The purpose of this section is to extrapolate and organise evidence from the data by ranking and merging the themes in order to generate tentative assertions that contribute in conducting the cross case analysis (Stake, 2006). Considering that my position as a practitioner in the field of research influenced the design of my
138 methodology, and how I engaged with the data, I start by mentioning an advantage my experience contributed in analysing the data. My tacit knowledge in the field of study enabled me to detect important distinctions and nuances in the context and frames campaigners in the two cases used for interaction on their social media environment. Although the nature of the interaction observed on their Facebook appeared similar in many ways, INGO case communication in social media was analysed as occurring in the absence of a shared identity and with no evidence of a common frame of reference. This consideration was important in understanding how INGO case used ICT and the social media as a platform for interaction and communication.
The representations of global poverty in INGO case campaigning was considered as pertinent knowledge for informing and mobilising their campaigners to take actions towards accomplishing campaign objectives defined by the organisation. The interviews revealed that the policy and research teams within the organisation framed the informational content of INGO case campaigning, and that campaigners were only involved at the stage of taking action on the issue. The top-down approach in INGO case campaigning implied that campaigners were presented with knowledge about global poverty framed around natural causes that converged with their agendas in humanitarian appeals (Dogra, 2012:84). This practice has implications for how campaigners can be involved in the process of framing and multiplying the knowledge on the campaign issue, and in negotiating meanings as stakeholders that apply knowledge to accomplish a set objective (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).
The responses from participants in INGO case showed the different senses in which the term ‘campaigning’ was used to include public awareness raising and public
appeals for donation. Accomplishing the campaign objective was also interpreted as
attaining a prescribed target of online petitions. These different understandings of campaigning implied different modes of communication and different frames for engaging, as well as different forms of mobilising public action that lend themselves to shallow and ambivalent responses (Lakoff, 2010). Although INGO case recognised the difference between campaigning that aimed at public awareness, and public appeals to solicit public donations, this understanding was not reflected in the frames they used in communicating their campaign message. For example, there was no distinction in how issues were framed and communicated in organisational campaigns aimed at public awareness such as the CAFOD ‘Hunger for Change’, and the public appeals for donations to the Syrian humanitarian crisis. Their campaign messages were clustered around heightening awareness of the campaign action, and therefore, the purpose and value of public deliberation in awareness campaign is lost.
139 The use of broad organisational campaign themes such as ‘Hunger for Change’ in framing INGO case campaign messages meant that the process of constructing knowledge was confined within the organisation to ensure that it reflected their wider humanitarian agendas. INGO case also conceived of advocacy as an activity undertaken by experts within the institution and therefore focused more on how they communicated with policy makers. There was also a dichotomy between “advocacy” as an endeavour undertaken by knowledgeable and skilled professionals, and “campaigning” as an activity that required a basic awareness necessary to take a simple action. This influenced the way INGO case engaged campaigners as a constituency of actors whose role was limited to taking action, rather than as catalysts that can multiply knowledge on the campaign issue. Considering that organisational campaigns were also designed around influencing policy makers, the campaign was developed around institutional advocacy in which the communication was directed at the state and its policy structures rather than to provoke public deliberation (Lang, 2013).
INGO case were not individual membership organisations, and their campaigners comprised an amorphous network of loosely connected action takers that can be mobilised to take prescribed actions to bring the issue to the attention of policy makers. Campaigners were communicated through a network held together by ICT, and mobilised to act on predetermined issues identified and initiated by the organisations. INGO case campaigners could therefore be described as co-opted issue publics that are invited to partake in campaign events, through the use of the organisation’s mailing-list and social media platforms. However, INGO case recognised the need for a more strategic way of reaching out to their network of campaigners. The support groups and teams were mentored to promote the values and activities of the organisations at community and regional levels. The amorphous nature of campaigners in INGO case meant that there was minimal interaction and cohesion among their campaigners and this had implications for “developing a shared frame of reference to engage purposefully” (Ollis, 2008:45).
Considering that the campaigners were involved only at the point of sharing the messages and persuading the public to take prescribed actions, it can be assumed within the discourse of organisational knowledge theory (Nonaka & Takeuchi,1995;Collins, 2010), that there exists a gap in the knowledge creation process that will have implications for how campaigners internalise knowledge to accomplish set objectives. The IF campaign revealed possibilities that ICT provided for both membership and non-membership organisations in maintaining a network of campaigners (www.enoughfoodif.org). Such networks enabled them to extend their
140 reach, and served as a medium for communicating the campaign message in an era of the decline in face-to-face interaction (Darnton & Kirk, 2011). The Internet, and in particular Facebook social media served as virtual venues for interacting with the organisation and for multiplying frames disseminated in campaign messages.
Another point that emerged in INGO case was the types of action the organisations prescribed and promoted in their campaigning about global poverty, and how they interpreted an accomplished or a ‘successful campaign’. Accomplishing the desired campaign goal in INGO case emphasised attaining target number of individual actions and little attention was given to the wider objective of the action. Evidence obtained from online campaign document reviews on Oxfam, CAFOD and Trócaire as well as visual methods on their Facebook link to the IF campaign indicated that the types of action that was promoted in organisational campaigns such as Land Grabs (Oxfam),
Hunger for Change(CAFOD) and Climate Change (Trócaire) encouraged individual
action with little attention to generating group identity necessary for purposeful collective action.