1. COMMUNICATIONS & ACTIVISM
How New Media Have Transformed Amnesty International Australia in Facilitating Social Action
A Thesis by Nikolaos Koulousios 20003564, Class 3ES3
APPENDIX 3
Interview with Gary Highland, AIA’s Director of Strategic Communications
19 June 2003
This interview was conducted by both Nikos Koulousios (NK) and Jerney Wermeester (JW)
for the purpose of enriching our thesis research with valuable information from experienced
AIA staff. Due to Mr. Highland’s busy schedule and heavy workload, we decided to do a two-
fold interview instead of two individual ones. The first part has questions on the overall
communication strategy of AIA, while the second part specializes on the Asia Pacific
campaign.
The interview was conducted at Mr. Highland’s office in Amnesty International Australia and
lasted for 50 minutes.
NK: Good morning Mr. Highland and thank you for giving a little of your valuable time to
answer to both our questions.
GH: My pleasure!
NK: I will start this interview with questions on the overall communication strategy of AIA,
and Jerney will move on to questions on the Asia Pacific campaign.
I would like to start by asking you how is the communication strategy formulated and
how is it connected with the directives sent by the International Secretariat?
GH: The international movement sets communication priorities for the Sections, but
sections also have the choice in what they prioritise. For example, the Asia Pacific
campaign that we are currently involved in. There was a meeting last year of AIA
activists who decided that this should be a priority for us, and the board of Amnesty
Australia, the NEC (National Executive Committee) with the elected representatives,
they set the national/local priorities, and the staff, people like myself, they implement
those priorities. So they do have strong reference to the international movement and
the priorities that are set there, but there is also some autonomy for individual
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2. COMMUNICATIONS & ACTIVISM
How New Media Have Transformed Amnesty International Australia in Facilitating Social Action
A Thesis by Nikolaos Koulousios 20003564, Class 3ES3
APPENDIX 3
Sections to decide what they will be doing. And that’s how the AP strategy has come
about.
NK: And what is the timeline of the international priorities and of the national/local
strategies normally?
GH: Traditionally, it was 5-6 years for the international movement, and one year for the
national strategies, but that’s changing this year. Here in Australia we are looking in
having campaigns that extend to 2 years in the future. This year the AP will be our top
priority, and next year we will be continuing the AP as our second priority.
NK: Could you give us an idea of the overall objectives of your communication with the
general public?
GH: My view is that AI’s core business is campaigning on human rights issues, and
communications is a tool that helps it do that more effectively. So what I seek to do is
add value to the work that the campaigners do by helping to take that work to a mass
audience of people. So my personal objective is to have AI seen as the pre-eminent
human rights organisation in Australia, and to ensure that we maximise all that
campaigning by getting the message out to as many people as we can. Secondary
objectives to achieve this will be to activate our membership and attract new
members, to alert governments and influence their policies, and eventually, to give
Amnesty International Australia a visible status of prominence.
NK: You said that you want AI to be the prominent human rights organisation in Australia.
Do you have more competition now with other NGOs that operate on the field of
human rights?
GH: There is more competition now with the proliferation of human rights NGOs, but there
is also more collaboration. It’s important that NGOs collaborate, but it’s also important
for AI’s health that it is also seen as the prominent human rights organisation. So, you
can argue that there is both competition and collaboration. But obviously it all has to
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3. COMMUNICATIONS & ACTIVISM
How New Media Have Transformed Amnesty International Australia in Facilitating Social Action
A Thesis by Nikolaos Koulousios 20003564, Class 3ES3
APPENDIX 3
be aimed at one thing, and that is furthering the cause of human rights. Competition
is not so much in the human rights area, but in Australia, and I suspect in other
countries as well, is a very crowded space that we deal in. There are many issues
around, and there are many organisations and individuals clamoring for attention with
the press and with the government. It is a competitive field in terms of making sure
that the human rights message is the one, or one of those ones that governments,
that the media and that the public takes seriously. Because there are many other
causes, and they are very worthy causes, and many other issues out there. It is our
responsibility to make sure that human rights is at the forefront, and that AIA is at the
forefront of those debates.
NK: You mention before the large audience you want to get your message to. Are there
any specific target audiences of AIA’s communication? Or are there groups of
audiences that AIA is responding to?
GH: There are groups of targeted audiences, [and they depend on] They vary from
campaign to campaign. Have you seen the matrix that we did for the AP campaign?
There are all different audiences, and what we want is, for example, one audience
that we had is the Vietnamese community in Australia. We wanted to make sure that
the work of Amnesty was communicated to a diverse range of people. Traditionally, is
fair to say that AI has been very much a white, middle-class organisation! What we
are trying to do is expand that. We have had very strong links with the Vietnamese
community in Australia. We would like to do similar things with other ethnic
communities in Australia, and other sections of the Australian society.
So, the AP matrix is an attempt to document all these different audiences that we
wanted to reach out to, like businesses, parliamentarians and ministers, community
leaders, ethnic groups, local and national media. And we feel that if we do that we
target our message to all of these people that will build that mass of people that we
wanted to communicate more effectively with!
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4. COMMUNICATIONS & ACTIVISM
How New Media Have Transformed Amnesty International Australia in Facilitating Social Action
A Thesis by Nikolaos Koulousios 20003564, Class 3ES3
APPENDIX 3
NK: My next question is about the internal audience of the AIA membership. Do you have
any evaluations on how the members are responding to campaigns, and how
effective is the communication of the organisation with this internal audience?
GH: That is something that we need to do more effectively, and it’s what we are working
on. Just so you know, I have only worked for Amnesty for two months, but I know that
is something we have got to do more of! We do have a Human Rights Defender
newsletter that goes out to about 30,000 members, and there are feedback
mechanisms there. Members and non-members can read the HRD newsletter on our
web-site and give their feedback on-line. Members can also opt-in to participate in a
campaign, and they can elect to do that also on-line. We also have consultative
processes with various branch presidents, the convenors of specialised networks and
local groups, and the open-to-members NAGMs and BAGMs where we get feedback
from our members. But certainly, internal communication is an area we need to give
priority to in the future.
NK: How does AIA make good use of the new developments in the communications field,
and by that I mean the Internet (Web and email)?
GH: That’s a very interesting area because, on the one hand, governments in many parts
of the world are cracking down on cyber dissidents, but in many parts of the world
people are using the Internet to effectively express their opinions. They are able to
very cheaply, and very quickly get their concerns out to a mass audience. Of course
governments in places like China and Vietnam are cracking down on that! And
persecute those people for expressing their freedoms, their views on the Internet.
Just as importantly though, organisations like Amnesty International use the Internet
to support those people and to work for their freedom. And our current campaign
actually encourages people to use the Internet! It draws people to our web-site, and
has web-actions that they can type very simply and easily. We have launched the
campaign in Internet cafes around Australia and we wanted to ask the people to use
their freedom, use the Internet to assist other people whose freedoms have been
denied for doing just the same thing.
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5. COMMUNICATIONS & ACTIVISM
How New Media Have Transformed Amnesty International Australia in Facilitating Social Action
A Thesis by Nikolaos Koulousios 20003564, Class 3ES3
APPENDIX 3
Yes, we are seeking to use the Internet more and more, and we think that it is a very
important tool for implementing our strategy. It helps even things like cost! Before we
had to mail out our HRD newsletter, now we can email the newsletter out to members
and other supporters, and have people print it out themselves. That saves enormous
cost in our printing and distribution! That is happening now! There is an increasing
number of people who are electing to receive this publication via the Internet and
email, rather that the post. What that means is more money that we can devote to
campaigning, every cent we save from production and distribution of newsletters is
potentially money that we can be putting to our business, which is defending human
rights.
We could go on about the fundamental benefits of the Internet in research, provision
of information, mobilisation of the public and the Urgent Action scheme, interactivity
and so on. So we do see the possibilities, and we are also open to suggestions and
recommendations!
NK: Do you see any threat from the extended use of the Internet?
GH: One thing that I am worried about is…we have to find ways of using the Internet, of
making sure that the Internet is done, is used in ways that is successfully targeted to
audiences. Often, because of the sheer volume that it can generate, I suspect that
many people see stuff sent to them via email as spam, and they don’t actually read
them. I mean, I sent out a letter to all Labour Frontbenchers the other day via the
email, but I’m worried that they probably didn’t take that as seriously as they would
have been if it had arrived by the post!
So, how do you actually benefit from the speed and the cost savings of the Internet,
but also ensure that our communications are targeted and actually influence the
people, the media and the government. The parliamentarians may not be
successfully contacted by email but, let’s say, the activists, or other groups are more
likely to read and action their emails.
I don’t have the answers to that, but I am open to suggestions!
The Internet is an integral part of our communication, and it is gaining momentum by
the day, but it’s not going to be the only thing; it’s one cog in the communications
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6. COMMUNICATIONS & ACTIVISM
How New Media Have Transformed Amnesty International Australia in Facilitating Social Action
A Thesis by Nikolaos Koulousios 20003564, Class 3ES3
APPENDIX 3
wheel along with many other cogs like the traditional media, face-to-face
communications, the post and all sorts of different that we can and should still use.
NK: Thank you very much Mr. Highland, we now have to move quickly to the second part
of the interview! Jerney will you take it from here…?
JW: Thank you Nikos! Good morning Gary, the ‘USE your Freedom’ campaign is different
from other campaigns Amnesty International Australia has done. One of the
differences I heard is that it is pro-active instead of reactive, could you explain that
please?
GH: This campaign starts with the audiences that we’re seeking to influence and not with
ourselves. Sometimes people might have had a list of groups and this is what they
can they and this is what they can do, and that’s internally focused. What we wanted
to do in this respect is start with the external, so here’s a group and who are the best
people within Amnesty International to …those people rather then here’s a group
within Amnesty International, what can we do with them? My understanding is that it
was like that in the past.
In a member-based organization it’s important that you engage your members. We
shouldn’t become so professional that they don’t do anything and that they don’t feel
any ownership of it and then we’ll lose them.
JW: Another difference is that this is an ‘ongoing’ campaign.
GH: It is. Rather than a campaign on a particular theme or country, it’s a campaign on a
region. It tries to communicate to Australians the human rights abuses that happen in
our region to people like us close to home. And it tries to tap into a sense of
commonality that people feel with their neighbours. It also encourages them to think
of the people in our region as their neighbours to a greater extent. Cause traditionally,
most Australians are descendents from European people. And traditionally
Australians have had a greater affinity with Europe on the other side of the world than
they have with their own region, that they have of the Asia Pacific and also of
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7. COMMUNICATIONS & ACTIVISM
How New Media Have Transformed Amnesty International Australia in Facilitating Social Action
A Thesis by Nikolaos Koulousios 20003564, Class 3ES3
APPENDIX 3
indigenous Australia. So what we’re trying to say is: this is our neighbourhood and
these are our neighbours.
JW: And by ‘ongoing’ you mean?
GH: Sorry, I didn’t answer the question. The fact is that this is always going to be our
neighborhood. History changes, geography doesn’t. It’s going to be ‘ongoing’ cause
we’re always going to be in the Asia Pacific region. And I’d love to be able to say that
there won’t be gross human rights violations in the Asia Pacific in the near future,
that’s probably naïve. In the foreseeable future there will always be human rights
issues that we need to attend to in our region and we’re always gonna be part of it so
it’s ongoing in that respect.
JW: So there’s no set date when the USE your Freedom campaign will be finished?
GH: At this stage no. It’s not a historical campaign as such. It’s not as for example the 40th
anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the lead-up to a
particular event. Because it’s geographical rather than historical we anticipate that it
will be ongoing as I say: there will always be in the foreseeable future issues that
require our attention. Australia is always gonna be situated in this region and we need
to engage with that region, perhaps to a greater extent than what we’ve done in the
past.
JW: This campaign is being done in an ‘integrating’ way, could you explain that?
GH: We have three legs of what we do: we have communications, campaigning and
fundraising. We obviously need to raise funds to do our work. Fundraising is simply a
mechanism that gives us resources to campaign. It is important that when we
campaign we do it in an integrating way. For example, we’ve got some mass media
ads, television ads that have been put up recently and they’ve received quite a large
amount of exposure on Channel 9 which is the most popular commercial TV … in
Australia. It’s important that those ads don’t just appeal for money but that they also
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8. COMMUNICATIONS & ACTIVISM
How New Media Have Transformed Amnesty International Australia in Facilitating Social Action
A Thesis by Nikolaos Koulousios 20003564, Class 3ES3
APPENDIX 3
send strong campaigning messages so that if we’re gonna be putting in resources to
buy television space, that we use those resources to also send important messages
about our campaign goals. Integrating means that all of the different areas work
together. For example, if we have a major media event or a particular country, it’s
probably a good time to do that as the ads are running, at the same time the activists
are lobbying on the same issue. So, it’s integrated in that way.
JW: Could you say in only two or three sentences what the consequences of this
campaign strategy are, now it’s one month after the launch?
GH: It’s pretty early in the launch. We’ve already been able to reflect on some of the
successes and failures of the campaign. We’ve successfully engaged with new
communities, in terms with the Vietnamese community. And we’ve had launches in
the every capitol in Australia and we’ve had Vietnamese community representatives
coming to those launches. The Vietnamese community is large in Australia so that’s
been a real success in terms of the outreach. Originally it was decided that we would
have our Asia Pacific launch come the day after the release of our Annual Report. My
personal view is that that was a mistake and that we shouldn’t do that again. The
messages were too mixed, we should have drawn a distinction between that. When
we’re looking at the extent to which our key messages were taken up by the media,
which is an important way to evaluate our media activity, we found that sometimes
those messages were blurred. We wanted to talk about human rights actions on
Vietnam, but many of the journalists wanted to talk about Amnesty International
issues in Australia. So that is something that we need to improve next time. The
educational component has been good in that we’ve raised awareness of an issue
many Australians have not considered before: freedom of expression on the Internet,
human rights in Vietnam, that’s been really positive. But because it’s an educative
campaign, the fundraising goals haven’t been met to the extent we would have liked
because we’re not tapping into an issue that the community feels particularly strongly
about. We wanted them to feel strongly about that but for them to actually make a
donation or to take action on something it has to be something they feel very strongly
about. If you compare it, we’ve had the case of Amina Lawal, a Nigerian woman who
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9. COMMUNICATIONS & ACTIVISM
How New Media Have Transformed Amnesty International Australia in Facilitating Social Action
A Thesis by Nikolaos Koulousios 20003564, Class 3ES3
APPENDIX 3
is under sentence of death by stoning for having a child out of wedlock. In the public
eye that’s been of far greater interest for the general public than our campaign has
been. And although we’ve got Amina Lawal material on our website, we’ve done
interviews on Amina Lawal but it hasn’t been an issue that we’ve strongly pushed, but
that’s captured the imagination to a far greater extent than our campaign has been.
Our campaign is so early, we’re seeking to change views and we’re seeking to
educate people. You learn in politics that you can’t really educate people for a
election campaign, you’ve got to tap into common ground that you already have with
those people and that perhaps hasn’t happen in this campaign so that’s another
learning. Maybe if we decide that it’s worthwhile running an educating campaign in
the future but we need to understand that it’s probably not gonna give us the
fundraising returns that a more popular campaign will give so we have to weigh those
things up and balance them out, we haven’t made a decision on that yet.
JW: Thank you Gary.
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10. COMMUNICATIONS & ACTIVISM
How New Media Have Transformed Amnesty International Australia in Facilitating Social Action
A Thesis by Nikolaos Koulousios 20003564, Class 3ES3
APPENDIX 3
is under sentence of death by stoning for having a child out of wedlock. In the public
eye that’s been of far greater interest for the general public than our campaign has
been. And although we’ve got Amina Lawal material on our website, we’ve done
interviews on Amina Lawal but it hasn’t been an issue that we’ve strongly pushed, but
that’s captured the imagination to a far greater extent than our campaign has been.
Our campaign is so early, we’re seeking to change views and we’re seeking to
educate people. You learn in politics that you can’t really educate people for a
election campaign, you’ve got to tap into common ground that you already have with
those people and that perhaps hasn’t happen in this campaign so that’s another
learning. Maybe if we decide that it’s worthwhile running an educating campaign in
the future but we need to understand that it’s probably not gonna give us the
fundraising returns that a more popular campaign will give so we have to weigh those
things up and balance them out, we haven’t made a decision on that yet.
JW: Thank you Gary.
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