Seizing the Media Moment

OECD 20 - 21 November 2019  

‌The 2019 DevCom Annual Meeting - Seizing the Media Moment - brought together 80 participants from a mix of stakeholder groups to discuss the new activists that have put “our” issues on the front pages. We also explored the latest trends in how people consume the media.

 

 Meeting Documents

• ‌Key Messages and Takeaways

• Final Agenda
  

• ‌List of Participants 

• Background Reading 

 

SESSION I: UNDERSTANDING THE NEW CIVIC ACTIVISTS

Climate protests, #metoo, yellow vests. Citizens want change from governments and businesses. Online and on the streets, they have found new ways to organise. They are voting and consuming differently.

• Who are the civic activists putting “our” issues on the front pages?
• How can we link with them to engage even more citizens for sustainable development?

SESSION II: NAVIGATING THE NEW MEDIA LANDSCAPE

Our traditional media partners are under financial and political pressure. Many citizens have turned elsewhere for their information and, amid all the “fake news”, facts about sustainable development are hard to get across.

• Where do people go for trusted news? How do citizens engage with science and facts?
• How can we partner with and support journalists in telling the sustainable development story?

  

AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS: CO- CREATING A TOOL KIT FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATORS

In 2020, DevCom will launch a new Toolkit with advice and ideas from across the DevCom community. In these afternoon workshops, we focused on four key areas: setting goals; defining audiences; framing messages and choosing formats. The workshop began with a presentation by the Agence française de developpement (AFD).

 

Setting Goals	Defining Audiences
Communicators have many potential goals: raising awareness; building trust; promoting action… What can we realistically aim to achieve with our strategies & campaigns? How should we measure our impact? How can we demonstrate the value of communications to decision makers?	Our audiences have countless identities: sustainable shoppers; festival-goers; Instagram followers… Along what lines should we define & segment our audiences? What sources of data can help us define (& find) our audiences? What do our target audiences need from us?
Framing Messages	Choosing Formats
New principles can guide how we frame our messages and whom we choose as messengers. What are the do’s & don’ts in framing messages? Who makes a successful SDG influencer?	Online and off, we need innovative ways to package & visualise our messages: videos; games; dataviz… Which digital formats can help achieve our goals? How to you combine data with good stories? What are the coolest offline materials of 2019?