taking
it at the door, and that any chairs and tables are left in order.
o Have fun, that’s half the reason to do another one!
Hybrid distribution
Publishing videos on-line is a great way to make content available to
the whole world. But sometimes you can’t rely on internet access: poor
connectivity, lack of local internet providers and censored network con-
nections are common obstacles. When that is the case, there are some
alternatives. Distributing digital files is not only about using the internet.
Portable digital storage devices such as CDs, DVDs, USB memory sticks,
memory cards and even mobile phones allow content to be saved and
then circulated physically from person to person. Other options include
public screenings (discussed above), the use of low-power TV transmit-
ters or the creation of distribution points with burn stations (computers
configured so that anyone can make copies of digital content).
This section explains how you can download videos that have been
published on online video websites and convert them to formats for
distribution offline, as well as providing links to sites explaining more
advanced methods of hybrid distribution.
USB memory sticks, memory cards & mobile phones

USB memory sticks are very effective portable media storage devices
that are becoming increasingly cheap. Memory cards can be found inside
digital cameras, mobile phones and other equipment. They can be ac-
cessed by dedicated memory card readers or by connecting the camera
to the computer with a USB cable. Usually, USB memory sticks, memory
cards and some mobile phones are recognised by any operating system as
removable devices and can be used like any other media: drag files to the
appropriate folder in your computer, eject the device and you are ready to
go. Your content can be brought or sent virtually anywhere in the world.
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Some mobile phones offer also Bluetooth wireless connectivity:

you can transfer files to and from an enabled computer, or directly
between mobile phones.
Local video distribution: burn stations

A ‘Burn Station’ is a computer configured to record selected digital con-
tent to CDs, DVDs or other digital media. They can be used as distribu-
tion points for digital content. Some projects offer users a dedicated
interface for browsing, selecting and saving or burning files, but you can
accomplish basically the same results on any PC which holds your data
files and has a CD or DVD burner.
Such a station means individuals don’t need to have their own
high-bandwidth internet connections in order to access new video
content. Files can be loaded onto the burn station by hand from other
computers, DVDs or USB memory sticks, or if you have a fast net con-
nection, downloaded for redistribution.
o http://burnstation.org
o http://www.freedomtoaster.org
o http://www.platoniq.net/burnstation
Micro TV transmitters
Low-power video transmitters can be a good way to mobilise a local
community and offer an alternative to mainstream TV channels by
showing citizen media. One successful initiative is the Telestreet
movement in Italy. Assembling a TV transmitter requires a little bit of
technical know-how. Depending on where you are, there might be legal
issues as well.
o How to create a Micro TV transmitter: http://bit.ly/MX2Me
o How to Build the Simplest TV transmitter: http://bit.ly/ejoz6
References
http://bit.ly/K1YRA (Online /Offline video site)
http://bit.ly/10WehJ (How to create a VCD or SVCD)
http://bit.ly/1RGWai (Burning VCDs with Linux)
Video syndication
Video Syndication is a great way to share and find content. Some inter-
net TV shows have managed to use these technologies to reach massive
audiences.
Syndicating your videos will help you to distribute your video
widely, to reach your target audience reliably, and to present your videos
in a high-quality manner. The key to syndication is having a media RSS
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feed, which is basically an up-to-date list of all of your latest videos.

These feeds are also often referred to as video podcasts, or vodcasts.
Viewers who subscribe to your RSS feed will receive your latest
videos as soon as you upload them; it’s like TV over the internet. Search
engines and websites love RSS feeds, because they’re in a standard
computer language. The simplest way to get an RSS feed is to sign up to
a site that produces RSS feeds for you, or to start a video blog.
RSS for viewers
Individuals can subscribe to your RSS feed using an internet TV ap-
plication, like Miro. When a user has subscribed to your feed, you know
they’re always getting your latest videos.
RSS for your websites
RSS is also important for getting your feed published in aggregation
sites, guides and search engines. If you have described your videos
well, using accurate key words, people will be able to find them when
searching for something on that subject. When other people publish
video with RSS, you can subscribe to feeds of their videos, selecting
by author or by search terms, and pull their videos in to your website
automatically.
How do I get my RSS?
Many video publishing services have an RSS feed associated with
your username. Make Internet TV has a tool for finding your RSS feed
(http://bit.ly/aJej6). If you’re not using one of these services, you can
check the FAQ section of your video host.
Further resources
o Video Blogging with WordPress (see Message in-a-box website
under Video)
o Video Podcasting with Miro (see Message in-a-box website under
Video > Tools for playing video)
Create an online home

If you’re using an online service to host your videos you might want
to consider setting up a blog or website where you can compile them
all. This will help people find your work and will also allow you to have
more control over the space: you can add your own design, provide the
most up-to-date information about your campaign and allow people
to connect with you and get involved. This can also help people to find
your work through search engines.
Look at our guide to setting up a WordPress blog (Message in-a-
box website under Internet > Begin Blogging) to help get you started.
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video
Video blogging
Video blogging, or vlogging, uses video as a medium for blogging.
Video entries are made regularly and often combine internet syndica-
tion tools to allow for quick distribution of content over the internet
using the RSS or Atom syndication formats.
Incorporating video into your blog and distribution strategy with
syndication tools can be an good way to combine your regularly up-
dated content online with your videos. For example, if you were able to
produce and publish video on a regular basis, you could use it to point
your audience towards your primary online presence (your website
or blog), and keep them informed and engaged. By doing so, you can
ensure viewers will see your video and also be able to see the essential
information about your campaign and how to support it.
Elsewhere in this toolkit you can find out how to embed video in
a WordPress blog (Message in-a-box website under Video > Tools for
Publishing Video). You could also look at Showinabox (http://show-
inabox.tv/), a technology for setting up your own video blog.
Video blogging case studies

Rainforest Action Network’s Greenwash of the week
(funny & informative)
Each week, Rainforest Action Network: (http://www.ran.org/ )
produces a video blog highlighting the most disturbing Greenwash
tactics from some of the world’s worst corporate polluters:
http://bit.ly/4iXBvV
Tibetan Uprising (timely & action-focussed)
Tibetan Uprising, a blog with regular videos from Tibetans living in
exile in India, provides daily updates about activities ranging from their
march to Tibet as part of the Tibetan People’s Uprising Movement
before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, to footage of the violence and
crackdown within Tibet. Video plays a regular part in this blog, along
with photographs, audio and daily updates and analysis.
http://tibetanuprising.org
Prisoners in Freedom City
From Beijing residents, human rights and blogging activists Hu Jia and
Zeng Jinyan, ‘Prisoners in Freedom City’ documents Hu Jia’s time un-
der house arrest, where he was barred from any and all contact with the
outside world. Hu Jia was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison
for ‘inciting subversion of state power’. He has repeatedly campaigned
for the rights of people with HIV/AIDS, for religious freedom, and for
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video blogging case studies
Tibetan autonomy, as well as for the environment, free speech and the
release of political prisoners.
More information on Hu Jia: http://bit.ly/86EKh
Link to video: http://bit.ly/uBlWr
Mizzima News (informative)

Mizzima News was established in August 1998 by a group of Burmese
journalists in exile with the aim of spreading awareness about the situa-
tion in Burma and promoting democracy and freedom of expression in
Burma by improving the flow of information in and out of the country
and through advocacy and lobbying. Mizzima incorporates video into its
posts on a regular basis, serving as a window through which the interna-
tional community can peer into news-starved Burma. http://mizzima.tv
Alive in Baghdad
Alive in Baghdad provides a weekly video for global citizens interested
in the real life political, military, economic and social situation in Iraq.
Iraqi journalists produce video packages each week about a variety of
topics on daily life in Iraq, bringing testimonies from individual Iraqis,
footage of daily life in Iraq, and short news segments.
http://www.aliveinbaghdad.org
Finding & playing video

Now that you’ve put your content out and told people about it they
need to be able to find it and play it. In some cases this might simply be
a matter of watching it embedded in your website, but they could also
subscribe to your video podcast feed or use free software like VLC to
play the videos they’ve downloaded. Elsewhere in this toolkit you can
find out how to subscribe to video podcasts using Miro. See the Mes-
sage in-a-Box website under Video > Tools for playing video for more
about VLC & Miro.
There are millions of videos online and thousands more added
each day. How do people find what they are looking for or content that
might interest them? Luckily this is a well-known problem so quite a bit
of work has been done to make this easier.
The resources below will help you find footage to use in your own
film, to aggregate videos from a variety of sources and to build up a
broader picture of the issues you’re campaigning on.
Aggregating video
The Miro Player is a great way to subscribe to video feeds and to
search channels for content. Because Miro is an aggregator it can bring
together videos from a range of different sites all in one place. Miro also
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video
allows you to search for videos on popular sites by author, title, keyword
etc, and to download them.
If people publishing their video have added enough information to
describe their video accurately you should be able to find them.
You can also visit and search the big centralised video hosts like
YouTube (http://www.youtube.com) and Google Video (http://video.
google.com) for films referring to your area of interest. You should visit
the various non-profit video publishers (see p. 158), where you can find
an interesting range of material.
The new generation of video sharing sites do not oblige you to visit
each of them in turn. Most video sites now will have an RSS feed of the
content they produce which you can aggregate in Miro or subscribe to
in an RSS reader such as Google Reader, Sage, Bloglines, etc.
For more on how to use Miro to subscribe to feeds see the Miro
Guide on the Message in-a-Box website under Video > Tools for
playing video.
You can also use ‘Video Feed Aggregators’, sites that pull together the
most interesting videos from across the net, allowing you to search for
material from a range of video publishing sites, then ‘aggregate’ them in
one place, in your internet browser. Websites like http://transmission.
cc and http://ifiwatch.tv attract a range of critical media feeds, and
search among all the content they discover across the net to display
results according to your searches.
If you have a website of your own, you can use it to display other
people’s videos about the issue that you campaign on, or feeds specific
to your region. You can use content management software like Drupal
or Planet to set up your own version of this free software tool, and
aggregate or moderate video feeds to display a channel of videos that
touch upon your own area of work and interest.
If you are interested in using Drupal, look at: http://drupal.org/
project/emfield
Links
o Make internet TV – Make Internet TV is a step-by-step guide
for creating and publishing video on the internet. The site covers
shooting, editing, licensing, compressing, uploading and promoting
video on the internet; it illustrates these topics with screenshots,
photos, screencasts, graphics, text and more.
http://makeinternettv.org/
o Witness – Witness works with with people who defend human rights,
training them to use video for documentation and to create change.
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over to you...
The website hosts news about campaigns, invites involvement by

means of support and volunteering and contains valuable training
material and resources on using video for advocacy. Its sub-project The
Hub: http://hub.witness.org/ showcases human rights videos and
campaigns from around the world. http://witness.org/
o EngageMedia – EngageMedia is a video sharing site distributing
works about social justice and environmental issues in South East
Asia, Australia and the Pacific. It’s a space for you to upload and find
critical documentary, fiction, artistic and experimental works.
http://engagemedia.org/
o Transmission – Transmission is a network of citizen journalists, vid-
eo makers, artists, researchers, programmers and internet producers
who are developing online video distribution tools for social justice
and media democracy. Their objective is to make independent online
video distribution possible (using FLOSS) by building the necessary
tools, standards, documentation and social networks.
http://transmission.cc/
o The Video Activist Network – The Video Activist Network (VAN)
is an informal association of activists and politically conscious artists
using video to support social, economic and environmental justice
campaigns. The website is a collection of showcased videos, events
like screenings, useful tutorials, how-to guides and other materials on
video activism, including links to other video activism resources on
the internet. http://videoactivism.org/
o Floss Manuals – FLOSS Manuals is a site providing free manuals
about free software. The manuals are intended to introduce you to
software that you might find useful, software that is made available
under licences that allow you to download and use them for free.
Much of this software is extremely sophisticated but the basics are
usually quite easy to grasp. http://www.flossmanuals.net/
o Streaming Suitcase – The Streaming Suitcase is a resource for those
wanting to learn to stream. The material is all licensed under Creative
Commons and is free to download and distribute. The manuals are
all available online, and can be downloaded in PDF files, or in a print-
friendly format. The manuals will also be updated periodically so
check them for updates. You are also welcome to include the manuals
page within a frameset in your own webpage.
http://www.streamingsuitcase.com/handcrafted2.asp
o Linux multimedia resources – Usinglinux.org is a collection of
links to various Linux resources available on the internet. The links
are arranged under a long list of categories. The multimedia resource
page has quite a comprehensive list of links to multimedia software
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video
projects. The site also has links to various other general Linux re-
sources like tutorials and documentation.
http://www.usinglinux.org/multimedia/
o Linux in Film – Linux in Film is a Wikibooks project that lists links
to useful tools and resources for video production, from Story-
boarding and Budgeting through to Authoring, for various media
like the internet, VCD and DVD. It also has a lot of interesting links
to professional filmmakers who use Linux for production, to other
Linux multimedia resources and more. http://bit.ly/Y8mpz
o dyne:bolic – dyne:bolic is a practical multimedia production tool for
media activists, artists and creative people. It will help you manipu-
late and broadcast both sound & video and find tools to record, edit,
encode and stream. Most devices and peripherals are automatically
recognised: audio, video, TV, network cards, Firewire, USB and
more; and all using only free software. http://dynebolic.org/
Over to you...
Tactical Tech believes that people need access to accurate, easily under-
stood information in order to be able to act on issues that affect their
lives, and to increase the transparency and accountability of powerful
entities such as governments, corporations and public institutions.
We hope that Message in-a-box has inspired you! The tools
provided in this toolkit have been selected and tested by technologists
and rights advocates with the aim of supporting you to move through
the process of planning, creating and distributing media for rights
campaigning. We encourage you to use the toolkit, re-mix it, translate it
and re-print it locally as required. We request that you please respect our
Creative Commons License by acknowledging us and we ask that you
send us a copy of any translation or derivative works that you create so
we can share this with others.
Feedback is very important to Tactical Tech. Only with your input
can we improve our existing toolkits, develop new ones and provide
other support services that meet your needs.
Please complete a short online feedback form for this toolkit once
you have looked at parts of it or used it: http://www.tacticaltech.org/
evaluation
Please send us any other feedback and stories about how you’ve
used the materials in this book by emailing us at miab@tacticaltech.org,
and be sure to visit the website for updates at http://messageinabox.
tacticaltech.org/
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glossary
Glossary
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glossary
Glossary
Software highlighted in Message in-a-box, that is included on the DVD
and website, is listed in the Introduction (p.x). Parts of some of the fol-
lowing definitions have been drawn from Wikipedia (http://wikipedia.
org/) – ‘the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit’.
Actuality: recordings of background sounds specific to, or characteristic

of, a particular mood, time or place, that can be edited into an audio
or video piece; for example, crowd noise if you are covering a rally or
birdsong if you are making a piece set in a natural environment.
Analogue (sound, recording equipment, playback equipment,
photos, broadcasts etc.): the name give to the technology for
recording sound and images that preceded digital technology (and
continues to be used) and to the recordings themselves; for example,
reel-to-reel tape machines, vinyl LP records, cameras that use film to
capture images, and the photos made from that film. These machines
work by analogy: they copy the shape of the sound waves or areas of
light, dark and colour that the user wants to reproduce on to a me-
dium such as magnetic tape or film, and play back from the same me-
dium or from another on which the analogue information has been
directly imprinted, such as vinyl or photographic paper. Analogue
telecommunications include traditional telephony, and (analogue)
radio or television broadcasts.
Audio: a technical (or jargon) word for sound, especially recorded and
transmitted sound.
Authoring (VCDs or DVDs): preparing a video or series of videos to be
put onto a CD or DVD disc that will play in a VCD or DVD player.
The process often includes adding menus and other graphics.
Bandwidth: in computer science, the channel capacity or maximum
throughput of a logical or physical communication path in a digital
communication system.
Briefing paper: a document supplying pertinent information about
and analysis of a particular subject, sometimes with policy recom-
mendations.
Broadcast: the word originates in farming, where it describes what
the farmer does when s/he throws handfuls of seed grain onto the
soil in a wide sweeping movement. A radio or television broadcast
is a program that is transmitted over the airwaves and is therefore
available to anyone within range who has a TV or radio tuned to the
right frequency. ‘To broadcast’ is sometimes informally used to refer
to the dissemination of radio and television or similar material via the
internet; this is more properly called streaming.
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Burning (CDs, VCDs or DVDs): the process of writing files or video files
onto a VCD or DVD. This requires a CD or DVD writer.
Closed captions: were developed to display text on a television or vid-
eo screen, providing additional or interpretive information to viewers
who wish to access it. Closed captions typically display a transcrip-
tion of the audio portion of a program as it occurs (either verbatim or
in edited form), sometimes including non-speech elements. The term
‘closed’ refers to the fact that only those who choose to decode or
activate the captions will see them.
Codec: any technology for compressing and decompressing data.
Some popular codecs for computer video include MPEG, Indeo and
Cinepak.
Communiqué: a short document, summarising a number of issues, or a
consensus or position, often in connection with a meeting or confer-
ence. A communiqué is written in a rather more formal style than a
press release, and its intended audience is interested parties as well as
the public.
Compression: a way to reduce the size of audio or video data files.
Compression algorithms are typically referred to as audio/video
codecs, and as with other specific forms of data compression, there
are many different algorithms which achieve the compression effect
in slightly different ways.
Content: a neologism used by people in the media to describe the
finished works which they present, which may be audio recordings,
videos, images, texts, works of art, advertising, or any other material
which fills their publishing, broadcasts or streaming.
Content Management Systems (CMS): a computer software system
for organising and facilitating the collaborative creation of documents
and other content.
DAT recorder: digital audio tape recorder. A digital sound recording de-
vice which gives a better sound quality than most MiniDisc recorders.
Digital (sound, recording equipment, playback equipment, pho-
tos, streaming etc.): technology which uses a binary code made up
of the digits 1 and 0 to preserve and manipulate data (sound, images,
text, programs etc.). When you digitally record audio and video, the
sounds and images are analysed and broken down into very small
pieces of information about frequency and amplitude, colour and
movement, which are then expressed as binary numbers and can later
be decoded and replayed digitally. All information held in comput-
ers is digital, including sounds converted from analogue to digital
format, stored audio, and transmitted audio.
Digital audio player (DAP): a device that stores, organises and plays
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glossary
digital music (or other audio) files. It is more commonly referred

to as an MP3 player (because of the ubiquity of the MP3 format),
but DAPs may play many additional file formats. See also portable
media player.
Directional, of a microphone: sensitive to sounds coming from one
direction only. Microphones have varying response patterns, from ex-
tremely directional through cardioid (a heart-shaped response) and
figure of eight (responding only to sounds coming from two opposite
sides, useful for dialogue and interviews between two participants) to
omnidirectional microphones, which pick up sound coming from
all sides.
Ergonomics: the science of designing the job, equipment, and work-
place to fit the worker. Proper ergonomic design is necessary to
prevent repetitive strain injuries, which can develop over time and
can lead to long-term disability.
Feed: a data format which provides users (feeds them) with frequently
updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby
allowing users to subscribe to it. Making a collection of web feeds
accessible in one spot is known as aggregation. A web feed is also
sometimes referred to as a syndicated feed. See RSS.
Flash: Adobe Flash is a multimedia software platform developed and
distributed by Adobe Systems. Since its introduction in 1996, Flash
has become a popular way to create animation, advertisements, and
various web page components, to integrate video into web pages, and,
more recently, to develop rich internet applications.
Flash mob: a large group of people, convened via social media or viral
emails, who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual
action for a brief time, then quickly disperse. While flash mobs began
as apolitical actions, they may share characteristics with political
demonstrations.
FLOSS: Free/Libre/Open Source Software is software which is liberally
licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its
design because the source code is available.
Format: 1) A type of publication or audio/video programme; for ex-
ample, a book, leaflet, large magazine or small magazine; a chat-show,
phone-in, interview or documentary. 2) formatting: the technical
specifications which give a publication its overall look: typefaces,
paragraph style, spacing, colours, types and frequency of headings. 3)
Different technical means of capturing and storing information (ana-
logue, digital, MP3, WAV, AIFF etc.); different technical means of
distributing or sharing information (DVDS, CDs and USB memory
sticks, for example).
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Freeware: from ‘free’ and ‘software’, is computer software that is avail-
able for use at no cost or for an optional fee. Freeware is generally
proprietary software available at zero price, and is not necessarily
Open Source. The author usually restricts one or more right/s to
copy, distribute, and make derivative versions of the software. Free-
ware is also different from shareware, which obliges the user to pay
after a trial period, or to gain additional functions.
GIF (Graphics Interchange Format): an image format that is widely
used on the internet. It supports animation and allows a separate
palette of 256 colours for each frame. The GIF format is unsuitable
for reproducing colour photographs and other images with continu-
ous colour, but it is well-suited for simpler images such as graphics or
logos with solid areas of colour.
Hard disc recorder: a stand-alone or computer hard-drive and pro-
gram used to record, store and edit sounds. Any computer with some
memory capacity can be used to manipulate sound – for recording
sounds from external sources a sound-card interface may be needed.
HTML: stands for Hypertext Mark-up Language, which is the predomi-
nant mark-up language for creating web pages. It provides a means
of describing the structure of text-based information in a document
by denoting text as links, headings, paragraphs, lists, etc, and allows
the user to supplement that text with interactive forms, embedded
images, and other objects.
Internet Service Provider (ISP): a company that offers its customers
access to the Internet, website hosting and related services.
Layout (n), to lay out (v): a stage in the process of preparing a pub-
lication for printing, during which one places the elements of the
publication (photos, text, headings, captions, cartoons etc.) on the
pages, making decisions about how things will look. This can be done
manually or with a computer, and usually happens in several stages,
with changes being made at each stage.
Line breaks: in word processing, a code that signifies the end of each
line of text. When word processing documents are saved as ASCII
text files, some word processors insert a hard return at the end of each
line of text. If the text file is opened up in a word processor or text
editor with different margins from those on the original document,
the text will not flow like the original.
Metadata: in data processing, metadata provides information about,
or documentation of, other data managed within an application or
environment. This information commonly defines the primary data,
and may include descriptions of its context, quality, condition or
characteristics.
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glossary
MiniDisc(MD): a magneto-optical device initially intended for recording

and storing up to 74 minutes of digitalised sound on a small disc.
MiniDisc recorders and readers can also be used for general-purpose
storage of data.
Microphone: an acoustic-to-electric device that converts sound wave
pressures into a varied electrical signal. Microphones are used to
bring voices, music and other sounds into analogue and/or digital
recording devices in live and studio sound engineering, and in radio
and television broadcasting. They are also used for telephony. See
directional.
Neutral balance: in photography and image processing, colour balance
is the adjustment of the intensities of the different colours. An im-
portant goal of this adjustment is to render accurate colour reproduc-
tion in the prevailing lighting conditions; the method is called grey
balance, neutral balance, or white balance. Video cameras may have a
setting which allows the colour balance to be altered while aiming the
camera at something white or neutral grey.
NTSC: (National Television System Committee) is the analogue televi-
sion system that was used in most of the Americas, Japan, South Ko-
rea, Taiwan, Burma, and some Pacific island nations and territories.
After over a half-century of use, the vast majority of over-the-airwaves
NTSC transmissions in the United States were replaced with ATSC
on June 12, 2009 and will be by August 31, 2011 in Canada.
Omnidirectional: see directional.
Open Source Software (OSS): computer software for which the source
code, and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright hold-
ers, are provided under a software license that is in the public domain.
This permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to
redistribute it in modified or unmodified forms.
Oral history: the recording, preservation and interpretation of his-
torical information, based on the relation of personal experiences
and opinions by someone who lived through the times in question.
It often takes the form of eye-witness accounts of past events, but
can include folklore, myths, songs and stories passed down over the
years by word of mouth. While it is an invaluable way of preserv-
ing the knowledge and understanding of older people, it can also
involve interviewing younger generations. More recently, the use
of video recording techniques has expanded the realm of oral his-
tory beyond verbal forms of communication and into the realm
of gesture.
PAL : short for Phase Alternating Line, an analogue television encod-
ing system used in broadcast television systems in large parts of the
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world, excluding North America. Other common analogue television
systems are SECAM and NTSC.
Panning: (from ‘panorama’) a horizontal camera movement in which
the camera pivots around a motionless vertical axis, similar to the
effect obtained by standing still and turning one’s head. See tracking
and zooming.
PDF files: Portable Document Format is a file format created by Adobe
Systems for document exchange. PDF is used for representing two-
dimensional documents such as books or magazine pages, reports,
etc. in a manner independent of the application software, hardware,
and operating system. Each PDF file contains a complete descrip-
tion of a fixed-layout (unchangeable by the recipient) document.
Formerly a proprietary format, PDF was officially released as an open
standard on July 1, 2008.
Performance art: art in which the actions of an individual or a group
at a particular place and in a particular time constitute the work. It can
happen anywhere, at any time, or for any length of time. Performance
art can be any situation that involves four basic elements: time, space,
the performer and a relationship between performer and audience.
Pixels: In digital imaging, a pixel (or picture element) is the smallest
item of information in an image. Pixels are normally arranged in a
2-dimensional grid, and are often represented using dots, squares,
or rectangles. Each pixel is a sample of an original image, and the
more samples there are, the more accurately the image represents
the original.
Podcasting: distributing audio and video files over the internet using
either the RSS or Atom syndication formats, which allow the files
to be downloaded and played back at the user’s leisure on a mobile
device or computer. Podcasting with video files is sometimes called
vodcasting.
Portable media player (PMP): an independent digital electronic de-
vice that is capable of storing and playing audio or video files in one
or more media formats. See digital audio player (DAP).
RSS or Really Simple Syndication: family of Web feed formats used
to syndicate digital content, such as blogs and podcasts. Syndication
means that anyone can subscribe to the RSS feed from a particular
site, and receive automatic notification when it has been updated;
they don’t have to visit a website to know that it has new content.
RSS reader: RSS feeds can be read using software called RSS readers,
which can be web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based. The
user subscribes to a feed by entering into the reader the feed’s URI
or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription
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glossary
process. The RSS reader checks the user’s subscribed feeds regularly
for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a
user interface to monitor and read the feeds.
SIM card: A Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) on a removable SIM
Card securely stores the service-subscriber key (IMSI) used to iden-
tify a subscriber on mobile telephony devices (such as computers
and mobile phones). The SIM card contains its unique serial number,
international unique number of the mobile user (IMSI), security
authentication and ciphering information, temporary information
related to the local network, a list of the services the user has access to
and two passwords (regular PIN and unblocking PUK).
Social network sites: websites focussing on building online communi-
ties of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are inter-
ested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Users interact
in a variety of ways, such as e-mail and instant messaging services.
Tracking: a camera shot during which the camera moves forward,
backward, along the side of the subject, or on a curve. Dollies with
hydraulic arms can also smoothly ‘boom’ or ‘jib’ the camera on a ver-
tical axis. Tracking shots, however, cannot include complex pivoting
movements, aerial shots or crane shots. See panning and zooming.
Universal Serial Bus (USB) cable: in information technology, a
cable to connect devices to a host computer. USB was designed to
allow many peripherals to be connected using a single standardised
interface socket. USB can connect computer peripherals such as
mice, keyboards, PDAs, gamepads and joysticks, scanners, digital
cameras, printers, personal media players, memory sticks, and
external hard drives.
URL: in computing, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a type of
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that specifies where online an
identified resource is available and the mechanism for retrieving it. In
popular language, a URL is also referred to as a Web address.
Vodcasting: see podcasting.
Voice-over: refers to a film and video effect in which a voice addresses
the audience alongside an image which does not contain the speaker.
The voice-over may be spoken by someone who also appears on-
screen in other segments or it may be performed by a specialist voice
actor. Voice-over is also commonly referred to as ‘off camera’ com-
mentary. An authoritative-sounding voice-over which explains and in-
terprets the images for the viewer is called a ‘voice of god voice-over’.
Vox pops: vox populi, a Latin phrase that literally means voice of the
people, is a term used in broadcasting to refer to interviewing
members of the ‘general public’. Usually the interviewees are shown
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in public places, and supposed to be giving spontaneous opinions in a
chance encounter, and to be neither rehearsed nor selected in any way.
Wireframe: a basic visual guide used in interface design, including web-
site design, to suggest the structure of an interface and relationships
between its pages. Typically, wireframes are completed before any
artwork is developed. Wireframes allow for the development of varia-
tions of a layout to maintain design consistency throughout the site.
‘Zine or fanzine: a small-circulation print publication of original or
appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via photocopier
on a variety of coloured paper stock, made by people who are not
professional magazine publishers, but want to communicate their
passion for the subject. Small circulation zines are often not explicitly
copyrighted and there is a strong belief among many zine creators
that the material in them should be freely distributed and shared.
Zooming: a kind of camera shot, appearing to get closer or farther
from the subject while actually re-framing it using a zoom lens or
digital zoom. A zoom lens is a mechanical assembly of lens elements
with the ability to vary its focal length. Some digital cameras allow
cropping and enlarging of a captured image, in order to emulate the
effect of an optical zoom lens. This is known as digital zoom and
produces an image of lower resolution than optical zoom. See pan-
ning and tracking.
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FREE TOOLKITS AND GUIDES FOR
HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES
Tactical Technology Collective (www.tacticaltech.org) is an interna-

tional NGO that provides human rights advocates with guides, tools,
training and consultancy to help them develop the skills and tactics they
need to increase the impact of their campaigning.
The following guides and toolkits are available online, or as down-
loadable files, or they can be posted to not-for-profit organistions in a
book/CD format, free of charge.
Mobiles in-a-box: Designed to support campaigners who want to use

mobile technology in their work.
English: http://mobiles.tacticaltech.org
French: http://fr.mobiles.tacticaltech.org
Email: mobiles@tacticaltech.org
Security in-a-box: Created to meet the digital security and privacy

needs of advocates and human rights defenders.
English: http://security.ngoinabox.org
Available soon in Arabic, Russian, French, Spanish
Email: security@tacticaltech.org
Maps for Advocacy: An effective, practical guide to using maps in

advocacy campaigns.
English: http://www.tacticaltech.org/mapsforadvocacy
Email: mapping@tacticaltech.org
Visualising Information for Advocacy: A manual aimed at helping

NGOs and advocates strengthen their campaigns and projects through
visual communication.
English: http://www.tacticaltech.org/infodesign
Available soon in Russian
Email: infodesign@tacticaltech.org
Quick ‘n’ Easy Guide to Online Advocacy: Aims to expose advocates

to online services that are quick to use and easy to understand.
English: http://onlineadvocacy.tacticaltech.org
Base NGO in-a-box: A collection of tools for the day-to-day running of

small to medium sized NGOs.
187
8 Glossary.indd 187 27/8/09 19:29:52

English: http://base.ngoinabox.org
Currently being updated and translated into a number of languages
Email: base@tacticaltech.org
Tactical Tech are happy to send copies of any or all of these toolkits and
guides to human rights advocates working in marginalised communi-
ties. For general enquires email: ttc@tacticaltech.org
Website: http://www.tacticaltech.org
188
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ILLUSTRATIONS
Descriptions and sources for illustrations:
Page 38:Newsletter for Saheli Women’s Resource Centre in India.

Page 39: Facts agains Myths. http://vakindia.org/facts-myths.htm
Page 40: Cover of El Varejon Magazine
Page 42: I Want to go Home – This website advances the cause of the
San people or Bushmen, the indigenous people of the Kalahari desert:
http://www.iwant2gohome.org
Page 42: Satirical cartoon e-card by Sokwanele about the Zimbabwean
elections 2008. http://www.sokwanele.com/
Page 45: Photo demonstrating the rule of thirds by Andrea Willmore.
http://www.willmorestudios.com
Page 49: Working women in India.
Page 49: Screenshot of manga style comic book by artist, Gerry Oba-
diah Salam; writer, Marto Art, for Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
http://www.greenpeace.org/seasia/en/campaigns/climate-change/
end-the-nuclear-age/nuclear-meltdown-comics
Page 52: The Education of Girls, by Ms. Koku Katzuni. The story told
is about a Maasai girl who wishes to go to school. Her mother persuades
her father to support the idea, on condition that the girl’s Maasai tradi-
tions are respected and the she not be subjected to a ‘foreign’ culture
in school. In the last panel, she is on her way to school with a friend.
http://www.worldcomics.fi
Page 55: One World, One Dream: Free Tibet. Photo from Indymedia:
http://bit.ly/vPibr
Page 55: We the Women is a campaign focussed on the issue of women
driving in Saudi Arabia. http://www.n7nudrive.com/
Page 60: Animation for conflict diamonds campaign.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/diamonds/d4.html
Page 61: Homeless awarenessness campaign. Bob Maguire Foundation,
http://www.fatherbobsfoundation.com.au/
Page 62: Posters against child labour.
http://good50x70.org/2009/gallery/child-labour/
Page 65: Zapatista radio station in Mexico. Photo by Oriana Eliçabe.
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/orianomada
Page 71: Illustration of log in tabular format.
Page 75: Global audio campaign by The December 18 Campaign.
http://www.december18.net/)
Page 76: Political message ring-tone. Karla Vanessa Redor.
http://www.rockersworld.com
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8 Glossary.indd 189 27/8/09 19:29:52

Page 77: Podcasts for farmers.
(http://www.solucionespracticas.org.pe/)
Page 91: Screenshot of the blog of Abahali baseMjondolo – a grassroots movement of
shack dwellers in Durban South Africa:
http://abahlali.org
Page 97: Screenshot of the Oro Sucio blog. Oro Sucio follows the topic of mine exploita-
tion and its political and environmental impact in Argentina. http://www.orosucio.
madryn.com/
190
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Message in A Box: Tools and Tactics For Communicating Your Cause

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Message in-a-box gives you everything

you need to make and distribute

bookletmessagereprintcover.indd 2 27/8/09 19:31:49

bookletmessagereprintcover.indd 3 27/8/09 19:31:53

1 PrelimsIntro.indd 1 27/8/09 19:08:25

Tactical Technology Collective is responsible for

For full writing and editing credits please

For updates visit http://messageinabox.tacticaltech.org/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons

Disclaimer: Message in-a-box provides NGOs and

Tactical Tech’s other toolkits include: Security in-a-box,

The development of the toolkit is supported

1 PrelimsIntro.indd 2 27/8/09 19:08:25

1 PrelimsIntro.indd 3 27/8/09 19:08:25

1 PrelimsIntro.indd 4 27/8/09 19:08:25

A strategy for making media 7

Print – on paper & online 25

Images – photos, comics,

Audio – your message in sound 65

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1 PrelimsIntro.indd 6 27/8/09 19:08:25

Video – be seen and heard 119

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1 PrelimsIntro.indd 8 27/8/09 19:08:25

1 PrelimsIntro.indd 1 27/8/09 19:08:25

Tell us what you think

Software and tools

1 PrelimsIntro.indd 2 27/8/09 19:08:25

1 PrelimsIntro.indd 3 27/8/09 19:08:25

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2 Strategy.indd 5 27/8/09 19:10:21

2 Strategy.indd 6 27/8/09 19:10:21

A strategy for making media

2 Strategy.indd 7 27/8/09 19:10:21

A Attract People are flooded with information. Unless your

Designing your strategy for making media

2 Strategy.indd 8 27/8/09 19:10:21

State your goal

Create your proposition statement

Have clear objectives for making media

2 Strategy.indd 9 27/8/09 19:10:21

and multi-faceted. For example, your strategy can include one

Identify your target audience and participant communities

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2 Strategy.indd 11 27/8/09 19:10:22

Craft your message

2 Strategy.indd 12 27/8/09 19:10:22

Creating an effective message

“Basic education helps break the cycle of poverty”

However, when they tested this message on focus group audiences

“Education is every child’s right”

Make a call to action

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Budgeting and funding

2 Strategy.indd 14 27/8/09 19:10:22

Security and privacy

2 Strategy.indd 15 27/8/09 19:10:22

corporations or public officials, are involved in illegal activities. You might

2 Strategy.indd 16 27/8/09 19:10:22

Evaluate outcomes and measure your impact

2 Strategy.indd 17 27/8/09 19:10:22

impact. The measurement of impacts should be ongoing, so you know if

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